As fans of the original Deadpool film, we were obviously excited for the sequel, this time however with a change of director, this time being David Leitch who gave us Atomic Blonde and was co-director on the first John Wick we were expecting more action this time.
So it is with great disappointment that this was sadly nowhere near as good as the original film. This is in part due to the fact the film takes so loooong to get going.
The first half of the film centres on Deadpool (again Ryan Reynolds) not being a wisecracking action hero but instead trying to kill himself due to the loss of someone important in his life.
We get fleeting moments of joy, especially a sequence at X-Men’s Xavier school for the gifted where we meet Colossus (Stefan Kapicic); Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) as well as her new partner Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna) which sees Deadpool making jokes and some great jokes at the X-Men franchise expense.
But they are only fleeting moments, even scenes with fun characters of the first film such as Vanessa (Morena Baccarin); Weasel (T.J. Miller); Blind Al (Leslie Uggams. Dopinder (Karan Soni) who was a lot of fun as Deadpool’s taxi driving chauffer, who was a lot of fun in the first film, does get more screen time but is annoying, with his dreams of being a hitman, which is a shame as well.
The film is at its best when new villain Cable (Josh Brolin) is on screen, he has come back from the future to kill Firefist (Hunt for the Wilderpeople Julian Dennison)
This is because if Cable can stop Firefist killing his first victim (Eddie Marsan) then this will stop this troubled teenager from getting a taste for killing, whose future victims will include Cable’s family, hence why he wants to stop him despite his age.
Because Firefist is just a troubled teenager, Deadpool decides he can change his path, which sees him ready to take on Cable and around this time the film finally seems to change path and become the sequel we hoped for.
A particularly great scene is the forming of the X-Force, which introduces new characters, one being Peter (Rob Delaney) who has no powers at all as well as some other characters, but you will feel these characters would have made much more of an impact had you not been introduced to them in the trailers.
Of the new characters, Domino (Zazie Beetz) is the only one that makes any real impact, an action sequence when they try to free Firefist from a prison truck is a real highlight of the film.
The whole sequence however just highlights what an overall epic film this could have been, superb action sequences, wisecracking scenes from Deadpool and Cable, X-Force members having different results in getting to the mission and the film from here just builds and builds to the eventual showdown of the event where either Deadpool or Cable will change the outcome of Firefist future.
If you love the Deadpool character, there is enough to enjoy but overall it was a real letdown for us which is a shame.
As usual, being a Marvel film, there are some great end credit scenes which even if you didn’t enjoy the film are worth waiting for but if Deadpool did return for a 3rd film, we certainly would not be as excited as we were for this one, and with these films being aimed at a different audience due to its higher certification, this is a real shame.
Watch the trailer on the film website here:
You can pre-order the film at Amazon here:
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