Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

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ONE SENTENCE SYNOPSIS: After Rocket steals batteries from the Sovereign race, the Guardians are attacked by the Sovereign’s droids, who are defeated by a man revealing himself to be Ego, Peter Quill’s father; the Guardians split up with Quill, Gamora, and Drax following Ego to his planet, and Rocket and Baby Groot staying behind to keep watch of their prisoner, Nebula.

If you haven’t watched this film, SPOILERS are ahead! You have been warned.

Three years after Guardians of Galaxy became an international sensation, director/writer James Gunn sent forth his latest installment of the Marvel franchise. The film is filled with snazzy effects and friendship-goals, all the while, sparking the audience’s interest with some more knowledge of these superheroes’ characters and pasts. In parts, Gunn goes full throttle, taking quippy dialogue and fast-paced action scenes to another level. With all of this big-budget appeal, the film is lacking some of the smart and heart that the first installment had.

It is hard not to compare the two installments when one of the first scenes is of Baby Groot dancing to “Mr. Blue Sky,” nostalgic of Star-Lord dancing to “Come and Get Your Love” in the first film. As such, some parts of the film, including the banter between Quill and Rocket, seemed forced and a reminder to the audience that “you liked this in the first film so we will add a lot more of it in the second.”

At a run-time of 2 hours and 18 minutes, the film lags in parts, no doubt due to the fact that Gunn has created a this-is-serious-but-you-should-not-take-this-to-seriously father-son story with Quill and Ego. The film consistently stresses the importance of family, while forgetting that each family member should be of more-or-less equal importance. It focuses too much on Quill and Ego—especially Ego—and not enough on the other characters. In fact, Drax, whose compelling history was explored in exposition in the first film, and Gamora, whose father-daughter drama had barely been touched on in the first film, were often used a plot device. That being said, precedence must be made and choosing the spunky Quill as the primary focus was in line with what had been established in the first film. I just wish that Gunn could have focused more on these unexplored characters (i.e., Drax, Gamora, Groot), giving us something new to sink our teeth into.

Onto my favorite part of the film, the end. No, I am not saying that I was glad that the film was over; I just appreciated that the often-obvious seeds being planted throughout the film were fully realized at the end. This is where the comparison between the two films takes a turn because…I enjoyed the ending to this film much more than the ending to the first film. I actually think that both films’ endings work well for the tone and plots established, but this ending had me more emotionally invested than I realized I had become. The story fillers that Gunn obviously created paid off in an unhappy, dare I say, tragic ending that had me at once sad and ecstatic because though I did not want to see Yondu, the daring warrior that he had proved himself to be, pass, I was relieved that a Marvel character could die with no hope of returning. Yup! just took it to the Dark Side.

This sequel is less of a gem than the original, but I find its faults to be, for the most part, endearing. If you are a fan of the first, then I recommend you see Vol. 2. If for nothing else than to see some of your favorite heroes kicking ass again.