Deadpoll 2 Movie Review: It is The Best Super-Hero Film Since Logan!

Deadpool 2

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin

Directed by David M Leich

Rating: ** ½( two and a half stars)

 If we can overlook the excessive gore ,including a scene of violence where the subversive superheroic hero is ripped into two halves,Deadpool 2 provides  more fun zones in its speedened  narrative  ambit ,  for  the uninitiated and the initiated,than  any other superhero film in recent times exceptLogan which was a different beast altogether.

Deadpool 2 like its game-changing prequel in  2016 plays  havoc with our  notions  of super-heroism. It chooses  to cut our hero down to size—literally, when he  loses  his legs.And then enjoys watching him squirm.

Ryan Reynolds enjoys  being in squirmy  situations. Anyone who can go through Green Lantern  has to be   super-hero of the squirmy stratosphere.

It wouldn’t  be way  off  the mark to call Reynolds’ character  the  King Of Squirm. Deadpool 2 is high on irony, the biggest irony being a star of Ryan Reynolds’ stature and charisma going masked , hooded and  unrecognizable to the naked eye for most of  the film. But here  is the thing: Reynolds makes the character’s squalid anonymity an  occasion for jibes and pokes at everything that we hold  sacred in the realm of  the super-hero cinema.

This is  the super-hero film that dares to subvert the genre without making  the act of  subversion seem  like  a super-heroic  feat. The secondDeadpool film is sassier,  and yes, sadder  than the first. It is not as ballsy as the first film. The daredevilry of   the  original  occasionally seems simulated  in  the  second film.

While making seemingly facetious middlefinger  jokes on circumventing the  super-hero’s super-ego, the  script—handsome and hectic as  it happens to be—also takes  time off to mediate  on love loss and  , yes,  child abuse.

The  theme theme of paedophilia runs dangerously close to a satirical mood. I think that’s  a really  risky  path for Deadpool to take. Yet the plot manages to steer  the angry abused character  of  the  mutant  boy Russell(played by Julian Dennison) into the  restricted area without forsaking the mood of farcical  heroics that runs insouciantly  through the  narrative.

Coursing through the veins  of  this vigorous anti-superhero drama are elements of deep disenchantment with the repetitive  valour  of  the super-hero genre. The team-squad that our hero  sets up to  combat  the  villain Cable(Josh Brolin)’s might, is almost like  a  joke, a  mad sad tattered version of the super-hero lineup in The Avengers, and more fun for this reason only.

Because  Deadpool doesn’t take itself seriously,I found myself more involved with its crushing blows aimed at  the genre .The solemnity of super-heroism  is ripped away , not always very effectively or smoothly. But this rough  ride is well worth our time, specially  the ‘Bollywood’ references , like Deadpool’s Indian sidekick Dopinder(played  by Karan Soni) and  the pure-lead coin gifted to the hero by his dead wife which saves  his life.Pure  Bollywood  cornball served  up with unapologetic cheekiness.

Then  there  is Ranveer Singh, dipping and  dubbing Ryan Reynolds’ smartass lines with so much colloquial colour .

 Yup, Manmohan Desai would have  loved Deadpool 2 which by the way,is far more engaging than the  first Deadpool movie.And  it makes more sense out of the chaos  of  the Marvel  universe than The Avengers.