Or, References: The Sequel.
Welcome to the next in the series unofficially titled "The Cambridge Geek Reviews A Film Everybody Else Has Already Seen".
There's been quite a few things I wanted to watch out recently, and I've got behind, since I'm the sort of terrible monster who only pops in once a week. I've also been putting Deadpool off, since I knew it was going to be on the screens for quite a long while, given the popularity of the last one.
This sequel offers more of the same, but turned up a little higher.
Deadpool is still a merc with a mouth, but finds himself having to play nicely with a team in order to defend Firefist, a mutant who Cable is trying to murder. Cable has travelled back in time to pull a Days of Future Past, making Deadpool his mortal enemy. Never a good move against someone who can't die.
Of course, Cable is hardly a pushover, having both a full armoury of future tech (especially the cool gun), and the Winter Soldier rip-off arm given to him by the techno-organic virus he's spent his entire life trying to fight off.
I enjoyed the fact that they don't explain anything about his arm, fitting in as it does with the theme of these films where half the humour is references, and some of them are nicely obscure. (I'm especially fond of the advert on the taxi.)
Starting from the Bond opening, (with a bit of sneaky Flashdance and once again the fourth-wall murdering credits), the bantery-dialogue is still impressively not annoying. We've all had a mate who talks constantly in references, and it can get more than a little irritating after a while, but this never seems to. I suspect that's mostly down to Ryan Reynolds' delivery, which is always sufficiently tongue-in-cheek that you don't mind him getting away with it.
And of course, we can't have a Deadpool film without a worryingly good cast of people who are there only for cameos. Most of them wouldn't count as actual spoilers, but on the very small chance you've not seen it yet, I won't ruin a couple of the best jokes. Or indeed some of the film's greatest "holy shit!" moments. Infinity War did a passable job of fitting in things that only the nerds would get, and would make them cheer/groan, but this film really runs with it. Hell, there's a few that I missed because I haven't seen Wolverine: Origins. (The Girl was scathing.)
Brolin as Cable is pretty damned wonderful. His angry dad from the future schtick is enjoyable, but he also manages a punishing brutality in his fights that matches Deadpool's ability to take it. The fight scenes have that viciousness you expect when supers fight, but often don't get to this nastiness. X-Force are fairly fun too. The most obviously powerful is Domino, who can match Wade at his own game, and whose power of luck allows for some stupidly convoluted fight and chase scenes, with pleasant silliness in the Rube Goldberg nature of her schemes. It's not always helped by the slightly dodgy CGI (looking at you, Colossus), but generally choreographed well, and with a fun amount of carnage.
Absolute highlight though has to be some of the ludicrous dialogue. From such treats as 'The baby factory's open for business', to 'You're so dark, you could be from the DC universe' it's always damned funny.
I don't know how they manage it, but these are still easily the best films the MCU are bringing out, and any Marvel fan should watch it.
Tagged: Film Action comedy Marvel Fiction Cinema