This is the sequel to the 2016 surprise hit, "Deadpool," an R-rated superhero movie starring Ryan Reynolds. That film cost $58 million to make and sold more than $780 million in tickets. Investments that good don't come along every day, and so now we have "Deadpool 2."
The new film's plot opens with Wade/Deadpool and Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), his girlfriend, still in love. "My baby factory is now open for business," Vanessa says after giving him the birth control device that she has had removed. They discuss baby names.
Then something really bad happens, and off we go into a superhero plot in which Deadpool despairs, then revives and then gathers a new team, called the X-force, to pull off amazing stunts and rescue Russell (Julian Dennison), a young superhero who may be going over to the dark side.
The themes are 1) death and rebirth and 2) family. These are hammered home hard.
--"Kids give us a chance to be better than we are," Vanessa tells Deadpool early on.
--DP friend Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) says, "You can't really live until you die a little."
Previous fans need not worry that Deadpool has turned into a saccharine good guy, however. He still is funny and able to laugh at himself, and just about every scene has him saying something like, "Holy motherfucking shit!"
There's a large cast in the movie, including Zazi Beetz and Josh Brolin as part of the X-Force family and Karan Sori as the comic/relief cab driver, plus Brad Pitt and Matt Damon in cameos that went right past me. The acting is fine; more important, the computer-generated imagery is incorporated skillfully.
The script has many, many cocky references to pop themes from cloying music to metal rock to political references to old films. The Wrap website assembled an extensive list of these, but I believe it may have missed a few.
In sum, if you liked the original, you will like "Deadpool 2" even more. Just go.
Note
The local theater screened about 25 minutes' worth of trailers before the show. There must have been 150 gunshots In the course of those previews. The movie itself, like all superhero movies, included many, many scenes of good guys and gals defeating violent enemies who appear out of nowhere.
If you don't worry that this conditions young people to see violence as a way to settle grievances -- and inspires some to resolve perceived injustices with guns and pipe bombs and weaponized pressure cookers -- you haven't been paying attention.
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