‘Deadpool 2’ offers more sarcasm, violence and mostly good times
In the opening moments of “Deadpool 2,” Air Supply’s “All Out of Love” plays in the background.
Sprawled out on his back, Ryan Reynolds’ foulmouthed, masked antihero, Deadpool, has a bone to pick.
Down in the dumps for reasons that will become clear a bit later, he is complaining about how, in last year’s well-received “Logan,” Hugh Jackman’s beloved X-Men hero, Wolverine, copied him by earning an R rating for that film.
After all, when “Deadpool” hit in 2016 — with action aplenty, sexually charged insult comedy galore and constant fourth-wall breaking — the loosely X-Men-universe film had the biggest opening ever for an R-rated flick.
However, Deadpool also laments that in “Logan” the metal-clawed, fasthealing hero also (and, um, spoiler alert) “upped the ante” by dying.
“(Expletive) Wolverine,” Deadpool says as he plays with a Wolverine toy.
Not to be outdone, Deadpool — who has similar mutant healing abilities — ignites big drums of fuel on which has been lying.
Yeah. Boom.
That’s only the start of the explosive fun in “Deadpool 2,” which, despite a change in the director’s chair from the first film, offers roughly the same entertaining, if also sometimes numbing, concoction of crass-but-clever wink-at-the-audience humor and highly stylized violence. (Although he initially signed on to helm the sequel, director Tim Miller soon exited the project, reportedly due to creative differences with Reynolds.)
If anything, with David Leitch — co-director of 2014’s “John Wick” and director of last year’s likewise high-octane “Atomic Blonde” — guiding this irreverent ship, the action component has been taken up a notch.
Leitch reminds us of his action chops after the explosion, as the narrating Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson, takes us back a few weeks, to his “Merc With the Mouth” dusting bad guys in places such as Sicily, Tokyo and Biloxi. (This, by the way, is all presented in a montage set to Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.”)
Back home in the apartment he shares with his fiance, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin of “Gotham”), she and Wade talk of starting a family. However, domestic bliss is quickly interrupted as an enemy has brought the fight to him.
That event sets into motion the film’s story, which sees Deadpool becoming invested in protecting a powerful mutant boy, Russell (Julian Dennison), who can generate and wield fire.
Russell wants to be called Firefist, a name Deadpool makes clear he thinks is very stupid, and, as a person walking around with a few extra pounds, carries some frustrations about how you never see overweight superheroes.
“The industry discriminates!” he insists.
From whom does this not-so-pleasant young gent need protecting? That would be Cable (Josh Brolin), a powerful, part-mechanical soldier who has traveled back from the future to kill him.
Unable to reason with Cable, who has his reasons for wanting Russell dead, Deadpool decides to try to stop him.
Along the way, Deadpool works at becoming more of a team player. Sure, he’s still buddies with bar owner Weasel (T.J. Miller) and cab driver Dopinder (Karan Soni) — who, by the way, has developed a bit of blood lust that seems to disturb even Wade — but he finally gives it a shot as an X-Man (well, an X-Man trainee, as he’s reminded repeatedly).
Also returning from the first movie are his uneasy X-Men allies Colossus (the digitally generated metal dude again voiced by Andre Tricoteux) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), who, Deadpool is surprised to see, now has a girlfriend (Shioli Kutsuna). NTW clearly is offended by the reaction Deadpool gives at this news and accuses him of having a problem with lesbians.
“Pump the hate brake, ‘Fox & Friends,’” he retorts, explaining he merely was surprised another girl would want her.
When life as an X-Man doesn’t quite mesh, Deadpool goes about forming X-Force — a name he admits is derivative — with a bunch of nobodies including a powerless character portrayed by come-