Deadpool 2 Review: Your Friend With Benefits Who Does That Thing You Like

If we’re going to be completely honest, the question of “is Deadpool 2 as good as the first one was” is an unfair comparison. When Ryan Reynolds first took to the screen back in early 2016, it was expected to be fun and irreverent and fourth-wall-breaking, but what we got was such a fresh take on the superhero genre that it caused Warner Bros. to drag Suicide Squad back under the knife kicking and screaming just so they could try to play catch-up. It was clever and original in more ways than we knew at the time. Now that we’ve seen the smack-talking assassin in action, there’s not the same surprise when we see the funny credits in the opening, or the gut-laugh response to the level to which they take the language.

That said, it’s a fine sequel to the original and continues on in the same tradition.

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This time around Deadpool finds himself being chased first by mobsters who are annoyed by his continually attacking and assassinating their bosses, and then taking up with Colossus and Teenage Negasonic Warhead (respectively played by returning actors Stefan Kapicic and Brianna Hildebrand) to become an X-Men trainee. On their first mission out, Deadpool winds up unable to follow orders (no great shock there), and being thrown in a Mutants prison. Cable (played by Thanos Josh Brolin) shows up intent on putting yet more holes in Deadpool.

There’s an escape, and DP pulls together a new super-duper-team called “The X-Force” to put down bad guys without all the pesky X-Men rules about “don’t kill people”, and “try to negotiate before fighting”.

Overall it’s a fun ride, though while the first film was generally accessible to non-Marvel comic readers, this time around there are so many in-jokes and references that it may prove to be a bit too niche for a wider audience. Negasonic is still criminally underused as a character, largely so that Domino (played by Atlanta’s Zazie Beetz) can get a center-front seat. Domino with her probability-altering field around her is a smart addition (and makes sense given her association with X-Force and Deadpool in the comics), but her powers only serves to make me want a Longshot/Mojo film all the more.

Deadpool 2 will likely be less of a repeat-viewing movie than the first one, but it’ll still have a huge box office take over the first few weekends.

Deadpool 2 has two mid-credits scenes, and nothing at the very end.

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