Just as well I’m quitting with the Deadpool stuff before it gets silly.
Alright, so I saw it again last night and while my time and words are still limited, I guess I can still say something about it.
On second viewing, I’ve decided this is better than the first movie. Especially considering that a sequel is not meant to be that good. Yeah, there was a lot of rehashing, but it was done right.
The jokes, the violence, the heart were – like Cable’s gun – dialled up to eleven. The back-filled plot and exposition were neater, a single story-in-story that was capped with an “all caught up” as traditional. While some of the beats were maybe a little over-repeated, I did enjoy them.
The cameos, the easter eggs, the pop culture references, and the characters themselves were simply amazing. They did everything right – and yes, that included killing pretty much the entire X-Force in a single hilarious skydiving incident. And the post-credits scenes were nothing short of perfection.
Cable was great, and Domino was better. Negasonic and Yukio were adorable, and if under-utilised at least it was for a good reason. Bandhu and Weasel were classic, such a shame T.J. has apparently lost his shit and won’t be back. He reparteed good. And newcomer “Russell” was very good. Great job.
The sentimental scenes, the visuals and the soundtrack, the moral of the story, and the resolution, were all crafted beautifully. I foresee complaints about the time-slider undoing a lot of the emotional impact of the movie, but it didn’t really work that way for me. Okay, I was a bit disappointed in the same way I’m pre-disappointed that the Avengers will undo all those deaths, inevitably. By the same token, I’m used to the idea now. Also, I’ve been waiting for Wade’s girlfriend to die since day one since that’s one of the main triggers of his madness and antiheroism in the comics. The only disappointing part of her coming back was that they didn’t (so far) replace her with Death. But his search for death was the same, and apparently they’re not doing it that way in the movies, for Deadpool or Thanos.
So, all good. Vanessa gets to come back, and the death scene – and all the usually-waffly visions that accompanied it – was amazing. The Take On Me reference, as Wade is pulled through the barrier, made me even-almoster cry the second time around.
Brilliant. Just brilliant. If I had the time and cash, I’d go again. I wish it would stay in cinemas long enough for me to go and see it with my dad (and that’s really saying something), if only because Laurie, the only friend he had who’d go to these movies with him, is dead now.
There’s a lot more to unpack here, like what changes he’s made in the timeline by “repairing” it. And what it means that we have this alternate Colossus and alternate Juggernaut in the known post-Apocalypse continuity now. Because this movie was canonically fitted into the new X-Men Dark Phoenix era.
But I’m almost at work, so let’s take all that to the comments. Just be warned that there will be SPOILERS there that I will not be spoilertexing.
Go see the movie!
– Posted from my Huawei mobile phone while on the bus.
Hatboy's Hatstand 
I’m going to have to get the soundtrack to this one, I think. Although the first was good too, this was better. Maybe I’ll have to get both. Double album please.
Ill taje you and your dad to see it.
If its not on theatres anymore. I will download it and we can watch it in the bar.
You’ve got a deal.
– Sent from my Huawei mobile phone while on my lunch break
Awesome, you really have me stoked now. Can’t wait to fill in the blank spots here, after this weekend! I wish I could see any movie with my parents and enjoy it, LOL. They ruin everything. My dad talks all the time and tries to predict, and my mom is perma-confused and needing to pause and discuss (if at home where that’s possible).
Ugh, I hear you man.
Very good movie.
Enjoyed all of it despite being wickedly hungover.
Not a fan of cinemas these days, so I suspect I’ll enjoy it even more in the comfort of our living room, once it’s available as digital content.
Yeah, this was a really good movie. Like with the first one, I just plain enjoyed myself and smiled/laughed pretty much throughout. A couple of scenes were so goddamn funny I almost died right there in the theater. One scene almost made me cry.
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The only things that didn’t quite click for me were plot-related: (1) Fridging Vanessa was a lazy narrative choice [1], if only because we’ve seen that plot point so many times by now, and despite the fact they brought her back in the end. (I haven’t read the comics, so I don’t really care about that canon.) But it did drive Wade’s character arc in a logical and believable way. I’m sure the writers could’ve come up with another motivation, though. (2) The orphanage subplot and the pseudo-villain headmaster character felt underdeveloped, especially since they wasted a wonderful actor, Eddie Marsan, in the role.
And the movie obviously lacked the outrageous freshness of the first one.
Other than that, I had a blast.
