Deadpool 2 review round-up: Critics praise Ryan Reynolds sequel as 'better than first'

However, one major publication called the movie 'tedious and predicatble'

Following positive initial online reaction on social media, the full Deadpool 2 reviews have finally found their way online

With 55 reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes, the sequel has an 85 percent positive rating, averaging a score of 7.2/10.

British Press seemed to be reasonably impressed by the Ryan Reynolds-starring superhero flick, The Times and Empire both awarding four stars, while The Telegraph and Guardian went with three.

Hollywood magazines are slightly more divided, Entertainment Weekly and IndieWire offering B ratings, Variety giving a middling response, and LA Times and Vulture offering negative reviews (the latter calling the film "tedious and predicatble").

The general consensus from all verdicts – both positive and negative – seems to be that Deadpool 2 gives more of the same (at times better) meta-jokes, action, and excitement as the first Deadpool outing.

Seeing as that R-rated blockbuster managed to break box-office records, we can likely expect another huge taking here. Read snippets from the reviews below. Deadpool 2 is in select UK cinemas now.

The Times – Ed Potton – 4/5

He’s back and he’s as hilarious, homicidal and outrageous as ever, although maybe a little mushier. Played with relish by Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool is the Marvel superhero for grown-ups (plus teenagers with a high tolerance for decapitation, swearing and dildo references).

Empire – John Nugent – 4/5

Despite the swollen ensemble, it’s still Reynolds’ show. Whether slicing up scoundrels in a pair of stilettos, or embarking on the most ballsy Basic Instinct gag ever committed to screen, this cements Deadpool as his defining role; and paired with John Wick’s David Leitch in the director’s chair, the action feels more muscular and ingenious. We’d say it’s the rare sequel that surpasses the original — but as Deadpool would put it: “That’s just lazy writing.”

The Telegraph – Helen O’Hara – 3/5

While most superheroes are rather po-faced do-gooders, Deadpool offers something more irreverent, more grotesque in its humour and – with his withering asides direct to the audience – more knowing. For this sequel, Ryan Reynolds and company have doubled down on what worked in their 2016 super(anti)hero hit, sometimes to the point of exhaustion.

The Guardian – Steve Rose – 3/5

Snappy, self-aware, fourth-wall-breaking lines like flow fast and rarely miss their targets in the ensuing adventure. The lines between good guys and bad guys are refreshingly blurred, and the movie is at its funniest when it genuinely subverts the formula... But there are still boxes to tick in terms of moral lessons about guilt, revenge and “family”. Not to mention regular crash-bang action set pieces.

Entertainment Weekly – Leah Greenblatt – B

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: a mega dose of meta (or is it a meta dose of mega?) rolled in radioactive goo and stuffed inside a cinematic piñata of fourth-wall breaks, severed limbs, and Yentl jokes.

IndieWire – Kate Erbland - B

It’s rough going at first. The first act rips by at a frenetic, uneven pace, hopscotching through at least four different set-ups that could spawn its own full-length feature. As soon as it seems that Deadpool has settled into one path, Deadpool 2 zings off on another tangent. By the time the film settles into its primary storyline, the narrative suffers from a certain amount of whiplash, and it’s only after about another 20 minutes that the audience has some sense of where the hell this is going.

Variety – Andrew Barker

At its best, the film resembles an ultraviolent Looney Tunes spinoff, with Reynolds once again going full Bugs Bunny behind either a mask or a mountain of makeup... 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.

Los Angeles Times – Jen Yamato

Your mileage will vary depending on how much patience you have for Deadpool’s tireless antics and how easily you are entertained by limb-severing, body-battering physical humor, the relentless parade of blue jokes about pranking coworkers with bodily fluids, infant genitalia, and the Human Centipede movies, and the spectacle of Reynolds flaming himself over how much Green Lantern sucked.

Vulture – David Edelstein

In my (favorable) review of the first Deadpool, I estimated that 50 percent of jokes hit home, another 30 whizzed by inoffensively, and only 20 percent were real stinkers. In Deadpool 2, the percentages are reversed. A small number of the gags land, among them a riotously tasteless parachute assault by an ad hoc team of second-tier superheroes. And I can never get enough digs — however limp — at the idea that all superhero mothers are named Martha. But there are so many wincers for so ramshackle a plot.