Deadpool returns with a more ambitious sequel and a director who’s in over his head. Structurally this thing is almost completely broken, right from the start it immediately becomes too convoluted. The prologue takes a risk by stripping away one of the best things about the first film, but it doesn’t follow up on this grief arc and resolves in a way where it doesn’t feel like it reaches a real pay-off. In between it focusses on two different threads. The stuff with Russell and the school principal doesn’t get the proper emotional development it should, with Julian Dennison giving one of the most annoying child performances of the 2010s. On top of that it also wants to rip off The Terminator, which worked for Days of Future Past, but here the motivations of characters quickly become muddled or they’ll just switch sides whenever the script needs them to. By the time we reach the end of act 2 it’s a total mess that reeks of studio interference, rewrites and re-edits. Now that doesn’t need to be the be all and end all for a Deadpool movie. However, the comedy becomes stale due to how many jokes it’s rehashing from the first one, nor does it know when to cut back on Reynolds’ improv. Most of the humour here is quite eye rolling, though there are a few new bits I enjoyed here and there (the ‘pay-off’ to the X-force, calling Cable a racist for no reason). Finally, the aesthetic is a pretty major downgrade from the first film. The cinematography and general production values look cheap (with a lot of the CGI being blatantly unfinished), while the ironic use of shitty needle drops quickly becomes tired. It’s like they didn’t learn their lesson from the third act of Deadpool, because all the action is turned up to the point where it looks ugly and unmemorable. The entire time I kept thinking about how much rather I’d watch an entire film of the action montage that’s shown during the prologue. Instead this favors being a bigger, dumber Hollywood sequel that isn’t really about anything. It tries to sell you on this idea that it’s about family, but that somehow rings even less true than during every Fast and Furious movie. I honestly don’t see why this one gets a pass from most people, to me it’s one of the most overrated comicbook films ever made.
Review by JordyVIP 8BlockedParent2024-05-03T22:49:09Z
Deadpool returns with a more ambitious sequel and a director who’s in over his head. Structurally this thing is almost completely broken, right from the start it immediately becomes too convoluted. The prologue takes a risk by stripping away one of the best things about the first film, but it doesn’t follow up on this grief arc and resolves in a way where it doesn’t feel like it reaches a real pay-off. In between it focusses on two different threads. The stuff with Russell and the school principal doesn’t get the proper emotional development it should, with Julian Dennison giving one of the most annoying child performances of the 2010s. On top of that it also wants to rip off The Terminator, which worked for Days of Future Past, but here the motivations of characters quickly become muddled or they’ll just switch sides whenever the script needs them to. By the time we reach the end of act 2 it’s a total mess that reeks of studio interference, rewrites and re-edits. Now that doesn’t need to be the be all and end all for a Deadpool movie. However, the comedy becomes stale due to how many jokes it’s rehashing from the first one, nor does it know when to cut back on Reynolds’ improv. Most of the humour here is quite eye rolling, though there are a few new bits I enjoyed here and there (the ‘pay-off’ to the X-force, calling Cable a racist for no reason). Finally, the aesthetic is a pretty major downgrade from the first film. The cinematography and general production values look cheap (with a lot of the CGI being blatantly unfinished), while the ironic use of shitty needle drops quickly becomes tired. It’s like they didn’t learn their lesson from the third act of Deadpool, because all the action is turned up to the point where it looks ugly and unmemorable. The entire time I kept thinking about how much rather I’d watch an entire film of the action montage that’s shown during the prologue. Instead this favors being a bigger, dumber Hollywood sequel that isn’t really about anything. It tries to sell you on this idea that it’s about family, but that somehow rings even less true than during every Fast and Furious movie. I honestly don’t see why this one gets a pass from most people, to me it’s one of the most overrated comicbook films ever made.
3/10