It is, I'm afraid, impossible to review
this one properly without resorting to SPOILERS. Proceed at your own
risk, because the SPOILERS start immediately, and they might spoil
things. They're spoilery like that.
Did they really have to fridge Vanessa?
Don't get me wrong, the scene and the
aftermath are played well – even tastefully, which is really
something, considering that this is Deadpool we're talking about.
Vanessa isn't hunted down and horribly murdered by a vicious villain
who wants to use her to cause Deadpool pain; she's just an
unfortunate bit of collateral damage in the violent lifestyle he's
developed. I also get that the writers were trying to find a way to
make Deadpool suffer, given that he's essentially immortal, can heal
from any wound and seemingly shrugs off pain, but then, they also
showed you can just fit him with a power-dampening collar and he'll
suffer plenty. Was it really necessary to kill off one of the
strongest and best presented characters in the first film just to
provide some angst for the hero?
OK, it's not like it sends Deadpool on
a movie-length vengeance quest. He gets that out of his system early
on, before moving the blame (quite rightly, in many respects) onto
himself, and then finally turning his pity on its head and using
Vanessa's death to motivate himself to do better. Vanessa remains a
character throughout the film, imparting spiritual titbits to Wade
from the other side, before eventually (predictably, but
satisfyingly) being rescued from her fate using time travel. So she's
OK, and Wade's OK, but is there any indication that he's really
learnt anything from losing his one true love to the violent life he
has courted? No, of course not. He'll be back and just as violent in "X-Force" or "Deadpool Trinity" in a few years time. So what, really, was
the point?
So, with that off my chest... yes, this
was a pretty great movie. Not as good as the first one, in my humble,
but there we go, sequels often aren't. It's inarguably bigger than
the first – cruder, more violent, more OTT – but this is Deadpool
here. The first film was not an argument for a scaled back, reserved
sequel. The only thing they could really do is kick it into an even
higher gear and see how far they could go with it. On that basis,
then, yeah, this totally works. This is even more Deadpool than
Deadpool.
So, we've gotten out the way the main
bit that I didn't like. What worked? Ryan Reynolds still shines in
the part he was born to play. I mean, we talk about Hugh Jackman as
Logan being a hard act to follow, but even after two movies and most
of it spent in a full-length body stocking, can you imagine anyone
but Reynolds playing Wade Wilson? Running character gags work well,
with Dupinder (Karan Soni) being a standout yet again, but TJ Miller
as Weasel, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al and Brianna Hildebrand as the
legendary Negasonic Teenage Warhead all threaten to steal scenes at
various moments. Stefan Kapičić is still absolutely spot-on as
giant metallic Boy Scout Colossus, and deservedly gets a much more
vital part in the story this time.
It's the new faces that make the
biggest impressions, though. Zazie Beets, who plays Domino, might be
the greatest addition to the ever-expanding X-Men universe in years.
A brilliant actress with real likeability and presence, she brings a
resilient positivity to a movie which could otherwise, for all its
humour, get mired in misery. (That she's also spectacularly gorgeous
doesn't hurt either. And to think, there were fanboys getting their
dicks in a twist because they'd made Domino mixed race. Yeah, because
white-on-black is so vitally different to black-on-white.) The big
deal is Cable, played to perfection by Josh Brolin, who might just
have become Hollywood's go-to guy for big, scary hardasses in
comicbook movies. Just as with Thanos, he makes what could be a
one-dimensional villain into a sympathetic, complex character.
Wisely, both of these characters have
been hugely simplified. Domino has a fairly complicated story behind
her, but here she's simply a mutant with the power to be lucky,
something which could potentially be very difficult to sell in a film
but is used with real creativity and visual flair. Cable has one of
the most convoluted backstories in the whole Marvel universe, which
is really saying something, but here he's simplified to being a big
guy from a shitty future who's come back to try to change things for
the better. (I don't know if Cyclops is his father in this version,
but there's no reason he couldn't be; however, Hope is clearly his
daughter, so that might set up something interesting for the future.)
But god, it's Julian Dennison's film.
The character of Firefist was reportedly written for him, and you can
see why. He's an astonishingly precocious, naturalistic actor who
grounds the utter insanity and carnage that's going on around him,
even when his character is the one perpetrating it. The writers play
a clever trick by making his character a protagonist, a victim who
needs to be rescued, and ultimately the villain. Having young
Russel lose his way to become the ultimate threat in Cable's future
is an ingenious use of the victim/hero/monster triptych the mutant
characters represent. The only similar device I can think of offhand
is Looper, and there it came so far out of left field that it lacked
the impact that it makes here. It wouldn't work anywhere near as well
if Dennison wasn't such a believable and likeable presence. The fact
that his character is pretty much right for the bulk of the storyline
doesn't hurt either; it's where he's destined to go after his
entirely understandable vengeance that needs to be stopped.
So, that brings us round to X-Force...
which is a perfectly servicable joke for the time it lasts, before
being reduced down to just Deadpool and Domino, and then rejigged to
involve the established side-characters. It certainly provides two
very funny sequences, one for the audition of the characters and the
other to unceremoniously killing them all off, but what really was
the point of hiring someone like Terry Crews, introducing his
character's powers, then just killing him after about a minute of
screentime? At least the time travel element means some of them could
come back for the actual X-Force movie (which is going to clearly
revolve around Cable anyway). At least Peter (Rob Delaney) is
genuinely funny and deserves all the attention he got in the trailers
and mock-posters. Negasonic's girlfriend Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna) makes
more of an impact than all the X-Force bunch save Domino, even though
she's a very peripheral character. It's great to see a gay couple in
the film without either hand-wringing or right-on self-applause.
Deadpool's long been a queer-positive superhero and it's great to see
this movie celebrate that, right down to Deadpool himself finally
showing hints at his pansexual nature now that Vanessa isn't there to
completely dominate his attention. It's pretty funny what happens to
Shatterstar, though. After all the LGBTQ sites trumpeting how amazing
it was to have a bisexual/asexual/omnisexual superhero (delete
according to interpretation and universe of origin), he lasts about
thirty seconds onscreen and we see none of this whatsoever.
The villainous side of things isn't as
clear cut as in the first film, with both Cable and Firefist
inhabiting that part of the narrative for parts of the duration
before both coming good. Juggernaut is back, unexpectedly (I kind of
guessed it had to be either him or the Blob in the prison basement),
and works much better as a CGI monster than as a laughable attempt to
give Vinnie Jones a supervillain role. The real villain, though, is
the abusive head of the mutant orphanage who so damages the young
Firefist, portrayed with utter loathsomeness by the brilliant, and
still underrated, Eddie Marsan.
It's ludicrously over-the-top, of
course, but this near-mindless violence, gross-out visual gags and
outrageous one-liners are ultimately a very satisfying way to spend
two hours, even if it doesn't quite hit the beats as deftly as the
first film. Throw in some blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos, some
absolutely hilarious song choices and a couple of actors who are
clearly destined to be huge stars, and you've got a movie that's
still in the top half of the X-Men franchise.
If you're interested, it goes:
- X-2
- Logan
- Deadpool
- Days of Future Past
- Deadpool 2
- X-Men
- First Class
- Apocalypse
- The Wolverine
- The Last Stand
- Origins: Wolverine
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