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Thursday, November 22, 2018

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Deadpool 2

Here we go again on Fishing in the Discount Bin.  I watch the movie, I blog about the movie.  It's just that simple.  Today, let's take a look at Deadpool 2.  This was originally in my notes at September 2, 2018.






As I said with the first Deadpool, with the dominance of superhero films at the box office these days, the world was primed for a great superhero spoof, and Deadpool filled the bill quite nicely.  The only problem, though, with comedy sequels, is whether they can be as funny as the original.  Deadpool 2 almost gets there, as it does fall into some of the more usual superhero tropes. 

The film opens with Deadpool being a super-awesome, but super-violent hero, as he travels the world, dispatching the worst of the worst.  But, such a life eventually catches up with him, as the baddies ambush him at home one night and kill his beloved Vanessa.  This leaves Deadpool suicidal and despondent,  There's the first superhero trope they fall back on:  killing the hero's love to drive him into a vengeful rage.  The creators have defended this saying that Deadpool is at his best when he's at rock bottom, and this was the easiest way to get him back to the bottom.  And for what it's worth, the time traveling, post-credit sequence wackiness is cannon, they say, so Deadpool did save her via time traveling. 

Deadpool is saved from his funk by Colossus, who tries to help Deadpool through this rough patch by offering him a slot on the X-Men.  This leads to my favourite "blink and you'll miss it gag."  When Deadpool is breaking the fourth wall, complaining about Colossus being the only X-Men we see in these films, over his shoulder, is the entire cast of the X-Men reboot trilogy in some kind of meeting, and Beast gets up and closes the door.  I sure hope it's acknowledged when X-Men: Dark Phoenix comes out next year.  The Professor is giving the briefing, we hear Deadpool ranting off camera, and the Professor goes, "Could someone get the door, please?  Colossus and the new guy are being pretty noisy," and we cut to a shot of the back of Deadpool's head out in the hall, and Beast closes the door. 

Deadpool's first mission is at a rival school for the gifted, where a kid named Russell is going ballistic with his fire powers.  While trying to de-escalate the situation, Deadpool discovers that the kid is being abused, and promptly takes out the abusers the only way he knows how.  So, Deadpool and Russell are sent off to prison.  Russell hopes Deadpool will be a much needed friend and protector, but Deadpool is still in his funk. 

And then, everyone's favourite time traveler Cable shows up, hellbent on taking out young Russell.  A near-death experience at the hands of Cable shakes Deadpool out his funk, and he finally decided to be the friend and protector that Russell needs.  And in order to do this, he forms his own team, X-Force. 

I could go on, but that would ruin some of the surprises, cameos, and gags.

I really don't have much more to say on the subject.  It's just funny, man.  Granted, while not as fresh as the first film, which is why they're hinting that a third one might be more of an X-Force film than a full-on Deadpool 3, it's just good. 

I almost forgot to mention Domino, one of the members of X-Force.  While Deadpool dismisses her superpower of "lucky" as being not a real superpower, it leads to some spectacular action sequences as she narrowly misses danger time and again.  I should mention that the action sequences are pretty great, no doubt thanks to the director of John Wick taking over this time out. 

Umm...yeah.  I got nothin' else.

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