If you’ll recall, 2016’s Deadpool more or less beat America over the head with its marketing campaign. For well over a year before its release, the physical and digital worlds were inundated with viral messaging starring the sophomoric superhero. It worked, of course: The relatively low-budget film became one of the most profitable that the superhero genre has ever seen. In comparison, Deadpool 2 has weirdly flown under the radar. There haven’t been nearly as many bits of promotion for it, we didn’t know the official title until quite recently, and we didn’t even have a formal trailer until this morning. But now that the teaser has dropped, it’s time to dig into it and see what it reveals about this scatological sequel.
We will, indeed, be meeting X-Force.
After Fox released a quasi-trailer last month, astute viewers noted that Wade Wilson was seen alongside a group of tough-looking folks who bore a more-than-passing resemblance to members of X-Men spinoff group X-Force. Created in the early 1990s, the team has historically been a more lethal version of the X-Men. This trailer makes their appearance official, with Wade declaring that he’s forming a group and giving it that name. Fox’s reported plan is that the team will move into a self-titled film written and directed by Cabin in the Woods and The Martian alum Drew Goddard. In Deadpool 2, the group will include Zazie Beetz’s Domino (whose mutant power allows her to alter luck), but the rest of the members are shrouded in a little mystery. It looks like one of them will be beloved third-tier comics character Shatterstar, whose overall deal is that he’s a supernaturally gifted mutant warrior. Oh, and Terry Crews is there. But who is he playing? Well …
Terry Crews is playing Bedlam.
At one point, we see Deadpool looking through headshots of potential X-Force members and comes across a photo of Terry Crews with the name “Bedlam†printed below it. Now, this could mean anything, but there is a semi-obscure (and African-American) X-Force character named Jesse Aaronson who goes by the name Bedlam. (Well, went by that name. He’s currently dead in the comics.) His gist is that he’s a mutant who can manipulate bioelectric fields to mess with people and machines. We don’t see Crews do anything like that in the trailer, so maybe they just used the name and nothing else?
Rob Delaney is in the movie.
In what is perhaps the most delightful surprise of the entire clip, we encounter a recruitment head shot for none other than Catastrophe star Rob Delaney. He’ll be playing someone named Peter. That’s about all we know, but that’s more than enough to make this film significantly better.
Shiori Kutsuna is playing an X-Person.
Exactly which one, we don’t know. We see her with an X on her shoulder, swinging around a chain-link weapon suffused with electricity during a quick montage about Deadpool forming X-Force, but that’s about it. There’s speculation that she might be playing either Psylocke or Surge. They’re both mutants of Japanese descent (well, Psylocke is an English woman trapped in a Japanese woman’s body … long story), but it’s entirely possible that people are just being mildly racist and ignoring the possibility that she’s playing a character who isn’t Asian in the comics. Psylocke’s deal is that she’s a telekinetic and telepath; Surge’s is that she can absorb and discharge electricity. The latter seems more likely, but then again, who knows.
Deadpool’s co-star is on a mission of murder.
It appears that we finally have the basic plot of the flick. We’ve long known that it would prominently feature Josh Brolin as the classic time-traveling X-Force member/leader Cable, but we didn’t know a ton more than that. Here, we see him telling Deadpool he has to kill “the kid,†presumably in order to save the future. Wade doesn’t want him to carry this mission out. Et voilà : conflict with eventual resolution! Wait, who’s this kid?
Our MacGuffin may be a mutant immigrant.
It looks like this is the lad Cable is after. Played by relative unknown Julian Dennison, we see him standing around with his hands glowing while wreckage smokes around him. One of the things he seems to have blown up is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement car. Could it be that he’s on the run from anti-mutant authorities and ICE? Oh, and we see him wearing a curious device …
Collars play some kind of role in the plot.
Both the kid and Deadpool are seen wearing bulky black collars with little red lights on them. Mayhap they restrict mutant powers? But who installed them? Maybe the people who work for whatever “DMC†is? We see a military-ish dude with those letters stenciled on his chest. Department of Mutant Corrections, perhaps? Is that a thing?
Professor Xavier might cameo. At least his wheelchair will.
The connection between the X-Men pictures and Deadpool has always been a little loose, but it seems like it’ll be strengthened in this movie. We get a brief glimpse of Deadpool wheeling around in Professor X’s motorized wheelchair. Will James McAvoy pop up in old-age makeup? Patrick Stewart has said he’d be open to reprising his role as the character, but there’s no confirmation of that.
We’ll see Ryan Reynolds in some stunning outfits.
We get glimpses of Wade in a powder-puff football jersey, a yellow jumpsuit (maybe he gets imprisoned at some point?), and, most important, spike heels. Ginger Rogers is rolling over in her grave.