Deadpool 2 review: pulls out all of the stops… loud, proud with stunning gore!

The hilarious and ridiculous is at it again. The real question though, who didn’t see that coming? With the amount of love and care Ryan Reynolds put into the first Deadpool no one should have doubted his dedication to the sequel. Mr Reynolds was superb in the first film but here he surpasses himself, elevating glibness to a new artform that renders our hero’s mouth a lethal weapon against enemies and comrades alike.

So, as usual there will be spoilers ahead!  FAIR WARNING!

From the first credits, the entire beginning is insane! Seeing Deadpool hack and slash across the globe after bad guys, is a damn treat. Our story picks up a bit after we left off.  Wade and Vanessa, are in a new apartment and happy as can be, they’re planning on making a baby.

Of course, to quote Deadpool himself “Life is like an endless series of train wrecks with only brief, commercial like, breaks of happiness” the happiness can only last so long.

When the bad guys shot Vanessa. Culturedemandsgeeks did NOT see that coming at all.  There was so much intensity in that moment, we couldn’t believe that they actually killed her (but she does make fleeting appearances, and a heart-warming last minute scene stealer, throughout the film).

Thankfully they broke it up with an incredible and funny opening credit scene. If you’re reading this and haven’t watched it (first, shame on you for not taking my spoiler warning seriously!) And in Deadpool fashion, his solution to his grief is to kill every single person that had a hand in killing Vanessa, (including himself).

Therefore, he blew himself up!

Reaching a love, even in the afterlife is hard, so what does Deadpool do?

Start his own X-Men (well, X-Force), literally!

Wade joins forces with X-Men second-stringers Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and girlfriend to intervene when a teenaged boy with mutant powers rebels against the orphanage where he’s been held and abused, thus setting himself on a path as a potential killer in the making.

Colossus is so funny, he tries so hard to make Deadpool a good guy, but can’t. He fails.  There’s an amazing joke about not having any other X-Men in the movie, to which they show the entire new X-Men team in a room and Deadpool doesn’t notice!

They start training him as one of their own and end up going to another “Home for Gifted Children”. Young Kiwi actor, Julian Dennison, best known for Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), Shopping (2013). The kids peeks in his first Hollywood blockbuster, and he takes the mantle to the hilt, delivering a strong, and funny performance (expect big things from the young Kiwi in the future) and unlike Russell Crowe, he proud of where he’s born!

This one is a little different, however, because they abuse the children.  The abuse created a monster by the name of “Firefist”, which of course Deadpool can’t get enough off.

After realizing that Russel and the other children have been suffering horrific abuse at the hands of the centre’s bigoted headmaster (Eddie Marsan) and staff, Deadpool promptly attempts to dispatch the offenders with deadly force. Colossus intervenes however and both Deadpool and Russel are sent to a high security mutant prison.

This Firefist kid, or Russell, really wants a friend and tries to make Deadpool his friend.  Of course, he had absolutely no desire to be that guy.

So, instead Russell decides to pretend the biggest guy in the place is his best friend, but we’ll get to that later.

BOOM here comes Cable!  Cable from the future sent back in time to kill Firefist for some unnamed atrocity, that we find out closer to the end of the movie. Cable is cool, lethal, deadly and close to the original source material from the comics.

Mr. Brolin takes a solid run at the role, providing some depth to a character that initially seems determinedly one-dimensional. But as his backstory is sketched in a fuller picture emerges, and Mr. Brolin manages to elicit sympathy while remaining an appropriately humorless rock in the midst of a madcap maelstrom.

He is a badass and watching him fight Deadpool is a cinametic delight. Deadpool dies, comes back to life and eventually escapes.

After, Russell goes to the biggest guy in jail, and surprise, it’s Juggernaut! The man mountain is stronger than the Vinnie Jones portrayal in the early 2000s, but much more CGI orientated, which is a shame because the end product doesn’t, quite look sooooooo… polished!

In order to save Russell from Cable’s death wish Deadpool decides to get a team together.

After an awesome montage of meeting all of your new X-Force we finally get to see them in action. And half the team dies in classic death-style fashion. By acid, by electrocution, by public transport!

The list goes on….

Now, Domino.

What a badass!

We love Zazie Beetz, aka, ‘Lucky’ and she’s amazing. She is a really fun character to add into the mix and she definitely can go far in the future.

Hell, even thinking a stand alone movie!

After the X-Force gets their asses whooped and Deadpool gets ripped in half by Juggernaut they collect at Blind Al’s home. There’s some hilarious banter about Wade’s regrowing legs in there too. And Cable arrives and decides to team up with Wade and Domino, of course Dopinder too!

Dopinder is still funny and they make him even better by making him so blood thirsty, an there’s a neat touch right at the finish, too!

Deadpool decides he needs even more firepower and goes to make up with Colossus!  The big finale has a bunch of intense and memorable scenes.

There’s another nod to the first movie when Deadpool gets a fence stabbed through his brain.

After Russell scorches Deadpool his costume looks very reminiscent of his variant costume in the comics!

Despite Deadpool telling him not to, Cable shoots Russell and Deadpool jumps in front of the bullet with the collar that takes his power away on. So without his healing powers the bullet can actually kill him. Which is what he’s wanted the whole time!

There’s a crazy heart wrenching moment which actually got more serious than I expected. Tears were shed!  It left open room for a third, that’s for sure!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

David Leitch takes over the reigns as director from Tim Miller for this instalment, and bats his team to a home run. The fun and games are pushed further with countless clever touches like a 007-inspired opening credits set to a Celine Dion ballad and the action is aided by his previous credentials (John Wick,Atomic Blonde) as the staging, stunt work and VFX are first rate.

The film drops a staggering array of witty pop-culture references (I caught brisk asides on Harry Potter, “The Goonies,” comics artist Rob Liefeld, and “The Human Centipede,” to name just a few. And Deadpool 2 rewrites the book on genre films, it absolutely tears up that book when it comes to opening and closing credits. Bravo, team!

What hasn’t changed from the first outing is the presence of strong supporting players who both ground Mr. Reynolds’s performance and give him lots to play off of. The venerable Leslie Uggams (Roots) returns to gamely play Wade’s mysterious roommate Blind Al.

Karan Soni is back to gee-whiz his way amiably through the film as taxi driver turned would-be sidekick Dopinder.

Zazie Beetz (Atlanta) is a strong new addition as Domino, who finds her way to Deadpool’s crew through a help wanted ad and can hold her own against his perpetual banter.

It was pretty hilarious that Brad Pitt made an appearance! Also, amazing cameo by Alan Tudyk and apparently Matt Damon (we’ll have to watch the film again, just to be sure!)

It was a definite love letter to the first film, but it added elements that really put it past its predecessor. The sheer amount of Easter-eggs and references alone makes Culturedemandsgeeks (and we will) want to watch it again. Pitch black humour, plenty of meta-moments, and a fast-paced storyline that’s long on violence but can’t quite hide its surprisingly sentimental heart.

5/5 stars