Get your snide on with 'Deadpool 2'

Ryan Reynolds proves that he's still got plenty of life as Deadpool.

Deadpool 2 was shown at a preview screening with a caution to critics to avoid spoilers. I'm not sure that anything you could know in advance would ruin the experience of watching Deadpool 2, a sequel to the snidely effective first installment of a Marvel Comics series that seemed perfectly matched to Ryan Reynolds' mocking awareness of comic-book movie tropes.

The movie also made a ton of money.

But about those spoilers. I'll demure by telling you that there are sight gags, a surfeit of action, a sequence in which Deadpool finds himself in prison with a mystery mutant kid (Julian Dennison) who can spew flames from his fists, and more -- much more. Like most comic-book movies, Deadpool 2 subscribes to the more is more school of filmmaking.

The movie also makes room for a bit of pathos in the form of shared feelings of guilt that touch both Deadpool and Cable (Josh Brolin), a cyborg with a bionic arm and a perpetual scowl.

The story includes the amusing addition of some wannabe superheroes who meet with tragic/comic fates and various X-Men who drop in at various points in the story. Why not? Everybody needs a team.

In the hands of director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde), Deadpool 2 devolves into a series of mini-movies that finally are hammered into a more or less unified whole that includes a fakeout about who the movie's real villain might be.

In addition to Reynolds, I enjoyed the work of Zazie Beetz (as Domino) and Stefan Kapicic (as the voice of the strait-laced Colossus). Plenty of other characters careen through the movie, cropping up like kernels of corn bouncing in a popper.

True to form, Deadpool 2 doesn't skimp on one-liners and visual gags, many of them referencing signature moments in other movies: Basic Instinct (yes, that movie again) comes to mind, but there are enough to suggest that viewers bring a scorecard.

The basic trick of the Deadpool movies remains the same: Reynolds delivers a running commentary on the movie's characters and various plot developments, a strategy that can amuse even as it attempts to insulate the movie from criticism. In a way, Deadpool 2 doesn't try to speak to the audience; it is the audience.

That's why Deadpool can be viewed as a big movie for a large but narrowly focused audience, one that's in on the joke, which includes non-stop tongue-in-cheek references that turn the movie into a perpetual wiseass machine. If you don't share the movie's attitudes -- at least for a couple of hours -- Deadpool may seem dumb and pointless: The movie’s smarts are rooted in pop culture and the abundant Marvel Universe.

So, a concluding comment: Leitch and Reynolds have delivered a movie that meets and occasionally exceeds expectations for a second helping but has little to offer those who aren't steeped in Marvel culture.

I chuckled enough to say that Deadpool 2 can be fun and that Reynolds hasn't worn out his welcome as the foul-mouthed superhero who's at his best when he doesn't give a damn about saving the world and who kicks butt while making fun of whatever passes for a story in these comic-book extravaganzas.

Deadpool 2 even tries to add some heart to all its carnage and clangor. Fair enough, but I doubt whether this edition will cause many lumps to form in many throats. But let's be real: No one goes to a Deadpool movie expecting to reach for a hankie.

Love, time travel and a shabby motel

If American independent movies get any smaller, they may disappear entirely. I thought about this cinematic vanishing act, a mini-epidemic among the indie crowd, while watching Safety Not Guaranteed, a deadpan charmer that serves up an offbeat romance in a style so unadorned it appears to be no style at all.

The movie's central conceit involves time travel. Mark Duplass, a mumble core veteran who also served as one of the movie's producers, plays a Washington state recluse who claims to have invented a time machine.

Sci-fi mavens need not apply: Safety Not Guaranteed isn't really about traveling through time; it's about lives that seem to be marking time.

Duplass's Kenneth comes to the fore when a writer for a Seattle city magazine (Jake Johnson) notices a classified ad in which Kenneth seeks a partner for his time-travel adventures. Johnson's Jeff rounds up two interns (Aubrey Plaza and Karan Soni) and sets out to find the would-be time traveler.

Safety Not Guaranteed is another film about characters who appear to be damaged goods, and -- as befits the movie's taste for dreary locales -- our traveling trio checks into a shabby motel in rural Washington, cramming into one room in order to save per diem money for other pursuits.

Adrift in grief over her mother's death, Plaza's Darius also seems to be grappling with a non-existent love life and an ingrown tendency toward cynicism. Darius gradually begins to take over the story. She makes contact with Kenneth, pursues the time-travel story and begins to fall for her subject.

For his part, Soni's Arnau buries his head in his computer, and Johnson's Jeff pursues an old flame (Jenica Bergere).

The story creates a bit of uncertainty about whether Kenneth is crazy or whether he may actually have stumbled onto something momentous. He tells Darius he wants to return to 2001 to prevent the death of a former girlfriend. And, no, Sept. 11th isn't on the movie's agenda.

Director Colin Trevorrow tends toward comedy with a dour flavor, but Safety Not Guaranteed isn't always as funny as it probably wants to be. Within its narrow parameters, tough, the movie hits more than a few winning notes.

It's not physical safety that's at risk here, but emotional safety -- and although the world offers little protection in that area, Safety Not Guaranteed reminds us that people still sometimes take big leaps toward one another, and that such leaps always are a bit of a gamble.