What are Tom Cruise’s Riskiest Roles?

What do you think are Tom Cruise’s most riskiest acting roles? While watching the trailer for Mission Impossible: Fallout I was thinking a few things – one of which is Tom Cruise’s career.

In the last decade or so, Cruise’s movies aren’t the biggest box office draws. The exception is the reliable and enduring Mission Impossible franchise.

Deadpool 2 Movie Review

Deadpool 2 is an enjoyable diversion. The sequel improves upon the box-office winning formula of rapid fire humor and hyper violent comic book action. This time there’s even more super powered characters including the heavily armed Cable (Josh Brolin), lady luck Domino (Zazie Beetz) and the hot-tempered Firefist (Julian Dennison).

The main plot involves Deadpool protecting a teenage mutant from Cable. The story is like an ever-growing snowball that picks up more and more characters as it rolls along but never goes over the cliff. Deadpool is trying to figure out where he belongs and what family means to him. Is Deadpool an X-Men or should he assemble his own superhero team? Or is he better off dead?

A key ingredient in the first film that is carried over is Wade Wilson’s relationship with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Ryan Reynolds is a natural fit as the wise-cracking Deadpool and Vanessa’s playful charm is the ideal compliment to Wade. The romantic chemistry in many other superhero films aren’t as authentic as Wade and Vanessa’s. As zany and crass as things gets, what’s going through Deadpool’s head and heart, albeit some times a bullet, feels genuine to me.

Josh Brolin is a great casting choice as Cable, a super soldier from the future. The film takes its time before bringing Cable into the fold and he could have been served better with a memorable introduction. I like Brolin’s version of Cable, but there is opportunity to do even more and expand on the buddy cop relationship with Deadpool.

The new personalities who stand out immediately is the very cool Domino and fiery Russell. Domino isn’t exactly well-developed either, it’s just really fun to see how her good fortune plays out in dangerous circumstances. Julian Dennison as Russell is funny and at the same time can be taken seriously during the dramatic moments. The chemistry between Wade Wilson and Russell works really well.

The running jokes featuring taxi-driving Dopinder, Blind Al and sidekick Weasel are essentially reworks of similar gags. I don’t mind this type of humor, I just don’t find it to be laugh-out loud funny. The funniest part is seeing Deadpool’s team in action for the first time thanks to a lot of visual humor. Further, breaking the fourth wall didn’t have the same novelty for me.

I liked that Colossus has his moments and his fighting sequences are very good. I could have used more Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio. There just wasn’t enough screen time to showcase all their talents. A noticeable improvement from the first film is that director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde) amped up the action set pieces. There’s a tonne of action and it’s on a much bigger scale.

The irreverent humor, gory action, and big super powered personalities confidently hit the mark for a second time. If you liked the first film, you’re going to enjoy the sequel. For my own tastes Deadpool doesn’t capture my imagination like some of the other Marvel films and heroes. But the non-stop entertainment and all around silly fun make it worth watching. Deadpool 2 is a solid steel 3 katanas out of five.

Sidekick’s Sunday Reviews #1

Darkman (1990)
Director: Sam Raimi
Starring: Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake, Colin Friels

Back before Sam Raimi made the Spider-Man trilogy, he directed and co-wrote Darkman starring Liam Neeson as a crime fighting scientist whom could alter his facial appearance.