For a franchise that claims to be subversive and clever, Deadpool 2 is loaded with tropes and elements common throughout the superhero genre. The old idea that a sequel needs to be the first movie but more is in full effect. Odds are, if you loved the first film, or haven’t quite grown out of the comic book version’s comedic style, you will love this installment. However, it is practically filled to the brim with poor writing.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect will be in the way the writers rely heavily on the sexist “women in refrigerators” trope. A term coined in the late ’90s, it describes the narrative device of killing a male protagonist’s girlfriend to provide motivation for him in fiction. It’s heyday might have been a couple decades ago, but the trope is still alive and well today. It permeates all media, not just comics. They killed off Gwen Stacy to motivate Peter Parker in Spider-man comics. They killed off Adrian to motivate Rocky in the film Rocky Balboa. They killed off Sarah and Tess to motivate Joel in the video game The Last of Us. It’s true that killing off characters to motivate a protagonist isn’t exclusive to female characters, but it tends to happen more frequently for the women.

Deadpool 2 is so caught up in the trope that they do it twice. First, they kill Deadpool’s girlfriend within the first fifteen minutes of the film. That provides the central motivation for Deadpool throughout the entire film. Then later, they use it as motivation for Cable, who jumps back in time to kill the guy who would go on to kill his wife and daughter. Three women were sacrificed to motivate two men.

The writers claim they didn’t know about the trope, and said it never occurred to them that that might be an issue. This seems a dubious claim given that immediately following Vanessa’s murder, the opening titles crawl with text essentially calling attention to how messed up that is. “What the fuck?” reads one of them.

For some, the text of the titles might appear to call out this trope. Killing off the girlfriend is a common thing, and it is indeed kind of warped. Some might argue this is Deadpool 2 being “subversive” or mocking that very trope. The problem with this, however, is that it doesn’t change the fact that the trope is used literally twice throughout the entire film. They might mock it, but they completely embraced and ran with it. This is not making any sort of commentary about the trope, and the film overall has nothing worthwhile to say about. Instead, they just lampshade the issue.

In an interview, the writing team argued that they just wanted to find some motivation for Deadpool. They said that originally, Vanessa was never killed, but decided to have her die early because Deadpool is suffering. Apart from how strange it is to frequently use the death of women as motivation for male characters, it also is just plainly lazy writing. According to the creative team, the original script called for Vanessa to dump the Merc with a Mouth, but decided that wasn’t cruel enough. So, they decided to just remove her from the equation. It shows a lack of creativity as it pertains to writing female characters (since they can’t figure out any role for her besides the object that Deadpool wants to obtain or maintain) and to male characters (since apparently men are only motivated by their desire to possess a woman). Not to mention, they decided it would be better to give Vanessa less agency.

These comments are incredibly off-putting, especially when it comes to the character of Deadpool. For a character that is absurd, silly, and immature, they could have easily told a similar story centered on a simple thing like, say, his desire to join the X-Men and facing constant rejection. It’s low stakes, sure, but provides motivation, conflict, some drama, and plenty of opportunities for humor, which is the gist of what fans like about the character. Instead, they made the plot serious and dark.

The film attempts to call itself out for that, too. At one point, Cable makes a comment that gets the response, “You are so dark! You must be from the DC cinematic universe!”

Audiences might laugh. After all, the DC universe has been notoriously dark and has been frequently mocked for being such. Yet Deadpool 2 opts to retain that same level of darkness. Again, this is an example of lamp shading. The writers apparently figured that they could tell a really dark story that involves the murder of several women and the torture of children, then throw in a character whose every line is a bad joke and some comedic, graphic violence, and say the film is “fun” or “light.” Yet that is not how it works.

