Deadpool 2 [2018]
The main emotional core of Deadpool 2 isn't the wacky, juvenile, devil-may-care antics, although there certainly are a lot more of those. While the movie starts off with a silly, eyeball-rolling "let's blow myself up to shove a big middle finger in Logan's success", which is not a joke that works for me, around five minutes in, Deadpool's love interest, Vanessa, gets killed as a result of a bunch of vengeful mercenaries. And then the same scene plays, but Ryan Reynolds and Moneca Baccarin's performances as the man behind the wise-cracking mask and his love interest are so powerful that it's a genuinely touching scene that shapes the rest of the movie without bogging it down and turning it into a drama-fest.
Deadpool basically tries to kill himself, but being essentially immortal thanks to his regenerative ability, he isn't able to do it, only managing to glimpse Vanessa beyond the veil (a neat little nod to comic-book Deadpool's actual love interest, the literal personification of Death), and has basically became somewhat suicidal. He still cracks jokes, of course, but it's a bit more morbid, with the only real clue he has from the ghost of Vanessa about how they could be together leading him to properly join the X-Men as a trainee.
During the first outing with returning characters Colossus (who is as fun as ever, as the straight man to Deadpool's Deadpool) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (who doesn't actually do much, but has gained a girlfriend in a revamped version of Yukio) Deadpool ends up having to talk down a rampaging mutant boy, a kid with temper issues called Russell "Firefist", Deadpool ends up attempting to do the 'hard heroic choice' of killing the abusive headmaster of the boarding school, and ends up arrested alongside Russell. Working into the whole "man, I want a kid" conversation between him and Vanessa earlier on, Deadpool ends up being torn on whether to protect Russell, or to push him away from his dying, decrepit self.
AND THEN CABLE SHOWS UP! With a glowing eye, a grim disposition, a metal arm, a bunch of big-ass guns and Josh Brolin's grim face, Cable is epitomizes 90's badass no-nonsense this-is-serious-business superheroes, which makes him a glorious foil to the wise-cracking I-don't-give-a-shit Deadpool, a reason why the two ends up being paired up in the comics. Cable wants to kill Russell because he grows up to be a murdering psychopath in the future that kills Cable's own family, and he spends much of the second act as an antagonist. Meanwhile, Russell goes down a bit of a dark well himself, and thanks to some of Deadpool's mis-attributed advice, he ends up befriending the biggest guy in the mutant prison, the fucking Juggernaut himself.
The third act of the movie begins with Deadpool forming his own X-Force team, which... doesn't actually do as much as the trailers imply them to be. Every single one of them other than Deadpool and Domino dies around three minutes in, although the X-Force sequence is easily the funniest part of the movie, from the interview (the Vanisher; Peter; Dopinder's huge FUCK; Shatterstar being ultra-edgy) to the grisly and hilariously violent ways that they are killed off, even Peter!
And then we get a pretty fun little car chase as Deadpool and his new ally Domino attempt to rescue Russell while fighting off Cable, with a lot of fun being had with Domino's lucky abilities and Deadpool's own unkillableness. Russell heads off with Juggernaut, refusing Deadpool's aid, and then Cable shows up at Deadpool's base and offers his aid and explains chunks of the plot... and all through this, the movie is making fun of Deadpool's little regenerating baby legs which is just as uncomfortable as you think they are.
The secondary characters get a fair bit of development, even though this is mostly the Deadpool show. Dopinder gets a fun bit going through the movie and wanting to be a mercenary and getting constantly denied in increasingly silly ways, before finally living the dream at the climax of the movie. Colossus goes from being a stickler for the rules to eventually relenting and deciding to 'fight dirty' to help save his friends and the mutant children. Yukio and Negasonic... they're just kind of there, I suppose. Weasel too.
And then the climax is... it's pretty neat, I suppose, although it does devolve into having a bit too many characters at a point. We get a lot of cool mutant fighting stuff, Colossus fighting Juggernaut is amazing to behold, and Deadpool insists that he can get to Russell while Cable is in a full-fledged "shoot first" mode. Eventually, after Deadpool takes a bullet for Russell and an overly-long death scene, we get two neat moments from Cable and Deadpool -- Cable as he resolves to give away his one ticket home and prevent Deadpool's death, and Deadpool as he meets up with Vanessa and acknowledges that he needs to be there in the land of the living for his new family.
