The crass, meta, self-referential superhero Deadpool returned to theaters this past weekend with Deadpool 2. As The Ringer is wont to do—because we are a website that covers pop culture, and because you, the audience, have shown through past engagement that you enjoy this sort of thing—we submitted an exit survey to our staff, and some of them filled it out. Their thoughts on Deadpool 2 are below. Please read to the end; “time on page” is an important metric for us. (This whole “being meta” thing is fun, right?)
1. What is your tweet-length review of Deadpool 2?
Miles Surrey: Mostly a lot of fun and surprisingly small-scale—at least as much as a movie that electrocutes an invisible Brad Pitt and enlists Céline Dion for a James Bond opening title song can be.
Andrew Gruttadaro: The movie that’s “not like all the other superhero movies” is, if you look closely, a lot like all the other superhero movies.
2. What was the best moment of the movie?
Gruttadaro: When someone made fun of Canada and Ryan Reynolds got really upset.
Surrey: The gruesomely subversive introduction of the X-Force that culminates in a bloody massacre (there was a wind advisory in effect!). Of course the movie would bring a highly anticipated X-Men team to the fore, only to kill nearly every member in a manner of minutes. I’m just glad Deadpool revived my man Peter.
Peters: I’m going with the opening gag, for making me laugh, obviously, but also for making me feel extra loopy about crying during Logan.
3. What was your least favorite part of the film?
Peters: I liked the jab at dubstep; I just maaaybeeeee didn’t need to revisit it five times.
Surrey: Not even taking into account the negative effect his presence has because of his off-screen troubles, T.J. Miller’s Weasel doesn’t bring much to the film. At best he’s bespectacled background noise.
Gruttadaro: It’s very confusing that Deadpool 2 felt it necessary to kill Wade Wilson’s girlfriend in the first minutes of the movie so that there would be “emotional stakes.” No one goes to a Deadpool movie to see the character on a quest to redeem his soul; they go to see jokes about baby dicks.
Herman: After an hour of being coached to smirk at all these self-important expanded universes, the audience at my screening dutifully cheered at a two-second glimpse of Evan Peters’s Quicksilver without so much as a twinge of irony. There’s no better example of how this franchise positions itself as being superior to something it takes an active, obliging role in shoring up. I actually felt a part of my soul shrivel up and die.
4. Grade Ryan Reynolds’s performance.
Peters: A notch or two out of 10 better than his performance in the first Deadpool, which is like, 1 billion notches better than his performance in Blade: Trinity.
Gruttadaro: He gets an A. He’s really good at being 40 percent funny, 60 percent annoying.
Surrey: A. He’s clearly having the time of his life, and who can fault him for that? [whispers] I’m actually kind of excited for Detective Pikachu.
Herman: It’s not a coincidence that the role that finally made Reynolds a movie star is the role that also buries him under a mask and scar makeup. It almost doesn’t matter who plays Deadpool: the character is little more than a delivery device for an endless stream of empty posturing disguised as jokes.
5. What is the best meta joke in Deadpool 2?
Peters: Every character calling attention to the “wind advisory” so the writers could acquit themselves of killing off all the minor X-Force members in one long trombone chorus minutes later.
Gruttadaro: The idea that Deadpool wants to die because Wolverine died in Logan is actually sort of interesting. The interplay between the characters hadn’t really occurred to me, and there’s something funny about the Deadpool movies paving the way for much better and serious, but equally grotesque, superhero movies.
Surrey: The post-credits scenes, which manage to poke fun at X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds, Green Lantern, and (somewhat inadvertently) the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The only way the third Deadpool movie can top that is if each screening had theater employees dress up as Deadpool and berate you as you’re leaving the theater.
6. Wait, hang on … BRAD PITT?!
Gruttadaro: I wonder how Neri Oxman feels about this.
Surrey: Was this a very public penance for the dissolution of Brangelina?
Peters: I would’ve liked to have seen him play “War Daddy, but Funny, and From the Future,” but I’ll take it.
Herman: This fits with the “divorced dad” thing, though I find getting into Frank Ocean a better interpretation of the theme.
7. Pick a Josh Brolin: Cable or Thanos?
Gruttadaro: A month later, I still can’t believe that I was compelled by Thanos, a purple thumb with a goatee. So, even though I did like Cable—especially when he became a good guy—my vote goes to Thanos, because the level of difficulty was much higher.
Herman: I can’t believe we wasted a day of valuable internet time debating whether Thanos was hot when Ripped Silver Fox Brolin was right there for the ogling.
Peters: After a lengthy period of deliberation: yes.
Surrey: I PICK JONAH HEX.
8. Who is your favorite member of X-Force? (It is OK if this section turns into a Zazie Beetz appreciation thread.)
Gruttadaro: It is not a coincidence that Deadpool 2 gets 100 times better when Zazie Beetz’s Domino shows up.
Peters: WE NEED A DOMINO MOVIE AND THAT IS FINAL.
Surrey: These responses will (and should) be all about Domino, so let me give a quick shout-out to Peter, the wholesome normal human man who put on sunscreen before jumping out of a plane because he’s more fearful of melanoma than Cable. This dude gets it.
Herman: Rob Delaney continues to serve Hot Dad, with or without Catastrophe. (I miss Catastrophe.)
9. Does there need to be another Deadpool movie?
Peters: Don’t they have to bring back Wolverine somehow?
Herman: “Need” has about as much to do with this as actual subversion does with making some dick jokes while you punch out a generic bad guy.
Gruttadaro: LOL. There will be another one (at least an X-Force movie), so my only request is: Please don’t try to make me feel things next time.
Surrey: As long as the Superhero Industrial Complex is dominating Hollywood, I’m not opposed to more Deadpool movies to offset superhero films that take themselves a little too seriously.
