Deadpool 2. Directed David Leitch. Starring Ryan Reynolds. Rating: 7 (out of 10)
Give the man the Order of Canada, already: is there anyone championing the country today quite so hard as Vancouver’s Ryan Reynolds?
From his Twitter handle (@VancityReynolds) to the best line in Deadpool 2 (“You’re welcome, Canada”), co-screenwriter Reynolds makes sure his countrymen are in on a genre that used to be confined to the likes of Kansas, New York and fictional uber-American metropoles.
Filmed once again in and around Vancouver (hello, Lions Gate Bridge!) Deadpool 2 finds our anti-superhero Wade Wilson (Reynolds) domesticated, wearing Crocs, and on the verge of expanding the family with girlfriend Morena Baccarin.
But “every good family film starts with a vicious murder,” Deadpool points out, citing Bambi and The Lion King, and Wade takes a very dramatic stab at suicide, perhaps forgetting for a moment that his superpowers cured his cancer and made him indestructible.
Rescued by Colossus, Deadpool reunites with Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and his X-Men friends at the mansion and crosses paths with a young orphan mutant (Julian Dennison, so great in Hunt for the Wilderpeople) who is hell-bent on getting revenge on his sadistic headmaster, played by Eddie Marsan.
Deadpool doesn’t much want to be a father figure to the boy – he’s got his own problems – but enter Cable (an impossibly-buff-for-50 Josh Brolin), a visitor from the future who wants the kid dead.
Things take a messy detour here as Deadpool and bartender-sidekick TJ Miller recruit their own team: “They must be tough, morally flexible, and young enough to carry their own franchise for the next 10-12 years,” Deadpool deadpans. The best of these is Domino (Zazie Beetz of TV’s Atlanta) who proves a worthy, wisecracking foil for Deadpool’s dumbness. Returning characters include cabbie/wannabe superhero Dopinder (Karan Soni) and Leslie Uggams as Blind Al.
To truly enjoy the sequel and its boundless in-jokes it helps to have seen the original, plus a few X-Men movies thrown in for good measure. Oh, and Yentl.
Deadpool once again breaks the sacrosanct fourth wall – that chasm between a performer and his audience – by addressing the audience directly, often smack in the middle of the bloodshed. Speaking of which, writers push the blood-splattered envelope a little further in the sequel (good luck counting casualties) though they do add a drop more emotional depth to the storyline.
The pressure was on after the mammoth success of the first film: a reported $783 million haul on a relatively skimpy $58 million budget.
Superhero purists will grumble about the rampant parodying of the genre: men in tights used to inspire awe and demand the best of young fans; now they are more likely to revel in their moral pliability and to crap in their super-suits. But if you are planning on viewing Deadpool 2, you know what you’re in for.
Pay attention, there’s lots of insider snark: “zip it, Thanos” is a dig at Josh Brolin doing double duty as Cable and as Thanos in the Avengers, and there’s a Goonies reference also aimed at Brolin. Deadpool makes fun of the script’s lazy writing and blatant franchise baiting, plus he provides a suitable end to the self-serious introduction to his character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Scriptwriters would have to neuter some of that super-sass if they were to include Deadpool in the wider Marvel universe; Deadpool remains uninvited to the party, and that’s just the way we Canucks like it.
