I watched the first Deadpool on a Valentine’s Day weekend when my ex (who wasn’t then my ex) had skipped town. It was extremely cold that weekend, like dangerous, don’t expose skin for more than a few minutes cold.

I was feeling down and Deadpool was exactly what I needed. I went in with low expectations. I didn’t know the story or the character. (A repeat of the circumstances in which I watched the first Iron Man which I also thoroughly enjoyed.)

I was kind of amazed that it all worked. The self referential opening sequence, Ryan Reynolds breaking the fourth wall and basically doing his diluted Jim Carey schtick that isn’t even Van Wilder Ryan Reynolds, it’s Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place Ryan Reynolds and that’s my favorite Ryan Reynolds.

When it came on cable, I watched it over and over. It might still be on my DVR.

It would be hard for another Deadpool to live up to that and Deadpool 2 did not.

I had one criticism of Black Panther and that was that there was so much covered in that movie that they had to have entire character and plot arcs resolve themselves far too fast. Deadpool 2 suffered from the same thing, only it felt more muddled and it didn’t introduce us to an amazing alternate nation in Wakanda.

So, we had Firefist who was a cool character but he seemed a little Cousin Oliver* to me. I don’t remember Cable much from X-men comics and I’m not sure how I feel about him in this movie, though Josh Brolin plays a great badass. The introduction of multiple timelines, however, did the coherence of the plot no favors.

* Cousin Oliver in The Brady Bunch google it, non-Gen-Xers. It’s bringing in a cute, vulnerable kid when you’ve run out of plot ideas.

Eddie Marsan’s headmaster character was a fascinating villain – sort of a cross between Nurse Ratched and a revivalist preacher – but he got lost in the different threads of plot. Plus there was an assembly of a team that seemed completely unnecessary (but who’s destruction did provide some laughs) save Domino played by Zazie Beetz who was awesome. And there was another side plot with Juggernaut and the reintroduction of Megasonic Teenage Warhead and Colossus and on and on and on.

It wasn’t a bad movie but in a summer that’s had movies like Black Panther and Infinity War (which I have yet to see but I’m just assuming it’s awesome) it’s hard to measure up. See it if you’ve got Moviepass, otherwise wait for it to come out on cable.