Deadpool, for me, brings to mind a particular joke from a classic Looney Tunes cartoon. In it, a struggling Daffy Duck attempts to upstage Bugs Bunny to prove he is the star of a talent show. After several attempts in which he fails to impress, Daffy announces it’s time for his greatest trick of all. He drinks a jug of nitroglycerine and several bottles of alcohol, then swallows a lit match. Kaboom. Bugs is floored and says that was the greatest act he’s ever seen. Daffy’s semi-transparent ghost floats toward the ceiling and he replies, “I know, but I can only do it once.”
Deadpool is not a bad movie. It’s easily the most fearless superhero movie since the MCU became a regular part of our lives. It’s the kind of movie that allowed itself to go balls-to-the-wall because they didn’t think they’d get a sequel out of it. Also, the only way to make a Deadpool movie work is to make it over-the-top, gonzo, and in your face with a sense of nothing to lose — just like the title character.
But, in my opinion, it only works once as a film.
The law of diminishing comedic returns has never been so perfectly exemplified as it is with Deadpool. Tim Miller makes the tragic error of making a movie work so well that it doesn’t work at all. The first time I saw Deadpool, I was enamored with it. I thought it was virtually beyond criticism by the sheer virtue, and nerve of its opening credits. After all, how are you supposed to critique or criticize something that points out its own flaws without missing the joke entirely?
Then I saw it again. This time I knew the jokes as they were coming, but I still laughed. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to believe it was just as good the second time. I’ve always had a hard time with comedies because there are so few that manage to stay funny on the merit of their writing and acting. I was in denial, but the spell had broken. Every time I watched Deadpool after that, I was laughing less. And less. Until the last time I caught it 25 minutes in on HBO and didn’t laugh at all. Not once.
And the glass just shattered.
Without its jokes, Deadpool has nothing. Yes, it has a more-charismatic-than-God performance by Ryan Reynolds. However, that charisma really only holds up on first viewing as the wit, and humor lose its luster on repeat viewing. If there were no jokes, Deadpool is the paint-by-numbers, and dare I say it, cliché story it laughs at itself for being. Look at the cast. God’s perfect idiot. A hot chick. A British villain. A moody teen. You get the picture. All of it underlined with dick jokes and pop culture references and various body humor gags that wouldn’t feel comfortable anywhere outside a frat house.
And sure, Deadpool did take full advantage of the opportunity to be the first R-Rated superhero movie (in the current superhero movie renaissance). It had carte blanche in regards to language and sexual content. But, if you look under the hood of Deadpool, there’s nothing there but a disposable 110 minute film.
I don’t feel invested in anything on screen. Deadpool as a character is as unrelatable as he is wacky. His chemistry with Morena Baccarin is self-evident, but as the motivator for an antihero, their romance feels as though it could have been replaced with any trope from an ’80s movie to get us from point A to B. Ajax is a blank slate, and his big “gotcha” moment — where he says he lied about being able to fix Wade’s face — is as underwhelming as a villain moment can possibly be. Even the two discount X-Men, while providing some variety, are one-dimensional shells only there for Deadpool to bounce off of and react to.
And before anyone says it, no, none of this is “the point.” If it was, there would be a more concerted effort to view the film through a tongue-in-cheek lens instead of taking its key moments seriously and thinly disguising its shortcomings with one-liners and throwaway jokes. It finds its moments of bad writing and budgetary limitation and has Ryan Reynolds say something snappy about it. It uses self-deprecation to mask bad writing.
I’m not saying Deadpool 2 can’t or even won’t be good. The feasibility of the R-rated superhero has been demonstrated. Director David Leitch has a real budget to work with here. So, this could definitely be a solid movie. However, there needs to be more here than flashy, shallow humor, and the same sins of the first movie.
Deadpool is a great character with a lot of great stories in his history. With impending Fox/Disney deal there may be even more stories to be told. However, for the longevity of the franchise, and the potential for greatness the Deadpool cannon holds, there has to be better writing. Every great comedy achieves its creative apex by implementing humor to help tell its story, as opposed to distracting from a fundamental lack thereof. It is essential Deadpool 2 understands this.
Otherwise, the schtick that managed to work the last time is going to fall on a lot of deaf ears. Audiences will see right through the facade and remember why no executive at Fox wanted to make a Deadpool movie for decades in the first place. It was a great work of misdirection to prove the concept, squeeze out a roaringly successful superhero comedy and make its money back. But you can only do it once.
