Directed by David Leitch

Written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Ryan Reynolds

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison

Deadpool 2 is not as funny, creative, or good as the first. Never did I think I would grow annoyed of Ryan Reynolds in the role he was born to play, yet here we are. You’ll remember I liked the first Deadpool, it was a really funny and inventive comedy, and I laughed from its beginning almost all the way till its end. It was original shock value. Deadpool 2 is just shock, and it wears off real fast. It commits the two grave errors of many blockbuster sequels: it rides too heavily on the coattails of the first, and it takes itself far too seriously. I’m gonna go ahead and start talking about spoilers to fully explain so you’ve been warned. Not that you should care cause this movie ain’t really worth it but whatever.

The premise is awful. Deadpool, Negasonic, and Colossus are called in to stop a young boy mutant who has rebelled against his Headmaster at an orphanage. The kid has flaming hands with a short temper, and he blows stuff up real good. His name is Russell, although he prefers the title “Firefist”. The Headmaster wants him contained.

The kid actor who plays Russell is Julian Dennison, who was the great and charmingly funny Ricky Baker in Taika Waititi’s The Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Taika would go on to direct the very funny Thor Ragnorak. But here, as Russell, Dennison is not good. I don’t usually go after actors as they are generally better than their work, and here I will stay that course. The kid is not to blame, he was given a pitiful role. There’s not much more to Russell than his angry outbursts and threatening to make everyone his bitch once he gets locked up in prison. He’s annoying, like much of this comedy. But wait, did I mention that the Headmaster has been abusing Russell, hence his unbridled rage? An abusive Headmaster physically harming helpless kids? What a wonderful first act to a highly anticipated comedy!

But I skipped something. Wade’s girlfriend Vanessa is killed even earlier on in the movie. What’s strange is even oblivious me knew she was a goner. Even as obvious as it was that Morena Baccarin was suspiciously sparse in all the marketing for the film, I knew she was dead when Wade showed up late to their apartment for their anniversary. It is the movie’s sad attempt to build drama and tears in a story where they do not belong. Vanessa’s death and the movie’s inconsistent tone of how Wade copes with it alerted me to the movie’s major issue. It keeps forgetting it is a comedy.

I thought we were done with Hangover 2 ripoff sequels doing exactly what their predecessors did but worse. Remember how great that opening credit sequence is in the first Deadpool? What a fantastic way for that meta film to start. But here once Vanessa is murdered and Wade quickly dashes in the streets to end her killers the movie cuts to a carbon copy credit opening. It’s not nearly as funny. I was just kinda shocked that they couldn’t come up with something new. It’s pointing out the movie’s flaws, but instead of it being funny it is just pretty lame.

What started out as a passion project for Ryan Reynolds is now just a project. There’s not much life in Deadpool 2. The first movie you could tell Reynolds poured his whole being into. It was a medium sized budget of $58 million and ran a brisk 1 hour and 49 min. Now Deadpool 2 has twice the budget with $110 million, and at a 2 hour runtime feels twice as long. If the theory that money kills comedy is right, Deadpool 2 would be up on the list to prove it.

Why spend this much money? The script is pretty weak, it is painfully apparent everyone involved assumed a sequel to the highest grossing R rated comedy of all time would be an instant hit without much effort. And they were right. As I write this, Deadpool 2 is on track to break some of the records the first one set. Does it deserve it? Not really. The $110 million budget is distracting. There is too much action and spectacle in this movie and not enough clever writing and situations. The action is mostly by the numbers and boring. In fact, much of it is needlessly dark and gratuitous. So much of the violence is over the top, but it isn’t funny or entertaining. You kinda just wince at the grossness. The way Reynolds killed people in the first movie had me roaring with laughter. Now I kinda just sat there empty and grimacing.

I’ll be honest, I did laugh sometimes in Deadpool 2. But those laughs were few and far between. Most of the humor doesn’t land, not in the way they intended it to. Reynolds grew on my nerves, and I never thought I would be sick of Wade Wilson’s self awareness. But man, sometimes he just needs to stop talking. There is such a thing as being TOO self aware. The first film worked because the humor was great, and Reynolds timing was just right. Now he lingers, he yammers on and on long after we we’re done laughing at his references.

But it ain’t just Reynolds. The movie itself goes long, loooonggg stretches of time without a joke. How is this possible? Wade and Russell end up in jail together, with choker collars on their necks to negate their superpowers. There’s a prison breakout scene where Cable comes to kill Russell that goes on forever, and all laughs disappear at the expense of mediocre action.

