Iffy start, but ultimately hugely entertaining

Rating: 8/10 (6 March 2019)

I was a big fan of the first Deadpool, which was both hilarious and had a strong sense of character. So I was really looking forward to Deadpool 2. But if I hadn't seen the first movie, I probably would have given up on this one after 20 minutes.
The movie begins with Deadpool traveling the world killing people. Who are these people? Why is he killing them? Do they deserve to die, and if so, do they deserve to die in such sadistic ways? The movie doesn't tell us; it's just fancily choreographed slaughter.
Then Deadpool experiences tragedy, and after a really clever title sequence based on that, we get about 20 minutes of our hero being really depressed. Which isn't all that much fun.
So after about a half hour of setup, the actual story kicks in and the movie -- finally! -- becomes fun. And once it starts being fun it never stops. It gets crazy, there's some sort of reason for all the violence, it is full of hilarious jokes, and it's more-or-less what I remember from the first movie.
My favorite part of the movie is Domino, a superhero whose power is good luck. A scene based entirely on a series of fortunate coincidences is one of the best in the movie, and I really, really want to see Domino (played with kick-ass bravado by Zazie Beetz) get her own movie, although I assume she won't in spite of a lot of people wanting it because Hollywood won't be able to handle building a huge epic around a black woman (guaranteed some Hollywood exec is saying, "we can't do it; Catwoman was a bomb").
I can't agree with all the people saying Deadpool 2 is better than the first movie; the first movie was consistently good all the way through and had a better handle on the balance between spectacle and character. But 3/4ths of this movie is absolutely terrific.