[1] I wasn’t actually triggered/offended by this like apparently quite a few other people online. Then again, I’m a dude.
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To be honest, I was waiting for Vanessa to die and be Wade’s reason for being fractured and insane right from the start. Killing her was classic haunted-past trope, but they managed to defuse it by the really interesting way he reacted to it. The way he killed the killer was savage.
And let’s face it – the movie with Vanessa in it, although it would be nice, would hardly be interesting. Deadpool is not as fun when he’s domesticated, and as cool as the international hit-man scene was in establishing that he was still fun with Vanessa around, there wasn’t that edge to it. I was sort of expecting the visions to lead up to his meeting with Death, but we might still get that. For example, bringing Vanessa and Peter back – another gutsy but somewhat plot-wrecking move – might lead to Consequences in the next movie. Death is owed, and so forth.
I’m afraid any other motivation involving a living Vanessa would have been angsty, relationshippy and annoying. So they made the right choice.
Yeah. That whole thing obviously folds into a wider storyline in the X-Men franchise and Domino’s origin and so on. There were posters about M-Day in the school. And the collars will be a big deal. Now, as to whether any of that matters, and we’re headed for a huge reboot of everything with the Disney-Fox merge … I guess that remains to be seen.
Certainly the new Dark Phoenix movie will tell us something. And there are tons of new Deadpool movies and spin-offs planned.
But why not write her as interesting? Why introduce a potentially major character if you’re not gonna do anything with them? Surely there must be countless ways to weave Vanessa and her relationship with Wade into the story in an interesting way that still keeps the edge.
I’m not about to go on some feminist crusade here, but I think it’s just lazy writing to kill off the girlfriend when you can’t be bothered to think of anything interesting for her to do or be. And that’s what seems to have happened with DP2. (Plus, I just really like Morena Baccarin as an actor, and Vanessa was a pretty great character in DP1.) Why not, for example, give her some variation of Domino’s part? Make her a superhero, break them up, whatever.
Ugh, you’re absolutely right about keeping her as an interesting character in her own right, but your two suggestions – superhero or breakup – are absolutely awful. Like, just the worst. They’re like if Spider-Gwen and Black Canary II, the Angstening, could somehow conceive a child and the child was an idea instead of a foetus and then they aborted the foetus and ate it and then puked it up and ate it again, crying. I need TJ Miller to riff about how terrible the ideas are, is what I’m saying here.
I agree that Baccarin is a great actor and deserved better than “Wade’s Girlfriend”. It’s just that, in the comic (I know, I know), that is a short role. Until you get to the mind-fuckier segments of Wilson’s back-story. Which they might be working up to, who knows?
Anyway, that’s sort of why I’m hoping for a Death development. Because it’s about the only non-TJ-worthy way for Baccarin to get superpowers in later movies.
For this movie, I maintain, the solution they came up with was the best solution. At least that I’ve heard so far.
Sorry.
No, no, that’s quite fair. Those were bad stock suggestions. But, for my part, and not coming at this with the same comics baggage as you, I feel that Vanessa’s fridging was lame and lazy, and it was the one thing I really didn’t like in the movie. (I can give the orphanage suplot a pass.)
Let’s see what they do in DP3. That whole Death thing sounds… interesting.
That was a pretty good TJ Miller.
Although, Ryan Reynolds has said he doesn’t think there will be a DP3….
Maybe he’ll be in the larger X-men movies (such as they are) or something.
Yep, I hear an X-Force movie is in the works, so technically not DP3.
What? Really? DP2 has been a BO success. DP3 is a no-brainer.
Pssh. DP still can’t beat a Mel Gibson Jeebus movie ;P
And X-force? Aren’t most of them dead already?
Or maybe it’s Disney…
Heh, I just came back to say I didn’t mean that personally. I am suffering Arrow trauma about break-ups and normies just becoming supers because the plot demands it.
Now, what was Vanessa’s role in DP1? Oh yeah, getting kidnapped so Deadpool would have motivation to go psycho. The escalation from “kidnapped” to “dead” is perfect sequel metalogic.
However, as I’ve said from the start, Deadpool was doing his job just fine with Vanessa alive, with a bit of corny domestic “gotta get home in time to give my kid his Turboman toy” oops wrong movie but same basic plot.
Something else could have been done. I’m fine with nothing else being done. Let’s see what DP3 / X-Force manages to do with her role.
