Movie Review: Deadpool 2

Pump the hate brakes Thanos!

We watched the trailers. We watched the ads and the promo clips. We watched Celine Dione’s song in eager anticipation of what promised to be a sequel that trumps the original in terms of the laughs, chills, and OMG moments. Well… If you did expect all that, prepare to be disappointed. It’s not all that great!

While the first film gave us our money’s worth in entertainment value, in dry humor, black comedy, action, and a decent enough CGI sleaze fest, the sequel takes a step back. It would seem for all the fun the film pokes at the studio, the sequel, highly banking on the buzz that surrounded it, fails to deliver. The fun poked at Superhero films and formulaic writing and direction in the first was what made it stand out in the slew while the sequel takes a whole lot of the ‘formula’ and spits it out at the audience. Especially in the first half of the film which keeps audiences in their seats only for the odd quip that so painstakingly stands out as the saving grace of the film.

The second half picks up with rapid pace reminiscing the motormouth anti-hero we got in the first film taking us through a fun ride we had waited 2 years and a horrible first half for. The film has multiple story arcs; some good, some unnecessary, and a sorry motivation driven by loss that blatantly copies from so many before it, even being painfully similar to that in The Wolverine unnecessarily slowing the film down. The lead and supporting cast deliver with excellent performances, supported by a few surprise cameos, and the dialogue is spot on only to lead to another dramatic rhetoric finish that drags on for a little longer than one would like.

Maybe I am being a little too critical here. It is a perfectly fine movie with the delivery on entertainment value much higher than other movies that come out. The shadow cast by the precursor and the precedent set for the sequel weighs it down a bit. Maybe expects too much.

Although the post credit scenes are absent, (which by the way, the whole theatre was waiting for) the film more than makes up for it with the absolutely brilliant midcredits sequences that see signs of the Merc with the Mouth become the Universe jumping Maniac we know and remember from the comics. We might not like the film all that much, but the mid credits, easily the best sequence in the whole film has everyone clutching to their sides as they leave the theatre with wide smiles on their faces!