Let’s talk about Cable. And let’s talk about Josh Brolin. I still cannot get his Thanos out of my mind. Honestly he nailed that role and will go down as one of the best villains in history. As Cable? Meh, he’s okay. There’s not much to this character, not in this movie. He jumps back in time from the future to kill Russell in Terminator 2 esque manner. Why does he want to kill Russell? Because Russell wants to kill his Headmaster. And turns out in the future he does, and grows super sadistic and doesn’t stop killing people. And then he ends up killing Cable’s family. Does any of this sound like a comedy to you?

I knew we were in trouble when I saw the main plot involved a kid in the trailers. Whenever you see a plot center around an adolescent, the movie is probably doomed.

But oh man, guess who is in jail with Russell and Wade? And guess who ends up heading to the orphanage with Russell to kill the Headmaster? Why, it’s the Juggernaut! Do you care? I sure as hell didn’t. The Juggernaut is pathetic in this film. He is ugly and his CGI is beyond trash. And the fight scene he has with Colossus is a stupid mess, now matter how much Reynolds mocks it.

You tell me, what is great about the Juggernaut physically ripping Deadpool in half, spilling his guts everywhere upon arrival? Am I supposed to laugh at this? You may laugh at what happens with Wade’s legs after this scene, but I really didn’t. I was just extremely creeped out. Truly a “joke” aimed at shock rather than humor. I dislike lazy attempts to wow audiences like this.

But let’s continue with the story. Russell wants to kill the Headmaster. Wade assembles the X Force, a rag tag team of people with minimal superpowers to stop Cable from killing Russell. The audition scene filled all the trailers for this movie, and it is funny. But the humor is short lived when we learn of the gruesome fate of Wade’s teammates. Zazie Beetz ends up being cool as Domino, whose superpower is luck. The movie should have done a lot more with her and Peter, the random guy who strolls into Wade’s audition to join with nothing more than a chip on his shoulder.

The ending drags on forever. Russell and the Juggernaut make it back to the orphanage and find the Headmaster. Russell chases him down the halls screaming for his revenge. This is as bad as it sounds, by the way. Long story short, Cable teams up with Wade and Domino and Nega and Colossus. He gives Wade just 30 seconds to convince Russell not to become a ruthless killer once they find him. Otherwise he’ll kill Russell. This drags, man does it drag. And the music playing and the filmmakers thinking the tunes alone will carry the humor oh my god it is so fucking bad.

It is slightly touching, I suppose, the final minutes of the film. But on and on they go. Wade does save Russell but is another moment bogged down in maudlin bullshit and darkness. Pumping more unearned drama into this comedy and making us all bored to tears. But great is the moment when Wade goes in to hug Cable. And Brolin’s reaction might be the funniest in the entire movie.

Deadpool 2 should have halted production for another year for them to write a better script. And not one so unreasonably dark and useless. I had hopes from the movie’s opening shot where Reynolds is clearly making fun of how beloved Logan is, but almost immediately that was quelled. This movie is trying way to hard. You might compare these two movies like you would The Simpsons from their prime to their decline. The peak of The Simpsons marks it as the funniest show of all time. They had more gags per episode than most shows do in entire seasons, and they were effortlessly funny. But after around 2002-2003 they became stale. And the number of jokes shrank, and the ones that were there were beaten over our heads. Deadpool 2 has that same air about it, less good humor, and too much space to ruin the jokes that are there. An entire hour could have been cut easily and it would have been all the greater. And what ARE those scenes where Wade communicates with Vanessa in the afterlife? How the fuck is any of this in a Deadpool movie?

Am I crazy? Have I lost my mind again? I just wanted to laugh. And I did in Deadpool 2. But more often I sat there quiet and waiting for something funny to happen. I was bored and uninterested with most of Deadpool 2, and I did not walk into this movie with any sort of unfair expectation. There’s an amazing long take shot near the opening where Wade slaughters dozens of dudes with an axe and chainsaw in real time, while their boss outruns him in fear in slow motion in the foreground. That reminded me of the charm in the violence in the first movie, no such scene existed after that point. What a fucking shame.

The ending is made because of Brolin’s decision. But I checked out long before that point. And every frame the Headmaster and Juggernaut are onscreen will go down as some of the worst moments of 2018. One more thing, if you do decide to go, stick around for the end credits, as there is a scene that is funnier than anything in the actual film. What Reynolds ends up doing to himself I will not spoil, but it is a stroke of actual genius. How I wish that kind of attention could have been paid to the rest of the runtime.