Deadpool 2 is now so close we can almost smell the gunpowder wafting up from Wade’s dual pistols.
Pegged to hit U.S. theaters on May 18th – May 15th for those across the pond – the David Leitch-directed sequel has already been pitched as a family drama masquerading as a comic book movie, while last night brought new intel regarding the film’s super-secret cameo.
Overall, though, the general consensus appears to be that Deadpool 2 has delivered on expectations, and Rotten Tomatoes has now crunched the numbers to reveal that after 79 reviews counted, the Merc’s second coming currently sits at an impressive 84 percent on the Tomatometer. Expect that number to change as more verdicts are counted, but at the moment, Deadpool 2‘s score is currently higher than that of the original movie (83 percent), with RT’s round-up noting:
Though it threatens to buckle under the weight of its meta gags, Deadpool 2 is a gory, gleeful lampoon of the superhero genre buoyed by Ryan Reynolds’ undeniable charm.
And if that wasn’t enough, we’ve scoured the four corners of the Internet to round up a small sampling of the Deadpool 2 reviews, beginning with our own:
WGTC: Deadpool 2 is an overstuffed cinematic burrito of raunchy insults, dismembering violence and a “no f#*ks given” attitude that’s ready to burst at any second, but somehow holds together bite after enjoyable bite.
Collider: Deadpool 2 is a weird movie. On the one hand, it’s the film you expect it to be: raunchy jokes flying at you non-stop paired with gory violence… But on the other hand, buried beneath all the F-bombs and superhero references is a real story about Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) learning to fight for someone other than himself and opening up his heart. It’s the kind of earnest storytelling that the rest of the movie would seem all-too-eager to mock. This gives Deadpool 2 a case of tonal whiplash where you’re laughing hysterically at the devil-may-care jokes only to have to pump the brakes and care about Deadpool’s emotional arc.
TheWrap: The best comedy sequels, like “22 Jump Street,” give you the same stuff all over again, only upping the ante so as to justify their existence. And somewhere in the middle lies “Deadpool 2,” which never betrays the promise of the first film; it just doesn’t build on it, choosing instead to replay the greatest hits. If you’re a fan of those hits, of course, then you’ll enjoy this encore, but anyone who wasn’t amused by the first go-round isn’t going to hop on board for this entertaining but by-the-numbers do-over.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, mind you, as some critics have called out Deadpool 2 for being a smug, “smirky, feature-length meme generator.”
Variety: At its best, the film resembles nothing less than an ultraviolent Looney Toons spinoff, with Reynolds once again going full Bugs Bunny behind either a mask or a mountain of makeup – his extremities all akimbo, his rapid-fire comic patter usually landing on just the right side of obnoxiousness. At its worst, there’s something mustily mid-’90s about its self-congratulatory rudeness, its sensibilities lying somewhere between a Farrelly brothers film and a Mountain Dew commercial… No matter how far “Deadpool 2” thinks it’s pushing boundaries, it makes sure that even when a gag falls flat, the joke is always on you.
EW: Deadpool 2 might not be exactly the sequel we need, but it feels like the one we deserve. If the first outing was a scrappy, self-referential riff on the noble tropes of superherodom, the second is all that again, squared… There’s a numbing sameness to the casual bloodshed here that makes the viewer almost long for the relative calm of the first film’s lengthy pop culture digressions. It’s in Deadpool’s DNA to channel the wild id of a 12-year-old boy — a very clever one who happens to love boobs, Enya, and blowing stuff up. Which is dizzy fun for a while, like eating Twinkies on a Gravitron. Eventually, though, it just wears you out.
And one more, just for good measure:
/Film: Much like its predecessor, Deadpool 2 is less a movie than a smirky, feature-length meme generator. Though the sequel has a new director and some new cast members, Deadpool 2 is unsurprisingly doubling down on what made the first film such a big hit, including jokes about exactly how big of a hit at the box office it was, as well as plenty of other fourth-wall-breaking moments. Considering that the original was successful, it’s somewhat predictable that this sequel is going to the same well of snark and glib ultra-violence, but this is just as obnoxious as its predecessor, if not more so.
Deadpool 2 opens big on May 18th. How big, you ask? Try $150 million in North America alone, which ought to be enough for Fox’s follow-up to secure the title of being the biggest R-rated opening of all time.