Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Deadpool 2 (2018)

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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 05-19-2018, 08:03 PM:

CINEMA: AMC Northrock 14, Wichita, KS
AUDITORIUM: 1, SEAT E15
PRESENTATION: Dolby Cinema Recline-o-Vision at AMC
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Noovie was audio only until two employees came in to assist a patron and noticed
RATING: Three stars (out of four)

Everyone in the concession line is a Premiere member. The normal snake line is empty. I stand in the front of the normal line. The one concession guy calls for Premiere members. ("I can help the next Premiere member!") A second girl comes up. Calls for Premiere members. The Premiere line finally empties. But while they’re helping the last customer (BOTH of them helping the ONE customer), more show up. Ten minutes of this nonsense, and I shrug and walk off. Let me be as clear as possible, AMC. I am not paying a premium for the right to grossly overpay for popcorn and soda.

This is one of Dickinson's old GEM auditoriums, and it's weird. The upper three rows (E, F, and G) are for all intents and purposes a balcony. You have to climb regular stairs to the top/back of the room, then turn around and go down the stadium steps to get to Rows E and F. You can actually recline your seat to the point you obscure the view of the bottom of the screen due to the barrier wall. Not that it matters since the bottom of the screen isn't really used. Anyway, not coming back here.

FUN FACT I DIDN'T KNOW BEFORE: You know why Dolby's low end seems so impressive? It's because they put rumbling vibrators in the seats! The more you know

THE PLOT: A guy comes back from the future to kill a child who becomes a bad guy in the future. Sound familiar? Wackiness ensues.

Thanks to the unexpected success of the first movie, this one has a bigger budget and therefore has more action, more violence, more fourth wall, and more impressive effects. They were even able to afford a couple more X-Men. It's also the comedy of the year so far. There's no post-credit scene (nobody left, and when one didn't happen, everybody groaned) but there's two mid-credit scenes, and the second one is the funniest scene in the movie.

It's such a blast that I just bought a ticket to see it again late tonight at the Warren.

I might even buy popcorn.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 05-20-2018, 11:40 PM:

This movie was terrible. The story was lame and uninteresting. The comedy wasn't all that funny for me, but maybe I'm getting old. I did chuckle a couple of times, but that was about it. And no matter how hard I try, I just can't bring myself to care about any of the characters. I liked the first one. Liked, not "loved" - but this one was a total bore for me.

Posted by Paul Arch (Member # 10425) on 05-23-2018, 03:28 PM:

Cinema: Cineworld Ipswich (UK)
Presentation: IMAX 2D

I enjoy this, perhaps not quite as much as the original, as the first was fresh and new. However it builds on the first film and doesn't just repeat the plot. In fact I would say this film has more heart and certainly more heart than anything Warner Bros and DC have released recently with a few plot twists added in. For once the trailer didn't give the whole plot away. There are lots of in jokes and it will probably take a few viewings to spot them all.
The IMAX image was faultless and the surrounds were used effectively too, can't aways say that with IMAX shows.
Certainly an enjoyable 2 hours in the cinema, plenty of action, humour and heart. 4 out of 5 stars.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-28-2018, 05:04 PM:

Cinema: Harkins Southlake 14, Southlake, TX
Screen: Cine Capri
Format: 2D digital projection, Dolby Atmos audio
Presentation Problems: Slightly dim image, restrained audio dynamics.
Movie Rating: 2.5 stars out of 4

I'm posting this review a full week after seeing the movie. I took the day off (May 18) to drive my girlfriend down to Dallas for an evening flight she had going out of DFW airport. We decided to have lunch and watch a movie before she caught her flight.

Harkins' Southlake 14 was built amidst one of those trendy outdoor "town center" style shopping centers. In this case the town's city hall, court house, fire dept, etc are all within this zone. It's pretty nice. Here in Lawton the connected types wanted to transform the 2nd street area just North of our "downtown" into that kind of thing but really missed the mark. We have a strip shopping center (with Dicks Sporting Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's) but also a bunch of cleared parcels of land that remain empty years later. No restaurants, movie theaters, night clubs, art galleries or the other stuff that was supposed to make downtown Lawton not dead after dark.

