Plotholes and Heartbreak

Rating: 3/10 (18 May 2018)

Like most of us, I have been waiting eagerly for over two years to see Deadpool 2. I was so excited about this premiere, that I donned my Deadpool shirt, jacket, necklace, and socks and drove to a theater located an hour and a half away from my house, because it was the only one around showing the Deadpool double feature (at a pretty mighty $28 price tag). No part of me had even considered that this movie would be short of amazing. Boy, was I wrong!
Major spoilers ahead!
I loved Deadpool more than any other movie of the 2010s. Partly because of the humor and original take on superheroes (a genre that I keep up with religiously), partly because it came to me at a time when I was dealing with the cancer diagnosis of a close family member and the fact that Wade got his powers because of a sort of cancer treatment was pretty awesome, but mainly because of the smart writing. The latter sure went down the tubes in this installment.
Let's start with that beginning. Vanessa gets shot and killed. It seems that ever since Bateman V Superman, these new superhero movies all feel the need to kill off our main characters...but we'll get to that later.
Deadpool tries to unsuccessfully kill himself multiple times, and each time he is 'close' he gets to see Vanessa in this dreamlike afterlife for a brief moment...see, something I liked about Deadpool was that is was at least sort of 'believable' in a comic book sort of way. But these afterlife sequences struck me not as emotional, but just plain dumb. They did not fit into a movie like this. This is not What Dreams May Come. It's a humorous superhero movie.
Then, after a strange series of events, Wade goes to jail with a fourteen year old mutant. First off, why would a fourteen year old be going to an adult prison? I understand it's a prison for mutants, but you'd think they'd definitely separate the kids and adults. Also, the kid was clearly being abused. How did only Deadpool notice and take pity on him?
Anyway, while in jail, they have to wear these collars that take their powers away. Now remember, Wade's power is that his body instantly heals itself. So how is it that when the collar goes on him, his cancer instantly comes back? Because if we are going by that thinking, that anything his body healed after receiving his powers would be reversed, then wouldn't every bullet wound, knife slash, and injury that he has sustained since receiving his powers do him in? Otherwise, how is it that the cancer came back so quickly and powerfully? If it was eradicated, it would be gone! It would not come back...and certainly not at such an impact.
Now, the whole jail scene goes on wayyy too long. Why do superhero movies all need jail scenes now, by the way? Guardians of the Captain America: Civil War, Suicide Squad....enough!
I will also add that there were far fewer laughs at this point than in the original. In fact, laughs are pretty rare. And when there is a joke, 4/5 times, it is pretty cheap and unoriginal. That is, the original brought so much original material that any jokes here are pretty much a rehashing or something only a 14 year old boy while laugh at.
This is pretty much where the movie lost me. I realized that my beloved original Deadpool movie was an anomaly. A great treat. And Deadpool 2 would not be the same thing.
While there were a few more laughs as the movie progressed, most of the good one were already shown in the trailer. I kept searching for redeeming qualities and just kept getting let down. There were more plot holes than I could count, and Cable was underwhelming.
I will skip to the end, because that is where it really hits the fan. See, Deadpool even jokes about lazy writing at the fact that Cable can only travel in time twice: once to save his family and once to get back to them. At least he admits the writing is lazy.
Again, after an odd series of events, Deadpool winds up sacrificing himself for that fourteen year old mutant (who has an Australian accent that no one even addresses. Yet he way.) Yup, he joins the ranks of seemingly every other superhero in recent memory and dies. He does so by putting on the collar from prison that strips mutants of their powers and gets hit by a bullet.
But oh, wait, remember how Cable can go back in time? He does that and saves Deadpool. Now, if he really wanted to save Deadpool, why wouldn't he have just removed the collar as Deadpool was dying so that Deadpool could heal himself? The collars were removable. We had seen it get removed before! Then, he could have saved his time travel.
But nevermind all that, because as soon as the credits start to roll, we see Negasonic Teenage Warhead and her GF repairing Cable's time travel thingy, and guess what? They save Vanessa. This also allows Deadpool save one of the guys that he rounded up for his team...which makes no sense, as if he has the power to save that guy, why wouldn't he just prevent his team from jumping out of the helicopter so none of them died? Basically, this scene means that virtually everything that happened in this movie meant nothing. See when you add time travel into a movie like this, it renders so much of it nonsense.
There were a lot of other issues, but it would take a short book to point them all out.
The best way to describe how I feel is heartbroken. Deadpool was the rebel hero. His movie and comics were something different. He was sassy, funny, daring, AND smart. A part of me wants to purge myself of my Deadpool posters, comics, figurines, and apparel, but I can't let a bad sequel ruin the love I have for the original. At least we always have the brilliant original...