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Ryan Reynolds returns for numerous clichéd superhero scenes in Deadpool2

Deadpool 2 (15)

Pitched as the antidote to the glut of family friendly superhero films that dominate cinemas, Deadpool’s jokey, ultra-violent evisceration of every comic book movie convention clicked with audiences who seemed to get a kick out of seeing Ryan Reynolds destroying the fourth wall the way the Avengers destroy cities. Never mind that the lesser-seen

Kick-ass had already performed this function for superheroes in the modern age, or that the recent

Jump Street movies had pushed selfaware genre satire to its glorious endpoint. The film’s unexpected success showed just how effectively a big studio could monetise genre subversion now that general audiences were fully conversant in the cinematic language of superheroes. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t also entertaining. It just wasn’t as transgressive as its inbuilt, self-referential marketing campaign would have you believe. The same might be said for

Deadpool 2. The inevitable sequel draws attention to its own inevitability right from the off and the pop culture gags come thick and fast. After swiftly establishing, commenting upon and making fun of the most cliché-ridden plot-motivation imaginable for an antihero in love, the bulk of

Deadpool 2 focuses on Deadpool putting together his own team of reprobate superheroes to help him save a rage-filled mutant teenager

(Hunt for the Wilderpeople’s

Julian Dennison) from a futuristic super-soldier (Josh Brolin) on a

Terminator-style mission to kill

him.

The Avengers/justice League/ Suicide Squad-mocking team-up results in the film’s most inspired set-piece, but its hilarity is also sullied by the realisation that this is also Deadpool’s own insidious way of setting up another teambased superhero spin-off franchise.

Deadpool 2 may be funnier, filthier and certainly better directed in the action stakes than its predecessor (thanks to John Wick director David Leitch), but in gleefully sacrificing sacred cows, it proves reluctant to touch any labelled “cash”.

Filmworker (15)

The cult of Stanley Kubrick is taken to a new extreme in director Tony Zierra’s fascinating documentary portrait of Leon Vitali, a classically trained British actor who gave up a promising career in front of the camera to serve at the feet of the master. Having fallen in love with Kubrick’s work after seeing 2001, Vitali scored a major role in Barry

Lyndon and became so enamoured with Kubrick on set he dedicated himself to working behind the scenes — from helping cast child actor Danny Lloyd in The Shining to more mundane tasks, such as creating a feline surveillance system so the director could keep track of his pets.

As the previous sentence suggests, the film simultaneously dispels and reinforces various myths about the director and offers some incredible insights into the making of several Kubrick classics. Yet none of this detracts from how fascinating a figure Vitali himself is, or how vital he‘s been in the preservation of Kubrick’s legacy.

A Cambodian Spring (15)

Director Chris Kelly spent six years following local activists protesting the impact of developers on the residents of the Phnom Pen-suburb of Boeung Kak for this searing documentary. Facing forcible eviction from their homes, they’re pitted against not just a faceless corporation in cahoots with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s dissent-blocking government, but against each other as the ongoing, years-long struggle takes its toll personally on the women (ordinary wives and mothers) who emerge as its leaders.

The results are eye-opening and upsetting, putting paid to any notion that the country’s rapid transition to a free-market economy has enabled it to move on from the tragic, still-raw history of Pol Pot without creating a whole new set of bleak scenarios in the dubious name of progress. ■