Deadpool 2 (Leitch) 2018

Deadpool 2 brings the return of Wade Wilson and all his wisecracks, this time teaming up with a group of mutants he calls X-Force to help save a young mutant named Russell who is being chased by the time traveling Cable.
​
This is the rare sequel that lives up to the original while at the same time furthering the story of the central character. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is up to his old tricks, fighting crime and living his best life with his now fiancé Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). When Vanessa is killed by a baddie that Wade didn’t do away with, he falls into despair and tries to end things in a fiery gasoline-fueled explosion in his apartment. Of course, his healing abilities allow him to come back even from that, and team up yet again with Colossus Stefan Kapičić), and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), both returning from the first film.

After an abject failure in their first team-up, Wilson is thrown in a mutant prison with Russell/Firefist (Julian Dennison), a young mutant who had been abused at the hands of the staff of the “Mutant Re-education Center” where he lived. The prison facility is attacked by Josh Brolin’s Cable, taking a break from playing his better-known Marvel villain, Thanos. As Deadpool enters the MCU arena, it will be interesting to see how this is reconciled over the coming years.

---

Deadpool puts together his team of heroes that he calls X-Force, again failing at the outset of their mission to save Russell, with only Domino (Zazie Beetz) and Wade’s cab driver friend Dopinder (Karan Soni) surviving. In the final standoff, we learn that Cable is not what he seemed at first, and get to see another classic Marvel villain, Juggernaut, appearing on film for the first time since 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand.

Deadpool 2 continues the idiosyncrasies from the first film including breaking the fourth wall and narrating the action at times. There is also a plethora of hidden cameos in the film from such actors as Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and Terry Crews. It also deals with the ideas of time travel, something that the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe has delved into more deeply in recent years with Avengers: Endgame and Loki, just to name a few.

What works for the first film, continues to work here. But while the first film is a true origin story, this sequel takes Deadpool in a different direction, shifting from trying to save his damsel in distress by himself, to working with others to save someone not so much unlike himself. I hope that the third film is allowed to work in this same way and not hamstrung by Disney and Marvel executives trying to fit it into the more traditional MCU mold.

7 out of 10