'Deadpool 2' - Movie Review

So, more Deadpool. Still 18+ in Canada, and bloodier, nastier, and more offensive than the last one. Here's the thing about offensive humour: the more in-your-face it is, the funnier it has to be to offset it. And this one, while still funny, isn't as funny as the last one. It's in-your-face alright, and it has some good jokes, but here they're relying on the same kind of jokes that worked so well the first time because of shock value - and shock value doesn't work twice.

Ryan Reynolds was always incredibly vocal about how Deadpool was horribly mangled in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" - he wasn't wrong, and in fact references it again at the end of this movie. But that makes it somewhat ironic when Deadpool gushes over Juggernaut being one of his favourite characters (he names comic book issues) ... and the movie completely wastes Juggernaut. Reynolds and director David Leitch both love Juggernaut and thought this use of the character was incredibly cool. In fact, it makes Vinnie Jones' performance in the much reviled "X-Men: The Last Stand" look like a thespian masterpiece.

Another problem: around the fifth time in this movie that we see Ryan Reynolds hamburger, the jokes about his injuries and regeneration are getting old. And if you're no longer laughing you begin to realize that you're looking at a mutilated talking corpse and it's kind of gross. Remember what I said about offensive humour? If you fail to make the audience laugh, then you're in their face with something offensive and grotesque and they'll notice because they're not laughing.

Josh Brolin's super-serious Cable is used as a straight-man to Deadpool's motor mouth, but the real stand-out in the movie was Zazie Beetz as Domino. Her superpower is that she's lucky. Deadpool doesn't agree that this is a superpower but you will, and quickly. And she's just really appealing and funny in the role.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to discuss a major (if stupid) plot point. If you don't want to read about it, go away. One of the first things they do is re-establish Wade's love for Vanessa. Then they kill off Vanessa, so her death is the motivating factor for much of what happens in the movie (including his willingness to die and suicidal tendencies). And I thought "no, that's not right. She's too important to him." Then Cable showed up with his time-jumping device and I thought "oh, that's how she comes back." The really depressing part is that I was right. And this deepens the hole they've dug for themselves in "Avengers: Infinity War" in which they killed off dozens of major stars and it was so fucking tragic ... but you know they're all coming back, so it had no dramatic weight at all. Which leaves me with the sour feeling that I can never trust a death in a Marvel production again. Deadpool is Deadpool and you're not meant to take it too seriously, but they were trying to give dramatic weight with her death (they didn't play it for humour) - but instead I spent the movie thinking "when's she going to come back?"