Deadpool 2

This was always going to be a chancer, but Ryan Reynolds and co. have managed to pull it off … but only just.

First, the good: the film is funny. It’s very funny. Not as funny as the first one, but still gets a few good laughs through a two hour stretch that could have done with being a little more pacey in places. Reynolds relies a lot on breaking the fourth wall to keep the smirks coming, but I think the trick doesn’t work quite as well as it did in the first outing.

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And the film is good. Well … when I say good, I mean that it knocks the spots off anything the DC Universe has produced to date, but when compared with the rest of the Marvel/Sony collection, I’d say its sailing near the lower-middle of the pack.

Okay, Ryan Reynolds was obviously born to play Deadpool and Josh Brolin turned in a creditable performance as Cable, though it was probably a little more intense than I was expecting. Zazie Beetz (no, I have no idea who she is) was really good as Domino, which again was something of a surprise because I’m assuming this isn’t her day job.

The script was okay, but it lacked the relaxed, anarchic feel of the first outing. I got the impression that writers were out to prove that the phenomenal success Deadpool 1 wasn’t a fluke, and as a result they ended up trying too hard. Some of the humour seemed forced, and some of the sequences leading up to the joke were a little contrived. The plot bounced all over the place, occasionally flying off on blind tangents,just about holding the story together, but not always keeping the audience interested.

A nod to the action sequences though: some of the best fight scenes I’ve seen on screen; just a pity there weren’t more of them.

If you’re a fan and you liked the first one, then definitely see the sequel. If you’re kind of on the fence about the whole Deadpool thing then you might be a little disappointed. It’s a good movie; I just expected better.

Six out of ten.

Spider-man: Homecoming

Oh wow.

Well, this one ticked all the boxes and then some. This is the best one from the Marvel Studios so far. It isn’t so much a question of what they did right: more like how did they manage to get everything so right. The script was tight, light and laden with with comedy, awkwardness and surprisingly sad moments which captured perfectly the best and worst parts about growing up. And that’s what this movie was about: growing up, standing tall and taking responsibility for your own screw-ups.

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Film Review: Suicide Squad

Well, it’s here: the most hyped superhero movie of the past decade. Having faced critical drubbings for its last few outings, DC had to make Suicide Squad work. The premise was slightly different from the usual superhero flicks (or so we were told): the squad is made up of criminals and sociopaths brought together to form an expendable, deniable team designed to fight ‘metahuman’ threats in return for money and/or time off their multiple life sentences.What can possibly go wrong?

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Well, let’s start with the script…

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