Even DC isn't safe.

Rating: 8/10 (30 May 2018)

When Disney bought 20th Century Fox a few months back, one of the first questions people had was what would become of Deadpool. Thankfully, nothing that brought the first movie to cult status was robbed from this sequel. I will admit that I was kind of disappointed by the first movie because of the hype surrounding it. But there was next to no disappointment in this sequel. Whereas the first movie had a surprising amount of dark and serious moments, there was almost no break from the comedy here. The fourth wall was broken a few scattered times in the first one; but now the fourth wall is basically non-existent. And no part of pop culture is safe from getting called out here, even those that seem like they should be protected by rights. References range from "John Wick" to "Top Gun" to "Frozen" to "All the Money in the World" to "Batman v Superman" and obviously Marvel.
A few familiar faces return, and several new ones come in. Whether they will be ones that come back for any more sequels is uncertain, but fans should be quite as entertained by the supporting cast as Deadpool himself. Several of them get chances to shine and some heroic moments, even from the "powerless" characters.
Though it is somewhat set apart from the rest of the X-Men universe, the plot becomes more deeply involved in the world of mutants. It doesn't get caught up so much in the cultural war between humans and mutants, but that constant force is undeniably present.
There was less heart to this one, which I didn't think was such a bad thing for a character like this. However, I was slightly annoyed by the way that all of Deadpool's emotions were used as nothing more than plot engines. It might have been okay if this had been called out, as so many other things are in this movie. But the fact that it wasn't called out makes me hope that any future installments lean more toward satire than drama. However, this shouldn't be a problem for most people since the first movie wasn't exactly bleeding with emotional drama either.
I do not anticipate that this will become any kind of landmark of cinema or even that big of a contender in the lower tier awards this awards season. But this was at the very least closer to what I hoped the first movie would be. If you hate superhero movies, I can tell you that this is free of many superhero movie tropes, but does retain a couple of them even as it pokes fun at them. Though it is just as crude and shameless as it is advertised, nobody who knows what they are getting into should be offended by the comedy. If you consider May to be Summer in movie terms, this is a great fun Summer movie. It's no "best picture", but it's good if you're looking for an excuse to take a break with some friends amid the final stretch of the school year or something to celebrate the end of it with.