The PG-13 cut of Deadpool 2, dubbed Once Upon a Deadpool for the theatrical release, is here at last. After a set of funny/promising trailers featuring Fred Savage, I was genuinely looking forward to this movie's release, as well as a bit concerned. Going into it, I had a funny feeling that it wouldn't work. In some spots, I was right. It is still the great movie that is Deadpool 2, but it's been noticeably constrained under a stricter rating. You can't do as much in a PG-13 movie as you can in an R rated movie. It suffers from that a lot here. But it is still Deadpool 2, so it becomes kind of a mixed bag. And how well does Deadpool 2 translate into PG-13 exactly? Well, let's find out.
Firstly, the Fred Savage stuff in the trailer does happen in the movie (apart from him and Wade duetting "How You Remind Me"). Fred is very funny in this movie. Him and Deadpool are basically recreating The Princess Bride, with Wade acting as the grandfather and Fred acting as, well, himself from that movie. Wade explains to Fred what the movie is, and then he begins reading the movie script to him. It's actually a very clever way of justifying the existence of this cut. Every so often, Fred will butt in and talk about the scene that just happened, as well as insult the original movie. He has a very funny bit after Vanessa dies where he basically goes on a tirade about how unoriginal the original movie was for using the death of the love interest to inspire Wade's motivations. He doesn't say it exactly like that, I'm just paraphrasing. There's no way I could do it justice by just describing it.
The rest of the movie is just Deadpool 2 being told to us again, but it's less vulgar this time. Yes, it's still funny (cause Deadpool 2 was hilarious), but all of the best jokes were either cencored heavily or cut out entirely due to the PG-13 rating. That was probably the joke that the filmmakers were going for, but it just doesn't work for a good bit of the time. The jokes that are left untouched are still funny, and they do add a few new scenes to make up for the lost footage. The best one is an addition to the "Deadpool tries to kill himself" montage after Vanessa dies that features Deadpool in a sweater sitting on a bench with a gun in his hand. An elderly couple walks up to him and sits down on the bench next to him. Deadpool turns the couple and says "I loved your work in Up. Don't get too attached.". It's very funny, and Fred chiming in before we can see Deadpool shoot himself was perfect. The various ways that this cut censors the more vulgar moments from the R version were, for the most part, creative and felt like the logical route for them to take. Deadpool is given a buzzer, which is the thing that provides the bleeps needed to cover up the harsher language. We also see that a couple of the scenes in which obscenities are reshot, changing the bad language into a more family-friendly word. That was a nice touch. They didn't have to do that, but they did. Sometimes.
And, sometimes, they'll just outright censor some of it. Colossus swearing before Wade "dies", Fred's butt in the last scene, Deadpool's Basic Instinct homage. All of them are just flat-out blurred. The blurring is funny, but it also kinda ruins the jokes. Other times, they don't reshoot the footage. They just dub over the word. It's okay when a masked character swears, but it kinda hurts the immersion when we can see the character's mouth clearly saying the F word. I understand that reshooting footage is expensive, but they did it for half of the censoring. Why not finish the job? For example, Russel telling the cop to "f off". We see him say the word, but we hear him say "frick". It's kinda funny, but it's also kinda cringe-inducing from how obvious it is. After example is when that random bearded guy is comforting Wade after Vanessa dies. He swears, dropping the F bomb, during his mini-monologue. The word is dubbed over as "F'd up" and it was very jarring to hear. It's funny in concept, but it's just a tad off in execution. Which, now that I think about it, is a sentence that you could lob on top of this whole cut.
Deadpool 2 was a good movie, and the scenes from that movie that were left in the PG-13 cut were still great. I still love Yukio and Negasonic Teenage Warhead's relationship, I still laugh at Deadpool making the Human Centipede joke (I'm never gonna review that movie, by the way), Celine Dion's "Ashes" song is still awesome, Josh Brolin's performance as Cable is still the best part of the movie. When it does Deadpool 2, it's great (because Deadpool 2 was great). Ryan Reynolds is still the perfect choice to play Deadpool, him and Morena Baccarin still have incredible chemistry, Julian Dennison was still good (yet slightly annoying at times) as Russell, the X-Force was still awesome, the X-Men Origins: Wolverine scene is still out of this world. This cut is really hard to review, since it's largely the same thing that we saw with the R version, except it's less vulgar here and Fred Savage shows up every so often to make fun of Fox. Those jokes are really funny, though. When Fred said that the X-Men movies are "like if The Beatles were produced by Nickelback", I died in the theater. Then I was brought back to life by the person sitting next to me so that I could continue watching the movie. That person shall remain nameless.
I can't stress enough how solid Fred's scenes were, though. The set he was in looks exactly like his Princess Bride room. I loved the moment when it cuts back to Wade and Fred after Vanessa and Deadpool kiss for the first time, cause Wade is staring at Fred like "Are you gonna say it?". Fred crying when Wade "dies" was sweet, him fanboying over Cable was funny, just the overall fact that he's here is hilarious in and of itself. But the best addition in this cut is, by far, the post-credits scene. Yes, this version of Deadpool 2 has an after-credits scene outside of saving Vanessa, shooting Weapon X, and killing Ryan Reynolds. It's a tribute to Stan Lee that shows him filming No Good Deed, reminising over his legacy, and reacting to the idea of him dying. It was so sweet to see, and almost put a tear in my eye. I'm still working on my Stan Lee tribute, by the way. Perfection takes time.
Once Upon a Deadpool is a mixed bag, for me. On the one hand, it's a bowdlerized, often times messy retelling of the same Deadpool story. On the other hand, it's still Deadpool 2. It's still funny, it still has a ton of heart, the acting and special effects are still top notch, the soundtrack (when with some of the more explicit songs removes in this version) was still great. Unfortunately, but expectedly, the PG-13 rating seriously bogs down the movie's charm. I have a funny feeling that this cut was made in order to see how audiences would react to a more child-friendly Deadpool in case the Disney/Fox merger goes through. If that's the case, then good job. Now we know for sure that Deadpool does not work in a PG-13 setting. I still enjoyed this movie, though. It felt naked without all the R-rated bits, but there is still some enjoyment to be had. I'm gonna give Once Upon a Deadpool a 7/10.
