ACTION COMEDY; 1hr 59min
STARRING: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin
Rearguard action: Reynolds
Hired gun Wade Wilson (Reynolds), aka Deadpool, horribly scarred and genetically messed with but, on the upside, now virtually indestructible with his cancer on hold, has "gone international." Slicing and dicing from here to there like the smart-mouthed maniac he is, he flat-out refuses to take life seriously until it deals him a deadly blow. As if that weren’t desolating enough, one way and another, Wade finds himself temporarily incarcerated in a mutants’ prison, his cellmate an angry, portly 14-year-old New Zealander with trust issues (Hunt for the Wilderpeople’s Julian Dennison as Russell, aka Firefist).
With cyber soldier Cable (Brolin) dropping in from the future to hunt Russell down, the jailbirds’ prospects are grim to grimmer, until Wade, always one to rally, recruits a task force of protective fellow mutants. That, at any rate, is his plan. It doesn’t exactly pan out, being that his X-Force leaves almost everything to be desired.
The original 2016 Deadpool was a money-printing X-Men series juggernaut that left Reynolds, incoming director David Leitch and their merry band of mutants a daunting precedent to surpass.Bigger and better each time is the way Mondo Marvel is supposed to work: seizing that gauntlet, D2 goes all out every which way it can. Speed, effects, stunts, self-referential vocal smarts and the old ultraviolence are all so amped that two hours don’t so much fly by as blur into perpetual, potty-mouthed motion. The constant once again is Wade’s huge heart, chatty attitude and a self-protective exuberance that rarely dips—including, at a juncture bizarre even for him, when he is literally ripped in half. He’s working so hard at having a blast, it’s impossible not to join in.