As far as female characters went, I do get that they were trying actively not to compete with an Avengers line-up. So the underutilisation of non-title characters is forgivable from my shitlord point of view. That being said, Domino and Negasonic and Yukio crapped all over Vanessa. You know, daintily.
*wince*
Not that women need to do anything daintily. They can dump like Hulk after too much shawarma as far as I’m concerned.
There was too little Negasonic and Yukio!
There was too MUCH “Hi, Yukio *finger waggle*”
XD
I wanted to disagree with you, and might have if I’d only seen the movie once … but you’re right. On second viewing, they maybe did that one or two times too many. It was still cute, but yeah. To paraphrase the first movie, I was on the lookout for the next three or four moments.
Again I’m worried this reply isn’t lining up, but oh well. Yeah, I was mostly kidding about too much “Hi, Yukio” but I’m happy to be agreed with. Actually it was a bit of a “kidding not kidding” kind of joke.
Totally agree with dreameling, and you too Hatboy. As little d said (ok probably need to never use that one again) the freshness wore off for me as well. But I laughed so hard in the baby legs scene, which was deliciously long, that I nearly peed myself. NO, I mean I literally nearly peed myself. First time for that sensation when laughing. Hilarious!
The rampant murder when trying to save the kid from committing a single one was wonderfully ironic, I was just beside myself that whole scene. Cable was great, Brolin is my new tied-for-favorite actor, and Ryan Reynolds just nailed the whole arc including the sad parts right after Vanessa bit it. I was REALLY worried they’d get the tone “wrong” there, but wow, it was just right. At least for me.
I want to ask Ryan if the homo-erotic jokes have always come naturally to him or has he learned to pull them off so well just for Deadpool. Because damn, he wears them like a second skin IMO. Speaking as someone who finds those jokes in daily life and has to parcel them out really, really thinly.
Can’t seem to reply to the right comment…my work PC broke this morning and this replacement blows.
I agree with dreameling that Vanessa could have just been written interestingly and not killed off for the whole movie, while acknowledging Hatboy didn’t actually eliminate this possibility. I think Deadpool, who was doing dangerous mercenary shit while she was alive (obviously…it led to her death), could have been set on the same trajectory either way, with some other motivation provided. And I like her as an actress, too. But you know, she kind of did still have a role in the movie. Hard to say how much more screen time she would have gotten if alive.
*shrug*
In other related news, I must sadly report my disenchantment with my local Alamo dinner theater. I used to love going to this place, good beers (which is still true), good food including the great Omnivore pizza which is a bit of a “everything but the kitchen sink” but it’s MY kitchen sink sort of thing (not on the menu anymore and some of the other food is downgraded), and good service (DEFINITELY not true anymore).
I probably won’t return again. Last time, for Infinity War, I was saddened by the loss of the Omnivore pizza from the menu (ok you asked, maybe…it was pepperoni, olives, mushrooms, red onions, artichokes, possibly something I’m forgetting. It was awesome. It was the only time I wasn’t mad there was something in addition to pepperoni that wasn’t jalapenos, on a pizza, ever.) But I could handle a menu change. Although the pepperoni pizza was pretty bland, probably in comparison but either way I didn’t really enjoy it much.
Then, for DP2, the service was SLOW AS SHIT. 45 minutes (I came 30 minutes early for the fun, related pre-movie stuff they show) to get fucking chips and queso and my soda. Then I placed an order like 30 minutes later, so the movie was less than half over, for a chili cheese dog and a refill. Didn’t get either. Bills came out like 45 fucking minutes later, without my hot dog on it. I waited, refusing to pay, hoping my fucking DINNER and a new bill would arrive, but no.
So, for one of the few times in my life, I left no tip, and wrote on the bill. I mean come the fuck on, you took my order card and never filled it in 45 fucking minutes. This is a dinner theater. That’s why I’m there. For you to serve me fucking food.
Well, just call me Mr. Not-Gonna-Be-Eating-Here-Anymore. Damnit.
Ruined the movie a bit.
I hope to Hell you didn’t pay the bill if you didn’t get the food. Or I’m tired and misunderstanding how it went down.
I got some food and that was on the bill…my appetizer and soda. But no refill and no hot dog, which weren’t on the bill but they had a fucking hour to get them to me. more than an hour. So I’m still pissed.
Alright, I get you now. Yeah, that’s absolute bullshit and I’m glad you gave them a piece of your mind. Sorry it put the movie in the same crappy basket.
Thanks. I’m healing, regarding the movie, from watching some cool Looper videos about it XD
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