Review: Laugh out loud moments save Deadpool 2

Josj Brolin as futuristic soldier Cable in Deadpool 2. Photo: (Image: Archant)

Deadpool 2 (15)

***

Deadpool 2 is the follow up to the self-referential, fourth wall breaking, meta-super-anti-hero movie that was a surprise smash, and the title is presumably ironically unimaginative.

Zazie Beetz as Domino in Deadpool 2. Photo: Twentieth Century Fox (Image: Archant)

At one point Ryan Reynold's indestructible, immoral mutant mercenary has to recruit a gang to form the X Force. The applicants all have fairly lame names like Shatterstar and Zeitgeist because all the best superhero names have long since been taken.

If the film wanted to be really meta and knowing there'd be a figure called The Shadow Of Its Former Self, a masked hero whose still considerable powers just don't seem so special or effective anymore.

The first Deadpool was only two years ago but what was marvellously fresh and invigorating then, now seems a little old hat. Humour remains Deadpool's saving grace. There are a few dead spots when the repetitiveness of this world where every crack is wise and every ass smart cause it to drag, but there are still plenty of laugh out loud moments.

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool in sequel Deadpool 2. Photo: Twentieth Century Fox (Image: Archant)

The problem is the action. After the director of the original, Tim Miller, left due to 'creative differences' the choice of David Leitch, the uncredited co-director of John Wick and named director of Atomic Blonde, seemed like a suitably sadistic pair of hands to take over. Personally, I had no great love for Atomic Blonde, but the action and fight sequences had a beautiful flow to them.

Shockingly, the action in DP2 is generic and dull, and the effects work is extensive and second rate and there is a general softening of tone.

This is a disappointing follow up but with managed expectations, it can still be an enjoyable one.