Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Review
I am Groot. I am Groot. I am Groot! I am Groot. Okay, that’s enough of that. The second chapter in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise just hit theaters, and I feel I need to give a bit of background on my feelings on the first film before I dive into the second volume. Everyone, EVERYONE I know loves the first film, and I don’t mean like, I mean flat out love. I, on the other hand, think the first film is okay. It’s not a grand epic masterpiece, but it’s not crap, either. I mean, the film almost entirely models itself off of the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), both visually and story-wise, and I felt there were a few missed opportunities. But with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, I’m gonna be the rare guy who says I liked this one better, slightly better, that is, than the original.
So the plot doesn’t depend on copying The Empire Strikes Back (1980) the way I thought it would. After saving the galaxy from, um, what was the name of the villain in the last one? Another problem with the last film. The Guardians are enlisted by The Soverign, a golden race of aliens to protect them. After things fall through, the Guardians are shot down on a planet and visited by Ego, who reveals himself to be Star-Lord’s father. The group splits up with Star-Lord, Gamora, and Drax the Destroyer accompanying Ego with Groot and Rocket Raccoon and the prisoner Nebula staying with the downed ship. After those three-some are captured by Yondu and The Ravengers, the other three, Ego, and his, well, slave, Mantis, visit Ego’s planet where Star-Lord learns what his father is and why he has been seeking him. In fear of spoilers, I’ll stop here.
So while every review blurb, for the most part, that I’ve read says, “while not as good as the first”, why do I say “even better than the first”? Well, one element that I thought was present in the first film but not capitalized on entirely was the emotional elements. Sure, I cared about the characters enough to remember their names, but the death of Star-Lord’s mother felt like an off moment to me and the ending where they all cry while holding hands just didn’t feel justified to me as far as the tears were concerned. Well, Guardians Vol. 2 has more heart than the original, or at least it’s executed a little better. If there’s any characters of connections in the first film that were just kind of there, ie Gamora and Nebula’s sistership, which was barely mentioned in the first film, the sequel makes you care for them and hope they work things out. The same goes for the Yondu character, who felt like an ex-machina type character for the most part in the first film, but now he serves a further purpose and again you care for what he’s up to and what he stands for. Also while the action scenes in the first film were good, none of them are particularly memorable. Well, this time that changes. There’s an action scene in the middle with Yondu, Groot and Rocket that is just plain awesome. It also led to some of the biggest laughs of the film. Oh, yeah, the humor. Yes, the humor was one of the strongest points of the original, and while this might be one spot where the sequel is a letdown, that doesn’t mean that there’s no laughs. And another point that everyone always says is the key to the success of the first film is the soundtrack. Sure, there’s a few more hits in the first film than this one, but I think the soundtrack hit a lot of goods ones.
That being said, there are a few elements that I just plain didn’t like or care for. First off, the film’s villain once again is a let-down. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had this problem consistently, with the exception of Loki, but in the category of villains that you’ll at least remember their name, Guardians Vol. 2 does at least succeed that far. I’ll remember what said villain was doing, their purpose behind what they was doing, and what made us hate them. It just wasn’t very strong. Also, I think the visual effects weren’t all that great. While the looks and CG on Rocket and Groot once again look fantastic, everything else at times looks a little too fake. In particular, there’s moments of human-like characters moving real fast or falling or other things that just look fake as hell. In particular, the final battle looked like a blob of CG that was hard to distinguish. I had this same problem with the endings of Iron Man 3 (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), where the endings are either too busy or too overcooked with second-rate effects. Also there’s a few moments here and there where the comedy falls short or that linger on a particular scene for too long. There’s a lot of fat on this film, and at two hours and sixteen minutes long, it feels very bloated, especially the last scene, which just doesn’t know where to end.
So while I gave the original movie a 7/10, I think the same rating will apply here, but just so you understand, the strongs are stronger here than the original, and if it weren’t for a few of those problems it would have been an 8/10. A couple more things I can mention: Drax gets the biggest laughs of the movie, and stick around through the entire end credits. There’s more than one post-credit scene, and the end credits themselves are surprisingly entertaining with all sorts of surprises and funny jokes that keep you in your seat. Overall, while I’ll be the only “a-hole”, as Star-Lord would call me, who will come out of the movie saying it’s better than the original while still saying it’s not the best film of the year, I can still recommend the movie and of course if you’re a Marvel-head, you’ll get your fill of Easter Eggs, winks to future installments, and the other classic tropes of the other fourteen films. Also if you liked the first film, you’ll more than likely enjoy this one, too. It’s the start of the summer movie season, and while this isn’t as strong a start as the last couple of years, funny enough they were also started with MCU movies Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), it’s still a good movie.
My rating: 7/10.
