SECOND SCREEN
It’s barely three weeks since Avengers: Infinity War was released, yet already the next Marvel superhero film is upon us, albeit in the form of the sardonic, superself-aware, yes, even smug
Deadpool 2 (15) the second film in a relentlessly wisecracking series that is meant to be funnier, sexier and more violent than more mainstream Marvel franchises.
Which presumably is why its predecessor took almost $800 million at the global box office and why this has arrived with almost indecent haste.
I’m a big Ryan Reynolds fan but I wasn’t bowled over by the first film and I like this one even less, despite his motor-mouthed, Tony Stark-style performance in the title role as the pizzafaced superhero who just can’t be killed but does enjoy slaying others.
True, I loved the idea behind Domino (Zazie Beetz), whose so-called superpower is good luck, but I got confused and then bored by a story that ties this franchise ever closer to the X-Men. That said, I’m sure its target audience will love it. Jeune Femme (15) is a demanding French film about a vulnerable and highly strung young woman, Paula (Laetitia Dosch), whose Paris-based life threatens to unravel after the break-up of a decadelong relationship with an older man. She has nowhere to live, no money and no job. The prickly Paula, who tells lies more readily than she tells the truth, is not an easy woman to like.
But if you’re in the market for this sort of challenging, subtitled thing, it’s worth sticking with, as Dosch is excellent and, surprisingly, we end up somewhere modestly life-affirming and upbeat.