That said, while I thought it was a funny film, I continue to be put off by the origin story that dominated the first half, that played itself too sincerely for its own good, and brought the film to a screeching halt anytime it cut back. But now that audiences are caught up with his origins, and the studio finally gives the creative team a sizable budget, perhaps its sequel should fix those issues. Alas, while the film still remains funny and charming, Deadpool 2 feels like it actually doubles down on those issues.
Former merc Wade Wilson aka. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is reeling from early tragedy, and after a botched team up with the X-Men, is sent to a high security mutant prison alongside dangerous child mutant Russell aka. Firefist (Julian Dennison). But their stay is interrupted, as the time traveling Cable (Josh Brolin) arrives onto the scene, intent on seeing to the boy's death as a preemptive act of revenge. Assembling a new team of mutants codenamed the X-Force, including Domino (Zazie Beets), the merc with a mouth makes a desperate effort to stop Cable, and possibly find new meaning to his life.
Right off the bat, you can see the kind of issues Deadpool 2 is dealing with. The film starts off promisingly enough, as Wade is cozying up to his new gig of taking out organized criminals, before one botched job eventually leads into heartbreak, that sets up the early conflict of the film. Such a move could have afforded the film a nice area to expand on Deadpool's character and the proceeding nihilism that comes in the aftermath, but the way this film does it comes at the expense of its balance. The film isn't very gracious about how it adapts from this point on, immediately cutting away to another rendition of the opening gag credits (in this case, a Bond homage set to Celine Dion's "Ashes"), that tries to poke fun at the audience's perceived questions and bewilderment.
Unfortunately, this is a move that backfires on the film, as it once again succumbs to those tonal issues. That the souring whiplash of the opening means the film takes pretty long to recover is rough enough, but it's not the only one either. Like the original, there are long stretches of the film that are played relatively straight without much irony, and really make it seem like the film is succumbing to the cliches and tropes it tries to blast and subvert. I'm certainly not above a clown being serious, but the film constantly struggles with when and whether it wants us to take it seriously or not, and so you get these really dour moments that feel like a buzzkill when compared to the eccentric and bizarre world of Deadpool. In the same scene where Wade makes a crack about something being "next to a big ball of foreshadowing", he's also begging for his dormant tumors to end his suffering like he's Logan. These two sides could have co-existed, but we're jerked between tones so often, it makes it tough to adequately share in his pain.
However, let it not be said that Ryan Reynolds isn't still absolutely brilliant in the title part. The fact that this series has been such a passion project for him (right down to him co-writing 2's script) is certainly not lost in translation, and when it comes to the quirks of Deadpool, no one could be more perfectly cast. Much of the charm surrounding Deadpool really comes to the oft-spoken, but no less fitting description that he is no hero, and this film does an admirable job at diving into that sense of moral grayness embedded in his very nature, with his incessant sarcasm and humor now more than ever being seen as a defense mechanism, that feel like Wade's last cling to normalcy. And when it comes to that humor, he's still as irreverent as ever, not only carrying the movie squarely on his shoulders, but selling even the seemingly lamest of gags. After a while, you start to question if the line between his character as reality and as an act has blurred for Reynolds, his commitment is so great.
But great as Reynolds is, it's new additions who steal the show from under him. In a significant improvement on the first film's villain Francis, 2 sees the arrival of the time-traveler Cable, played by Thanos himself, the merciless Josh Brolin. Actually, Thanos and Cable feel like perfect companion pieces to each other, as both have afforded Brolin to craft these brutal, but complex and thoughtful antagonists. What Cable may lack in cosmic might, however, he more than makes up for with vengeful aggression, a more than suitable dark center to offset the wisecracking of Wade, that acts as the sole anchor to reality next to the cartoonish gratuity of the rest of the film, but in spite of it all is really no different than Wade in the way of tactic and motivation.
Also stealing the show is Zazie Beets, as the naturally lucky Domino that joins up with Deadpool's newly assembled X-Force. In spite of Wade's early protests that luck is impractical and not cinematic - and how much tension can you really expect when a character has no chance of getting hurt, there's such a winning charm and energy to the way that Beets carries herself through the film. She's just such a smooth and naturally watchable presence, and one of the few to actively outmaneuver Reynolds' chatter. I just wish that Russell, played by Julian Dennison, fared much better, as I actually found him quite annoying, and oddly indicative of the film's unbalanced tone, shifting between silliness and darkness in shoddy delivery.
Disregarding those tone issues, I think even the comedy isn't always strong. I'll give the film this, it certainly lacked nothing in trying to make me laugh, with jokes of all varieties coming at me in every single direction. But therein lies an issue: With so many gags coming at me, it's very easy for a lot of them to either get lost in the shuffle, or faceplant upon delivery. Between both films, I've actually come to find that the fourth wall breaks - that have been a staple of Wade's character - are the weakest of the bunch. In many cases, I found them very pandering, as it can't help but feel like a case of the film trying to mask its faults by blatantly pointing them out, and hoping the viewer won't notice, plot gaps brushed off as "lazy writing", but beneath the laughs really are simply lazy writing. Even Tyler Bates can't resist getting in on the fun, using choirs chanting "Holy ----balls!" to accentuate his backing score.
But there are some genuine howlers in the movie, and I can pinpoint precisely when the film begins firing on all cylinders, that being a sequence where the newly christened X-Force leap out of a jet plane. This scene comes completely out of nowhere, and really highlights the hilariously twisted sadism that this series excels at, and is such an edgy and bizarre scene, you wish the preceding footage had that same energy. While not for the weakest of constitutions, the often cartoonishly violent set-pieces and breathless string of gags show some tremendous cleverness and snap to the writing as it revels in bad taste, proving that it can have its cake and eat it, too, especially as it caps off with a riotous and side-splitting mid-credits sequence
I just wish the overall film were as clever as that, because despite its high energy and passion, I really don't see either of these films as nearly as subversive as they think they are. Next time, maybe the "maximum effort" Deadpool lives by could be a little more maximum?
*** / *****
No comments:
Post a Comment