People say sequels hardly ever live up to the films that come before them, and the same is true for Deadpool 2.
The second installment of the R-rated anti-superhero franchise follows Wade “Deadpool” Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) as he leads his mercenary life, but that’s about the extent of the plot. There’s no real structure to the movie, and it lacks a definite villain. The film is mostly about not fitting in, which Deadpool doesn’t. He doesn’t fit in with the X-Men and the movie doesn’t follow traditional superhero tropes, but that type of story isn’t convincing enough.
That’s why the first one was so successful, but the charm, gore and dirty humor that was extremely prevalent in Deadpool was turned back several notches for Deadpool 2.
With a character-driven film like Deadpool, the writers, producers and director have to make sure the character people loved in the first one stays pretty much the same. Sure, there has to be some evolving on certain levels, but the fundamentals of the character must remain the same so people continue to love it. Deadpool in the second film didn’t seem as raunchy, the jokes weren’t as funny and the boundary-breaking style of knocking down the fourth wall was non-existent. Everything that made Deadpool unconventional was taken out of Deadpool 2.
The jokes and references stayed mostly within the Marvel Universe. The film poked fun at Logan for following Deadpool’s example and picking up an R-rating, and also called Cable (Josh Brolin) Infinity War’s villain Thanos, which Brolin also portrays. Compared to the first film, the quips lacked any bite and the one-liners barely packed any punch. And for a movie that pokes fun at the MCU, it was surprising to not hear more references to the latest Avengers movie. Perhaps that’s because Disney doesn’t own Deadpool, and the filmmakers couldn’t get access to insider information.
Deadpool 2 tries so hard to make fun of superhero movies that it forgets it is one too. Superhero movies are actually good now — at least when it comes to the MCU. They tell actual stories and create believable villains. The Captain America series went deeper than good versus evil, and Black Panther established a very likeable villain. Deadpool 2 just didn’t make sense in relation to the current state of superhero movies. If the film would have come out several months after Avengers: Infinity War, it could have incorporated some jokes related to the blockbuster hit. But, as it stands, Deadpool 2 tries way too hard to not fit in.
Rating: 1.5/5