(And then the post-credits scene show up and it goes straight to insanity)
And... and it's a very enjoyable movie. It works in the X-Men mythology with a relatively okay storyline (like the original Deadpool, it's honestly a pretty basic 'finding one's humanity' story when it boils down), and makes great use of its minor characters like Colossus and Dopinder. And it's lathered from head to toe with a huge fuck-ton of fanservice and comedy that I genuinely don't think anyone who hasn't watched as many superhero movies as most of the geek community would even get half of the things going on in Deadpool 2. It's a weird, wacky movie as all Deadpool outings are. It makes fun of the concept of death and redemption while simultaneously weaving a storyline that's pretty profound regarding both of them, and that's definitely far, far more solid of a theme than I expected a Deadpool story would be.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
(Oh boy! I'm not going to do any 'origin' Easter Eggs here)
- Stan Lee cameos on a billboard.
- After the call-back of the studio not being to afford cameos from the big-name actors (which is a nod to a joke in Deadpool), we get cameos from the X-Men First Class/Apocalypse versions of Professor X, Beast, Quicksilver, Cyclops, Storm and Nightcrawler.
- Dopinder's taxi has an advertisement for Alpha Flight, which is the name of the Canadian superhero team in the X-Men comics.
- The orphanage that Russell is in is called Essex House, a reference to Nathaniel Essex, better known as the X-Men villain Mr. Sinister.
- X-Force is, of course, an actual mutant superhero team in the comics, and not just an on-the-spot name that Deadpool makes up. Also, Shatterstar's origin story about being an alien from Mojoworld is 100% true to the comics.
- After being blasted by Russell, Deadpool's black-and-gray suit is a dead ringer for his costume as part of the X-Force.
- Deadpool and Cable has shared multiple crossover titles in the comics, which is why they are associated with each other. Deadpool wanting to protect an innocent child who could potentially become a world-ending threat is taken from an arc in Uncanny X-Force where he protects Kid Apocalypse.
- Shout-outs to other superhero movies:
- During his fight with Cable in the prison train, Deadpool pulls off the same move during his introductory sequence in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, right down to the bullet-slicing slow-motion bit.
- One of Deadpool's excuses for being late is that he "got into a fight with a badass in a cape whose mom was also named Martha", which, of course, is lampooning the memetic mockery of the climax of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
- At one point, Deadpool asks Cable if he "came from the DC universe" due to how dark and serious he is, something that has been a huge, huge complaint about the Snyder-directed DC movies.
- Deadpool compares Cable's metal arm to the Winter Soldier multiple times during their first fight.
- Deadpool calls "Thanos" once, which is a nod to both characters being played by Josh Brolin.
- Deadpool goes "I'm Batman" at one point during his fight with Cable.
- When his power is taken away, Deadpool notes that he's a bow-and-arrow away from being Hawkeye.
- Deadpool calls Domino the "black Black Widow".
- When fighting Juggernaut, Deadpool recites "hey big guy, the sun's getting real low", which is the mantra that Black Widow uses to calm Hulk down in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
- During the post-credits scene, Deadpool goes to X-Men: Origins Wolverine and shoots the extremely poorly-received Weapon XI Deadpool dead multiple times. He also goes back to the real world and shoots Ryan Reynolds as he is reading the script for Green Lantern.
- In Deadpool's childish doodles, Wolverine is drawn with the tag 'Prisoner 24601', the number of Jean Valjean from Les Miserables, a character played by Hugh Jackman in the 2012 cinematic adaptation.
- Deadpool only being able to visit the love of his life in brief moments when he's dead is, of course, a reference to his comic-book counterpart's relationship with Mistress Death, the literal personification of death itself.
- Juggernaut being a massive brute who will only take orders from a single person he has befriended is a nod to his relationship with Black Tom Cassidy in the comics -- of course, in this movie, Black Tom gets killed without even sharing a scene with Juggernaut.
- Juggernaut makes a brief reference to how his helmet keeps out his telekinetic brother is a reference to how his step-brother is actually Professor X, a fact that many adaptations tend to gloss over.
- Irene Merryweather, the reporter covering the Essex House incident, is a love interest of Cable in the comics and a supporting character in the Deadpool & Cable comics.
- Cable notes that his daughter is called "Hope", which, of course, is a reference to his adopted daughter in the comics, Hope Summers.
No comments:
Post a Comment