08 Jun Why Deadpool 2 is the Greatest Superhero Movie Of All Time
Why Deadpool 2 is the Greatest Superhero Movie of all Time
June 8, 2018
[First, there will be no spoilers in this week’s post. You may read on without fear.]
[Second, this discussion excludes The Dark Knight. For now, The Dark Knight is untouchable. Every other superhero movie is in the mix, though. On to the post…]
Movies matter.
If they didn’t, why would people all over the world spend billions of dollars going to see the good ones?
They provide distraction from tough times and entertainment for good times.
A good movie offers blissful punctuation to a first date and escalates a good night into a great one.
Sharing a good movie with the person you’re with and with other happy strangers is a better experience than doing it on your own.
And since superhero movies are the only movies people seem to care about anymore, finding the best ones in that genre becomes an important task, indeed.
Our happiness is on the line. The best superhero movie elevates our lives. A bad one can lead to this.
Recently, I saw Deadpool 2. It was spectacular.
So spectacular, in fact, that I think it might be the greatest superhero movie of all time. Here are my reasons why:
1) It’s laugh-out-loud funny. I’ve never typed the letters “LOL” in my life and I don’t intend to start now, but Deadpool 2 made me laugh out loud many times. It’s really funny. How funny? It’s been called the Step Brothers of its generation. THAT funny. Some people might say Thor: Ragnarok was the funniest. Those people would be wrong.
2) The self-awareness. Since the beginning, we’ve been forced to suspend our disbelief in order to make it through a superhero show. They’re superheroes, after all. It’s not real. But let’s be honest: we’ve had to stomach a lot of idiotic things in our quest for superhero entertainment. But then Iron Man came around and we had someone who understood where we were coming from. Tony Stark was in it with us, which is why that movie was so great. Deadpool 2 is that on a whole new level, and it’s fantastic.
3) It makes fun of superhero landings. This isn’t a spoiler because this happened in the first Deadpool. But this acknowledgement from the movie is so much fun. Why did everyone just decide that heroes land this way? No good reason, that’s why. And making fun of that creates a connection between us and the movie that no other movie has achieved–ever.
4) The serious parts actually add to the movie. Personally, I deeply dislike movies that try to feign legitimacy by throwing in a serious part. “Hey, look everyone, I’m a quality movie because I have a serious, quasi-sad part.” It’s insulting and annoying. Just give me the action and shut the heck up. But Deadpool 2 gets serious ever-so-briefly and it’s absolutely integral to the rest of the movie. It matters and it’s touching. No other movie walks the line of irreverent and poignant quite like Deadpool 2 does. It’s not even close.
5) It’s better (slightly) than Deadpool. The original was great but was a shock to the system. It was so different than all the other superhero films. But the second one did it even better. The fight scenes were a little bit better. The jokes were a little bit funnier. The characters were all a little more interesting. Plus we didn’t have to waste any time with the origin story. We could just get right into it. Almost every sequel is worse than the first. This one was better–and better than every other superhero movie at the same time.
6) It introduces the best female superhero character to date. Wonder Woman fell short (thanks to whoever was writing for Gal Gadot, who tried to make the most of it). Black Widow is ancillary at best (again, no fault of Ms. Johansson). Elektra? Yikes. Catwoman? No comment.
But Lucky is phenomenal. She goes line-for-line with Deadpool and effortlessly steals scenes. She’s legitimately funny. She’s believable in her role even though her role is completely undefined. I’m happy when she’s on screen and sad when she’s not.
I will definitely be there if Lucky gets her own spin-off. Her performance was an amazing job performed by an excellent actress who was given writing worthy of her skills.
So if you’re looking for something to do, go see Deadpool 2.
In the world of superhero movies, it doesn’t get better than that.
My book is called The Inevitability of Becoming Rich, and you can find that here.