Deadpool 2

The Merc with the Mouth returns for a sequel to his own 2016 blockbuster hit, Deadpool! The Untitled Deadpool Sequel, Deadpool 2 or simply DP2 was an attempt to expand this small world of his by inviting many new characters to hop on the ride! So was it bumpy, smooth or somewhere in between?

The first and foremost guarantee this movie has for anyone who steps into the screening hall is laughter. It's a given already! Just the mere sight of him opening the show with a half mask on and a cigarette in his mouth makes one laugh without prompt! If you thought he poked fun at a lot of stuffs in the first film, wait till you see this one! He literally went boundless! Remember this word 'boundless' for now, as we would come back to it later. Deadpool jabbed at everything under the sun, from comics, Avengers: Infinity War, Hawkeye, Logan, James Bond, Hugh Jackman, Frozen, X-Men, the Oscars, any movies in general to the script itself. Ryan Reynolds as the character broke the fourth wall with utmost meta self-realization as well.

Not all the jokes landed. After a point, it even became extremely excessive. Some weren't even necessary or placed at the right time. Will all of it be pertinent in a couple of years is a big question too. The filmmakers were so focused in delivering the wisecracks that it unfortunately overshadowed the thin material. As a result, what we've got was a series of blocky chunks of events flowing poorly with homogeneity nowhere to be found. Appearance of the X-Men team for a brief second was definitely one of those moments. Wade loses his girlfriend, rescues a boy, goes to jail, blown out of prison, recruits a team, loses his legs; events kept rolling whether any of it made sense or not. With all these being said, Deadpool probing Colossal to swear, signing on a Hugh Jackman poster, growing back his legs from scratch, blowing himself up into pieces only to end up in a plastic bag alive again, correcting Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) to point her gun into the right direction, playing with Logan movie climax toy, comparing Frozen's iconic number to one of Yentl's, hustling with Professor X's wheelchair, starring in a silly self-referential James Bond-esque opening credits sequence, romancing Colossus in slow-motion, not ever dying with an ongoing speech, challenging Wolverine that he would want to die in his own film too, groping Colossus' butt plus going back in time to clean up the actor's past blunders of accepting the roles of Green Lantern and X-Men Origins: Wolverine's Deadpool were genuinely funny. The same can be said about Weasel's (T.J. Miller) hostage situation too!

As aforementioned, the story was wafer thin, eclipsed further by the overdose of constant jokes. The protagonist tried explaining that the aim of him saving the kid was because his girlfriend has asked him to. This was extended to a bit heavy-handed message of accepting a family. The problem with this idea was that, we couldn't see the connection between Wade's girlfriend's death and the survival of this boy named Firefist who only entered the picture post Act I, if there were at all Acts here. Even if looked from the point of view of changing Wade Wilson into a better person, the two events remain completely unrelated.

Speaking of death, oh yes, there's a bunch of them happening here! For instance, X-Force characters such as Bedlam, Shatterstar, Zeitgeist and Vanisher were killed off 2 minutes after being introduced! Why go through an elaborate hiring process just to have these individuals wiped out in stupid accidents? What's the point? In fact, that's the exact issue with Deadpool 2's violence and crudity. Most of it had no real purpose. Juggernaut tearing Deadpool into halves suddenly is another example. Just because you have the R certificate, that doesn't mean you could simply insert meaningless scenes that do not serve the picture any relevance. Vanessa's (Morena Baccarin) death was impactful and it did make us feel sad and sorry for Wade. Even his death in the end was abrupt and unacceptable, before Cable (Josh Brolin) eventually brought him back. Comedy, crudity and violence amongst these high peaks of profound emotions knocked the tonal balance off the charts!

Let's come back to 'boundless' for a second here. A great screenwriting guru once told, set your universe's single arena and never do Double Mumbo Jumbo in your scripts. What he meant was, set the boundaries of your picture. Where it can travel and can't travel. What it can and can’t do. If you were to include any elements away from reality, only include one type of it, as inserting more than that would break the unity of the film. Deadpool's a superhero motion picture. As per its universe, superheroes with superpowers are more than welcomed. But the moment it started travelling through a dead pool (even if figuratively) to afterlife; a realm that's never been the scope of this film at all, the unity was destroyed.

Rest assured, there's heart in this one. It asks you to embrace the stupidity, the absurdity, the silliness and did away with everything wrong or right. And this is precisely why it's hard to take Deadpool 2 seriously, for doing so, we would miss the whole point. You could even argue that this entire thing is more of a gag than a movie.

Visual effects team did a fantastic job. Just the wires forming the biceps of Cable was an enough amazement! Juggernaut was a delightful surprise and the CGI for him was outstanding. Pistol perforating through palm was another one! Of course, certain green screens for scenes such as the baby legs matched up with Wade's adult body wasn't the best work available in the market. Costumes were great too. Many of the soundtracks were mismatches, although Celine Dion's Ashes was one of the finest pieces of romantical music to ever exist!

Certain action episodes were well made. Fight during convoy interception was somewhat entertaining and so was the 180 degree head turn. Plane jump plus climactic battle between Juggernaut and Colossus before the former was electrocuted by Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hilderbrand) were exciting for the eyes. We have no clue why some of the stunt clips were fast-forwarded a bit in the editing table. The Chinese gunmen in the beginning turned out to be immature actors. However, slow-moed event in the foreground with normal-speeded ones in the background was quite nicely done. The slow motion effects for Vanessa's death was also the same! End credits with hand drawings were superbly cute!