Review: Deadpool 2 Is A Freight Train Of Laughter
- May 17, 2018
- 2 min read
Like a freight train, Deadpool 2 is longer and heavier than it looks from the front. And like a freight train, its humour will annihilate pretty much everything else in its way, and maintains speed throughout. (Mostly.)
After becoming an international assassin, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) teams up with the X-Men's Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) to respond to a situation involving a young mutant named Russell Collins (Julian Dennison). Deadpool gets himself and the boy thrown in the Icebox, a mutant prison. When Cable (Josh Brolin) comes after them and accidentally breaks them out, Deadpool puts an all-star team together for what I truly believe are some of the funniest scenes in all of cinema.
Deadpool 2 is many things - a sequel, a franchise phenomenon, and one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, unquestionably. But despite all of this, it's also a Marvel movie - even if it's not a Marvel Studios movie - so it has to have a couple of things. The first is an apparent fourth act in what is supposed to be a three-act film, as DP2's second act is longer than expected which makes the film drag a little.
The second is tonal confusion, which is now a staple of superhero cinema since Guardians Of The Galaxy made everyone think that superhero movies have to be comedies to be good. Both Deadpool films have tried to have serious character moments with emotional impact, but it more or less falls flat. At least this film cuts back on it, and even makes light of the emotional situations in a far better way than the first one did. But there are two or three short scenes in DP2 that would better suit a Disney movie - think of all the animated movies where they enter a spirit realm and talk to their mentors or ancestors. Now put that type of scene in DP2, a self-aware movie like that mocks movie tropes, with no jokes made about it and no moment of self-awareness about it, and you see how out-of-place these scenes are.
Other than these brief scenes, the tone throughout is comedy and this comedy chugs along the movie continuously. But towards the start of Act Two, the humour train screeches to a halt, which left the audience audibly confused until the train started up again. Other than these few "spirit realm"-esque scenes, and this Act Two sharp turn, the humour is top-notch and unstoppable throughout the rest of the film.
It's insanely hard to really describe why this movie works so well, and what doesn't work as well, since it feels like any sort of plot detail would ruin dozens of jokes and moments. Even the presentation of the opening credits is a spoiler (although said opening credits are, once again, a highlight of the film). Regardless, the slower moments and the scenes that take themselves too seriously are my only real issues with this film. The rest of the film's tone is so well-defined and refined, I can honestly say that I've never laughed for so long in a cinema, and part of that is thanks to Reynolds' beautiful performance, and the brilliant blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos.
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