Where 2016’s “Deadpool” was just fresh enough to be entertaining, its 2018 sequel “Deadpool 2” can’t say the same. Still, that didn’t stop it from making a ton of money and becoming 20th Century Fox’s highest grossing X-Men connected movie. That’s quite an accomplishment for a feature that’s more committed to getting an R rating than telling a worthwhile story.

“Deadpool 2” clearly follows the same blueprint as its equally successful predecessor. New director David Leitch and returning writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick inundate us with an endless cavalcade of juvenile humor, forced profanity, and CGI violence. But among its biggest problems is that fewer jokes land this time around. And the attempts at melding vulgar humor with gory action had me numb by the halfway mark.

Ryan Reynolds (in full Ryan Reynolds mode) returns as Wade Wilson aka Deadpool, delivering a carbon copy performance from the first movie. Wade and his girlfriend Vanessa (a returning Morena Baccarin) celebrate their anniversary by deciding to start a family. But once again their dreams are shattered, this time when a hitman’s bullet misses Wade and strikes Vanessa, killing her.

While in mourning, Wade attempts to blow himself up, but his healing factor keeps him alive. His old friend Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) finds him and takes him to the X-Men’s mansion to heal. While there, Colossus convinces Wade to finally join the X-Men which he does to honor Vanessa. It eventually leads him to a volatile mutant named Russell Collins (a painfully bad Julian Dennison) who Wade pledges to save after a couple of weird out-of-body encounters with his dead girlfriend.

Meanwhile, a cybernetic soldier from the future named Cable (Josh Brolin) travels back in time to kill Russell for reasons that never feel as impactful as they should. It all leads to a haze of tiresome recycled gags and glaringly digitalized action sequences. Good luck finding anything beyond that. Leitch and company try to squeeze in a few moments of heart. But when everything around it comes off as self-gratifying and over-the-top, it’s hard to take seriously any attempts at sincerity.

“Deadpool 2” caters to a big audience, most of whom have no problem gorging themselves on what amounts to cinematic junk food. But if you’re hungry for something with a slight bit of substance, you’ll want to look elsewhere. Again, the filmmakers are so absorbed in delivering one-liners and meeting f-bomb quotas that they toss aside basic things like good storytelling. There are countless narrative shortcuts which are routinely excused by Deadpool making jokes about them. It’s clever the first time or two, but we eventually see through it. There’s also the terribly underdeveloped antagonists who mainly exist to boost the body count in the film’s lame climax.

Even after nearly six years and a recent revisit, “Deadpool 2” still leaves me scratching my head. How does a movie with this many flaws get so many passes? How does a movie that proudly touts its irreverence and mayhem come across as so calculated? How do people find so much connection to something so empty? I could go on but I don’t want to be that kind of guy. Of course it’s okay to enjoy “Deadpool 2” for whatever reasons you do. But for me, no amount of self- awareness or comic chaos can plug the gaping holes in this unfortunate retread.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

Before Disney gobbled them up, 20th Century Fox had quite a run with its X-Men universe. Surprisingly, of the thirteen X-Men related films, the highest grossing were the two Deadpool movies. 2016’s “Deadpool” was a spin-off from the X-Men films and a big departure from the PG-13 brand of superhero movie. It was a film deliriously dedicated to obtaining an R rating through a force-fed diet of over-the-top violence and pointless profanity. To no surprise, it wooed and won over a lot of people.

First time director Tim Miller, co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, along with producer and star Ryan Reynolds, take a later iteration of the Deadpool character from the comics and ramp up everything, from the “mature” content to the relentless silliness. Through most of the movie they go out of their way to poke fun at everything superhero related, soaking us with goofy banter, routinely breaking the fourth wall, and peppering the film with absurd needle drops.

“Deadpool” is essentially an origin story and not a particularly original one. But its hope is that you’ll be so involved in the comic mayhem that you won’t care. Reynolds plays Wade Wilson, a wisecracking tough guy who works as mercenary-for-hire, helping the city’s weak and needy. He meets and falls for an escort named Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and just as their warped storybook romance is about to take off, he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Rather than let her watch him die, a devastated Wade leaves Vanessa.

Now that sounds like pretty heavy stuff and for a few brief minutes or so “Deadpool” lightly tugs at your heartstrings. But its gag-a-second proclivity and origin story constrictions makes it hard to take even its most heartfelt moments seriously. Baccarin is especially good considering Reynolds’ act sucks most of the air out of every scene. Not only is she a good match, but she’s pretty much the only character who doesn’t feel like she’s doing a comic routine.

One day Wade is approached by a mysterious man who tells him of an experimental treatment that will not only cure his cancer but potentially grant him super powers in the process. Though hesitant at first, the prospect of reuniting with Vanessa drives him to accept. But after he’s sent to a laboratory ran by the film’s paper-thin villain, Ajax (Ed Skrein), Wade learns he’s little more than a lab rat for a torturous experiment meant to trigger mutations within the subject.

The agonizing procedure leaves Wade horribly disfigured but grants him healing factor, super strength, and agility which he uses to escape the laboratory. Fearing his appearance will scare Vanessa away for good, Wade makes it his mission to track down Ajax in order to find a cure. But before doing so, he creates his own super-powered vigilante he names Deadpool. Anti-hero hijinks ensue.

The astute among you may ask the obvious question, why doesn’t Wade’s newly acquired healing abilities heal his disfigurement? It heals gunshots, it heals broken bones, it even grows back severed limbs. There’s a very convenient explanation in the comics about his normal cells forever battling the cancer cells. But the movie never addresses it. And that’s pretty much how it approaches most of the questions that arise from its patchwork story – don’t ask.

“Deadpool” tosses numerous other side characters into the mix, the better ones being a solid-steel (and solely CGI) Colossus (Stefan Kapičić), Wade’s roommate Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), and Deadpool fanboy Dopinder (Karan Soni). Like everyone else, they’re only there to spit jokes but their’s are some of the funnier one. As for the jokes, just enough of them land to keep things amusing. And while the film’s gimmick grows old, there was still a freshness factor that helped “Deadpool” overcome its annoyances.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS