’POOL 2 MAKES A SPLASH
Comics’ raunchiest hero still super
WHAT to say about “Deadpool 2” that won’t step on the self-referential jokes that make up most of its running time? Very little, and I would never do that, even if I hadn’t been expressly warned not to do so in a jokey prescreening PSA from star Ryan Reynolds. In the most carefully vague of terms, I can report that the sequel to Reynolds’ raunchy, violent 2016 actioncomedy succeeds at being bigger and funnier, if lacking the novelty of the original’s gleeful irreverence. It’s also got a terrific blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.
Last time, we got the origin story of Wade Wilson, a sardonic mercenary-turned-superpowered mutant. Freed from the gritty process of retracing Deadpool’s literally tortured past, this film doubles down on its best asset — R-rated humor — while giving its leading man a bit more heart (a claim to which his character would no doubt object). The plot follows our ’80s-ballad-loving protagonist on a mission to save a young mutant, 14year-old Russell (Julian Dennison) from a time-traveling killer named Cable (Josh Brolin).
You may notice something familiar about Cable, and that’s because Brolin also plays the supervillain Thanos in Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” still in theaters.
Returning are Morena Baccarin, as Wade’s unflappable partner, and Karan Soni, as his loyal, cab-driving sidekick. Kiwi actor Dennison is great as an angry, fire-powered mutant on the warpath, and he handily swaps off-color banter with Reynolds as the two are carted off at one point to a calamitous mutant prison. Also reprising roles from the original are two X-Men, Colossus (a CGI creation voiced by Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), now joined by others in an X-Men offshoot team called X-Force (the unoriginality of which doesn’t escape the writers’ poison pens).
The scribes — Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and now Reynolds himself — have an especially good time with Deadpool’s recruitment effort: Some newcomers, like Bedlam (Terry Crews), Domino (Zazie Beetz), Zeitgeist (Bill Skarsgård) and a blank space called The Vanisher, exist in Marvel Comics lore. Then, delightfully, there’s a random nonsuper powered guy named Peter to join in the mayhem (“Catastrophe” comic Rob Delaney).
“John Wick” and “Atomic Blonde” director David Leitch, taking over for the original’s Tim Miller, brings competent polish to big set pieces, although none quite measures up to the “Angel of the Morning”-scored opening scene of the first film. If you’ve got comics-movie fatigue — with fourth-wall breaks to point out lazy writing, blatant foreshadowing or heavy reliance on CGI for fight scenes — “Deadpool 2” is here for you. That doesn’t mean those things aren’t there (they are) — but the eagerness of “Deadpool” to call out its own shortcomings earns this trashtalking franchise a lot of goodwill.