Guardians of the Galaxy was a great movie, bringing a new level of freshness to the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). James Gunn had a big task trying to live up to his first edition of the Guardians. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Gunn fixes some problems that I’ve previously had with Marvel films, but at the same time presented a film that I found to be disappointing.
I’ll start with the positive. The villain was much better here in Volume 2 than in the original film, or most previous MCU movies. I can’t go much into detail to avoid spoilers, but I will say that I found the villain interesting, and at first, more than just a brute to beat up. Unfortunately they seem to turn the villain into a brute near the end. The other improvement I saw was James Gunn’s willingness to take sacrifices to improve the overall story. Again, going into further detail will reveal spoilers, so i’ll leave it at that. The character development for certain characters was also much better. We were able to learn more about the Guardians and their motives, and that’s great.
Onto the bad. Every line in this movie felt like it was, or was setting up for, a punch line. I understand that comedy was a big part of the original Guardians of the Galaxy, but it felt more frequent and forced here. I feel like the good jokes would have landed better had there been more space in-between them. I’ve always had a problem with the forced comedy in Marvel films, but the original Guardians of the Galaxy never bothered me. It’s to bad the problem had to return. I also found the overall plot to be less interesting. It had some problems flowing in a way that seemed natural. I could be wrong, but I also felt a lack of varied locations. The first movie had a big sense of exploration to me, and this one felt more stationary. That could have been okay, had the plot been more interesting. I also found adult Groot more compelling than baby groot. I didn’t hate baby groot by any means, but he felt more like an accessory than a character.
Overall I felt the movie was okay. Worth watching for MCU fans, but maybe not that solid on it’s own. Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Thanks for reading.