The Cine Capri screen at this theater is not nearly as big as the one I've visited many times in Oklahoma City. I think the Cine Capri house in Denver is the same size as the one in OKC. I've never been to any of the ones in Arizona. Aside from the size difference it's decorated and equipped mostly the same. I do like the curtains and masking. But the projected image was a tad bit dim. The pre-show crap they were playing was dim to the point of embarrassment. The Atmos-equipped sound system had good surround coverage. You could at least hear all the extra bells and whistles when they played the old Dolby Atmos "unfold" trailer before the show. I just wish the volume was cranked up a little louder. Southlake is kind of a hoity toity community. So I can imagine some older, upper class farts chewing out management enough times to turn down the audio. Hell, it's probably still too loud for those folks since it's not quite down to TV speakers audio.

Oh, the movie. I almost forgot about that.

Um, it was okay I guess, but definitely not great.

I already took it as a bad sign Tim Miller (director of the first Deadpool movie) was not directing the sequel. Deadpool 2 was directed by stuntman David Leitch, in his first big feature project. Tim Miller is apparently working on a Terminator reboot -as if we need another one of those damned things. The same writers (Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick) were on board, but joined by Ryan Reynolds. And that last little bit is a hint of what's wrong.

The "star" has basically turned the movie into his own stand-up comedy routine. The fourth wall breaks in the first Deadpool movie were pretty funny, partly because they seemed new and had not been done to death. Those fourth wall breaks were often well timed, like the one where he ponders (during a vicious SUV crash), "shit, did I leave the stove on?" In the sequel the fourth wall breaks are more annoying than funny. The joke was getting worn out in the first movie. They should have used the ploy sparingly and put more work into solidifying a kind of wobbly story. The fake I'm-dying stuff at the end went on waaaaayyyyy too long.

The movie gets wobbly right off the start when something bad happens to a certain key character (and they joke about it in the Bond-inspired opening title sequence). It puts a downbeat pall on the first Deadpool movie kind of in the same way that the opening of Alien³ totally negated the happy ending of Aliens. I don't like that. I put serious emotional work in seeing the surviving characters through Aliens -and they're going to just get killed off in the opening credits sequence of Alien³? Kiss my ass. Deadpool 2 is supposed to be a fun action/super hero movie. But the tone of its opening just didn't fit.

And then we're supposed to care about some teen who can burn and blow up shit with his mutant hands, insists on being a complete turd and future genocidal maniac. I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but be on Cable's side for that one. The plot has all this back story for us to find out the kid was abused in terrible ways by a school that had high tech dog collars that magically muted out mutant powers. Yeah, whatever. The kid still seemed like an irritating douche. The entire movie's plot could have been solved by Cable simply coming back in time and having a serious conversation with this kid at an early age or just murdering the people who abused him before they could do so.

Cable (Thanos) was entertaining enough, though Deadpool made note of his Winter Soldier arm. The action sequences were decent. But this movie just didn't have the simple structural foundation that made the first movie quite a bit better. They were trying to go in too many directions with this one.

The second end credits scene was pretty funny.

quote:
You know why Dolby's low end seems so impressive? It's because they put rumbling vibrators in the seats!

When those seat rumblers in "Dolby Cinema @ AMC" houses do their thing it gives me the same sensation as farting into the seat cushion, but without the farting part. They're actually kind of distracting. If they could put enough sub-bass slam into the system to vibrate the air in my chest (rather than the skin on my ass) I might be more impressed.

Posted by Matt Russell (Member # 8989) on 05-30-2018, 06:01 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Deadpool 2 was directed by stuntman David Leitch, in his first big feature project.

Actually this was his third, he previously co-directed John Wick and also directed Atomic Blonde.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-30-2018, 06:36 PM:

I missed Atomic Blonde on his IMDb filmography. The first thing that comes up is all his stunt work. Gotta click further for the director credits. John Wick was directed by Chad Stahelski. David Leitch directed some scenes but is not credited on that movie.