The blessed day is upon us. We have been bestowed a sequel to “Guardians of the Galaxy.” I’ve been excited about this movie ever since the words “The Guardians Will Return” floated onto the big screen back in 2015. Now, I’m a total fanboy for this franchise and I expected a lot out of this movie, so some may find my review harsher than it should have been. Just know that my criticism comes from a place of love. So without further ado, does “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” hold up to the original? Read on and find out (minor spoilers ahead).
The film’s central themes deal with family. Each guardian meets with a new or old character that helps them realize what family means to them. This leads to some interesting dynamics, particularly between Yondu (Michael Rooker, “The Walking Dead”) and Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper, “American Sniper”). We also get to meet Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt, “Parks and Recreation”) space dad (Kurt Russell, “The Thing”) which leads to some particularly cool scenes. Gamora (Zoe Saldana, “Avatar”) and her sister Nebula (Karen Gillian, “The Big Short”) also make an appearance and are forced to deal with their sisterly problems. Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel, “Fast and the Furious”) is also adorable and makes the movie really fun.
“Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2” has great character development, good laughs and an amazing 1970s soundtrack, but this definitely doesn’t mean it was perfect. I loved the movie, but I still found it a little disappointing. The action in the movie is so sudden and occasionally jarring that you have to stop thinking about plot threads, turn your brain off and just be entertained. This can be okay in some movie franchises (looking at you, “Fast and the Furious”), but it just isn’t the direction that I wanted “Guardians” to take. It’s almost as if director James Gunn wanted to double down on the things fans loved about the first movie. I didn’t expect the first “Guardians” to be anywhere near as good as it was and it seemed like Gunn was trying to catch lightning in a bottle twice with the sequel.
All in all, the movie has heart and is totally worth seeing if you’re a fan of the first. Hopefully, the cinematic universe directors learn from the fan feedback of this film and are able to fix any mistakes for the Guardians’ next outing, which will be during Marvel’s Infinity War.