Wasn't a fan. Ryan Reynolds, one-trick-pony from beginning to end. I laughed at a couple of moments in the beginning and then it just becomes rinse and repeat tiresome.
Well, we will all get a ton of Marvel Legends figures out of it. That's one thing that's almost certain here. Hot Toys will cover some range of characters, then literally everything else will turn into a Marvel Legends set.
Was nice to see the "Uphill Ice Skater" again. But limited to no accessory potential. Also his outfit/armor/aesthetic was a bit off/weird to me from a potential action figure perspective. Lack of general gunplay in the MCU means lack of accessories. If you look at the Black Widow sets, think about how much easier things would be for our few surviving dealers if Natasha and Yelena rolled up with a ton of firepower in a few scenes? Think about the cool part out potentials for that.... If you buy a McFarlane DC Multiverse figure, it's kind of the same song, the mandates from HQ mean no gunplay and no accessories towards that.
These films and TV series don't need to be a full stop non stop ad for toys, but at least have some merchandising potential in mind for the overall display/aesthetics involved. I don't think that's much to ask. What I wouldn't have given for an Uphill Ice Skater character that had simple gear from the first film in his own trilogy. What a boon that would be to get a Hot Toys figure from the first film in that series. God, that's a grail to so many people.
As for the film, as Ryan Reynolds is effectively directing and writing these films now by proxy, but has mostly creative control, at least he understood there was very little room left to take the Deadpool character. So this film isn't really a true Deadpool movie. It's mostly a Hugh Jackman tribute film if anything. A large narrative problem that stood out immediately was that there was very little room to take both major characters. So Reynolds didn't try to do more than he did. I don't think that was a horrible compromise for the situation. But I suppose the big question is if there is more than enough here for something beyond a pure fan service film. I think a few less MCU/Feige digs would have served the script better. IMHO, Deadpool is best when he's just blunt/crass/confrontational but not completely wrong about the thing he says about larger concepts.
Do I think we will get great toys. Eh, not really. So the typical consolation prize for all of us usually that resides in the back end, whether we vibe with something or not, I don't see it for myself much here. But I guess I'll save money that way.
The more I see modern movie aesthetics, the more I appreciate the genius of Ralph McQuarrie. That dude gave us some damn good toys. His visual tone and curation was off the charts. I mean stuff that would pop onto the screen and you said to yourself , "Damn, I want a toy of that. Right now" I've said it before, when you lose the pure working class aesthetic in the industry, when you lose touch with working class people who are paycheck away from being homeless, when you forget how those people have to actually live and struggle, then you become too detached to what they will tend to enjoy watching. Spectacle for them is about escapism, not feeding some creative's narcissism.
I'm OK with this film. Not as good as the first obviously, not the same heart as the first but again, Reynolds had nowhere to go with these characters, so he at least stopped trying to go anywhere really and laid down mostly pure fan service. It wasn't completely clean, but at least it was honest.