Indeed, the focus on a dark story creates an incredible tone problem within the film. At times, it all works out. The extended sequence in which Deadpool and Weasel assemble a team and conduct a poorly executed air drop to rescue Firefist. Most of these scenes work well within the confines of a lighter, more comedic film. Yet it is book-ended by serious scenes, and the film is occasionally interrupted with an odd, far too serious dream sequence. Viewers might get whiplash from the quick turnaround in which Cable is talking about his murdered wife and kids to whatever pop culture reference Deadpool spouts out next. It is hard to take a character that is inherently designed to only be comedic and put him in a dark story designed to be taken seriously. It doesn’t really work.

We should take a moment to talk about his sense of humor, too. While it’s in character for Deadpool to quickly dart from pop culture reference to pop culture reference, it’s just another example of how exhausting he can be. All art is subjective, but few seem to be as subjective as comedy. This will obviously vary from person to person, but for me, the sense of humor in Deadpool 2 is some of the worst and laziest comedic writing. The over-reliance on references is, in my view, problematic.

That is not to say all of the jokes are bad. Most of the stuff with Rob Delaney is solid and well executed. One of the strongest moments of comedy writing occurs just after that when Cable and Deadpool fight on the truck. Cable fires off a round which Deadpool coolly slices through with his blade. Then, Cable fires a bunch of rounds while Deadpool swings his katanas around, appearing to cut them all and look really impressive. After a pause, we see a bunch of bullet holes in Deadpool’s outfit, followed by, “Ouch,” and then the two go back to fisticuffs.

This is an excellent bit. First off, it is – for a Deadpool movie – a shockingly well-executed piece of visual comedy. Even though we can’t actually see him slicing through bullets, the camera placement and actor motion clearly implies he is doing just that. It relies on the audience’s visual literacy to understand what is implied. The holes in the costume are a great non-verbal punchline, and it is followed with a great delivery from Ryan Reynolds. On top of that, the sequence is itself a callback to one in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in which Reynolds portraying Deadpool in that film does something exactly like this. For pop culture fans who spot that reference, it’s a neat little reward and accentuates the gag. However, one is not required to have seen that film, nor recall it, to get the base of the joke. Good comedy.

However, the overwhelming majority of jokes are just Deadpool tossing out crude one-liners with other references. He makes fun of Hawkeye at one point, which gets a laugh because…uh…I mean, I guess he made fun of another Marvel property, so, cool. He takes a jab at Logan, and I guess it’s funny when a character in a movie acknowledges the existence of another movie? He references Patrick Stewart, which somehow gets a laugh even though there was nothing about the structure of that line that is a “joke.” It’s lazy comedy, akin to a bunch of dick jokes, or things designed to offend and get a reaction as the source of its humor. Frankly, Deadpool is at his best when he is sharing focus with another character (like the Cable & Deadpool comic), or he is part of a team (like X-Force). It is no surprise then that the longest stretch in which Deadpool 2 is fine is when he is teamed up with Domino and, later, Cable.

There really isn’t anything all that interesting about Deadpool 2 in any sort of cinematic way either. It claims to be subversive and flip the genre on its head, but it is structurally identical to any other superhero movie that’s ever been made. Deadpool gets a traditional, tried-and-true character arc. It uses a cliche source of motivation. It hits the same action beats that every other superhero film hits. Sure, Wade Wilson breaks the fourth wall a lot more, but that in itself isn’t subversive. Because they don’t do anything to actually separate itself from other superhero fare (besides curse more and use harder language), it doesn’t use that fourth-wall breaking to say anything meaningful.

Of course, there are a few highlights to the film. Zazie Beetz shines as Domino, the mutant with the power of “luck.” And Julian Dennison is great as Firefist, the troubled, awkward quasi-villain of the film. And, sure, some of the action is pretty solid. Brolin is fine as Cable, but that doesn’t really mean anything until the final act, when he is actually allowed to play off of Reynold’s accurately unbearable Deadpool. It’s also always nice seeing Rob Delaney show up, especially with a goofy, beautiful mustache.

Unfortunately, everything else about Deadpool 2 is just tedious and draining. It’s exhausting and boring all at once. And the creative team is nowhere near as clever as they like to think they are.

REDUCTIVE RATING:  Kinda bad.