A sequel with more heart, violence, jokes and ambition.

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2018)

When I saw the first Deadpool, it was the perfect antidote to oversaturation of superhero movies that consumed the media. Since then the amount of superhero projects has ironically increased with Deadpool's second movie, once again, responses to this. This is especially clear when it released only a few weeks after Infinity War.
While John Wick's David Leitch takes over directing duties from Tim Miller, the writing duo of Paul Wernick and Rhett Rheese and Ryan Reynold's full embodiment of his character's off-kilter persona is what keeps the sequel from loosing its mojo. The jokes are twice as funny with visual gags that caused an explosion of laughter while watching it in theatres. The humor rarely ever feels like goes too far thanks to Reynold's execution and delivery of the script and blends very with bigger action set pieces. But probably what surprised me the most was the emotional depth has a lot more weight and complexity. While Deadpool 2 never forgets it's a comedy first, it puts the character on an arc that brings an existential question about himself. Sometimes the movie tries too hard to copy the same emotional beats from the previous X-men movie Logan (whether jokingly or unknowingly), it still makes you feel pity for Wade Wilson despite he is a cold-blooded killer.

While Reynolds continues to be perfect as Wade, the rest of the cast, both new and old, standout. Colossus gets more screen time to show more depth to the dysfunctional relationship he has with Wade. Newcomer Zazie Beetz as Domino becomes a scene-stealer even though she doesn't show up till the latter half of the film. Beetz's is hilarious especially with seeing how her character's power of luckiness works on a cinematic level. While still not as captivating as his previous Marvel character Thanos from Infinity War, Brolin still makes Cable distinct enough with how he talks and behaves in a grizzled and damaged way. While I wished there was more, his good-cop-bad-cop dialogue with a not-so-serious Deadpool was both fun and interesting. It was also great to see Julian Denison get to expand his acting chops even though his character Russell was a bit of heightened version of Rick Baker from Hunt for the Wilderpeople. It did feel awkward that TJ Miller's role wasn't shortened after the amount of controversial that has happened within the actor's personal life. It was a shame that Morena Baccarin's role as Vanessa is reduced for the sake of the story which felt a bit hypocritical at times.
Where David Leitch does improve from the first film is the action. Leitch's experiences in fight choreograph makes the practical fights in Deadpool 2 look more real and vicious especially with Wade's first encounter with Cable. There we get to see how far Wade's healing factor can go leading to some disturbing body horror. While Leitch is better with handling practical action, the use of cgi shows to be more of Miller's talent. Since Deadpool 2 does not have Tim Miller's visual eye nor his vfx company Blurr Studios that made the cgi for the first movie, the visual effects don't feel as seamless. It is especially the case when an iconic comic book character in cgi shows up in the third act and feels more cartoonish then real.
Deadpool 2 is funnier and more emotional but what keeps it from being better then the first is that you can feel the plot dragging by the last quarter of the movie. While the first Deadpool felt quick and short (compared to the runtime of most superhero movies), the extra 10 minutes this sequel has causes the runtime to feel more noticeable.
While Deadpool 2 does not have same surprise factor nor quickness, I can still say it is an accomplishment since most sequels to superhero movies and comedies fail by being too repetitive or not being ambitious enough. Deadpool 2 swings bigger then the first instalment and for the most part succeeds where others have failed. Also stay for the post-credit scenes. They are unforgettable.