So, just when you thought superhero hype was over, along
comes Deadpool. The first one, at the time, did feel like a refreshing breath
of air compared to DC trying to turn everything into a grey-filtered mess of
angst and Marvel generally playing it safe for mass audiences from Beijing to
Boston, in that it was a superhero film taking the piss out of itself. And while
pisstake superhero films have been done, they generally tended to be either
fairly obscure or weirdly undecided, like 2008’s Hancock. So, all that out of
the way, does the second outing of the Merc with the Mouth hit the mark?
It does…albeit a bit longer to do so than the first.
Obviously it doesn’t feel as fresh, and in all honesty, for me, the first third
was amusing but didn’t get some real good laughs. Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson continues to chop
up bad guys and spout one-liners, we get some…developments with his girlfriend
Vanessa, and there’s the title sequence with a million pop culture references
stuck in. The X-Men appear to get a middle finger thrust their direction while
our favorite antihero channelling Spiderman with SMGs does his thing. So far so
fine, but a lot of it carried déjà vu.
Eventually, we get our real antagonist in the form of Cable,
and from there on out, we get some stuff that people who are familiar with the
B-grade characters of the X-Men or crappy 90s comics will get a kick out of.
And I know both, because I’m sad. In any case, Cable was the result of that one
era in comics when a certain artist called Rob Liefeld had his style—namely
that of overmuscled freaks toting ludicrous unworkable guns and snarling about
rivers of fear and the strength of blood in a gun or somesuch crap—absolutely
everywhere, and boy is it good to have it be really eviscerated. You may also
remember him from the classic 90s era X-Men cartoon, where he’d turn up to growl
various dire warnings from the future while the rest of the characters
presumably mentally begged him to shut the hell up.
 |
| OH DEAR GOD THE HORROR. I MEAN LOOK AT THE SIZE OF HIS HEAD AND HIS TORSO. AND IS THAT A GUN OR A GIANT COLONOSCOPY DEVICE?! |
As such, in some ways, Cable is done spot on here. And from
there, we get some more subtle jabs at the Avengers and Marvel’s crossovers as
Deadpool forms his own team to combat him, mostly consisting of aforementioned
B-listers from the 90s you’ve never heard of and a newcomer or two. That newcomer
being a middle-aged man with a mustache. But once the X-Force is jumping out of
a helicopter to AC/DC, about halfway through, that’s when things really picked
up and I began laughing out loud. Let’s just say that seeing a crappy 90s-era
character being killed by his own ludicrous 90s-era comic book hair is
something that the likes of me will get a real kick out of. There are some other
parts that drag, however, and some jokes that do fall flat. But, as in the
style of the classics, there’s a dozen a minute to compensate.
Other than that, it’s pretty much what you’d expect—they do
try to drive some drama with Deadpool on a personal quest, but it does feel
sort of incidental. The action is definitely on a much higher budget than the
first, and the ending fight is certainly one that shows off all the CG mayhem
that comes with that, from electrocuted butt cheeks to minions crushed by
falling beds. There’s not much to discuss about cinematography or anything, but
I will admit I had more fun with the manic mid-act car chase than I did with
most big ending smorgasbords you have in Marvel.
All in all, yeah, if you liked the first, this is a case of
More Of That. Not as new, and for me personally it took longer to get kicking,
but I got some laughs, and there’s definitely a boost on the easter eggs for
geeks. So, if you grew up on the old classic X-Men show and wanted Cable to get
punched real bad, well, this one might just be a treat.
Comments
Post a Comment