DEADPOOL 2

I loved DEADPOOL - the dark humour, the self-awareness, the bloody violence, and the surprisingly mushy love story at its heart.  And I can happily say that DEADPOOL 2 lives up to the promise of the first film, while giving the protagonist a motley crew of superhero buddies and poking even more fun at superhero films, its own actors, and everything else.

The movie opens with our cynical wise-cracking mutant hero murdering bad guys for pay before going home to his beloved wife who is murdered in turn.  Being worthy of meeting her in heaven motivates the otherwise self-interested Deadpool to try to save an angry young mutant called Firefist (Julian Dennison who could easily be Rebel Wilson's kid brother such are his looks and facility for comedy).  Deadpool has to do this in opposition to time-travelling tough guy Cable (a ridiculously ripped Josh Brolin), who just wants to kill Firefist to prevent  him wreaking havoc in future.  Along the way, Deadpool picks up a new super-lucky mutant friend called Domino - a charismatic scene stealing performance from ATLANTA's Zazie Beetz - while hooking up with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead from the first film, as well as her girlfriend Yukio.

What I love about this film is that while it has a filthy sense of humour it really does have a heart. It really is about family and reaching out to people. And it's values are rock solid. Not just in the classic mutant universe as a metaphor for civil rights way. But in making a point about having a protagonist who is plus sized, a teenage lesbian relationship, and a strong black female lead.  The film is also clever. The way in which it uses time travel is neat, and all of its jokes hit their mark, getting particularly meta in the credits sequence, and with a fantastic use of music. 

Having tired of the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, I can honestly say I'm genuinely looking forward to DEADPOOL 3!

DEADPOOL has a running time of 119 minutes and is rated R. It is global release.

A partial review of LIFE

I walked into LIFE thinking it would be a GRAVITY like intelligent sci-film with an A-list cast and great visuals.  Actually what I got was a movie far closer to ALIEN - sleek, well-acted, but basically a derivative horror film. And as I don't do well with horror films, I left after the first hour.

Still for what it's worth, the movie rolls like this:  we're in the International Space Station and the action starts in media res.  Ryan Reynolds plays the character he always plays - a wise-ass cocky man who is highly skilled at something and ultimately has a heart of gold. In this case, Ryan/Rory is rescuing a set of soil samples from Mars that a previous astronaut suspected might contains microscopic living cells.  Back on board, Rory hands the soil over to scientist Hugh (Ariyon Bakare - JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL) who is delighted to discover a micro-organism that he lovingly tends until it grows to the size of a playful little starfish like creature that could sit in the palm of your hand.  Naturally, LIFE is not going to be about how this new alien species and humanity learn to love each other. Very quickly the alien beastie, nicknamed Calvin, goes into hostile survival mode, and all the carefully set-up CDC security measures designed by Miranda (Rebecca Ferguson - THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN).  It escapes out of the lab and into the ship, and the rest is an ALIEN style hunter-prey thriller.  

Of the cast, the Russian and Japanese crewmembers (Olga Dihovichnaya and Hiroyuki Sanada) are actually among the most compelling - with a deeply ethical arc to play out and the emotional resonance of a family back home respectively.  Bakare is also impressive as the biologist who has the most sympathy for Calvin's survival instinct. But Reynolds barely moves beyond self-parody, Ferguson is under-used and Jake Gyllenhaal is under-drawn as the kind of nice, banal, everyman figure.  Nonetheless, this film has the makings of something great given its superb cinematography from DP Seamus McGarvey (NOCTURNAL ANIMALS) and elegantly choreographed space sequences from Director Daniel Espinosa (CHILD 44).  It's just a shame that the basic story is such a predictably derivative version of a justifiably classic space-horror.  For that, we have DEADPOOL writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese to blame. 

LIFE has a running time of 103 minutes and is rated R. The movie is on global release everywhere but South Korea, where it opens on April 6th; France, Brazil and Greece where it opens on April 20th and Japan where it opens on July 8th. 

DEADPOOL

DEADPOOL is the most knowing and self-aware comic book movie to date. It satirises the conventions of the genre, breaks the fourth wall, and has its characters refer to actors in other comic book movies in media res.  This is meta-film-making beyond anything WATCHMEN or KICK-ASS have attempted.  The result is a movie that is hilariously laugh-out loud funny, but much much darker than the typical Marvel fare. Because Deadpool/Wade is NOT a superhero. He starts off as a mercenary who's suckered into trying a weird experimental treatment to cure his cancer.  But it turns out an evil villain called Francis aka Ajax is going to torture Wade to the point where his genes mutate and then sell him as an evil super-soldier.  Wade does mutate and assume awesome healing powers and ninja skills but his whole body also gets fried.  He escapes, becomes Deadpool, and goes on an epic vigilante killing spree to find Francis, in the hope that he will reverse the pizza-face side-effects so that Wade can be reunited with his fiancee.  

Throughout all of this, Wade/Deadpool chats to us directly and gives us a witty commentary on all his actions. He continuously declares that he isn't a superhero and refuses to become an X-Man despite being an artificially created mutant.  And the comedy is crude to say the least.  What's really amazing - and kudos to the writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (ZOMBIELAND) - is that despite all this meta-comedy the movie still has heart.  Despite all the rude jokes, I absolutely cared about Wade, and felt sympathy for his predicament and believed in the love story that motivates him. 

So kudos to all involved. Most especially the writers, but also director Tim Miller in his debut feature for pulling off some fantastic action set-pieces but also committing to the gonzo dark comedy in the first place.  But ultimately this is a Ryan Reynolds movie.  And just like Robert Downey Junior in IRON MAN one can't imagine this movie without his Van Wilder patter.  The supporting cast is also very able including a number of unknowns - from the original Daario Naharis Ed Skrein as Ajax, to Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead.   I can't wait to see the film again and catch up on all the jokes I missed on the first viewing.

DEADPOOL has a running time of 108 minutes and is rated R. The movie is on global release.