Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

I don't like the Guardian of the Galaxy movies as much as other people. I have come to realize that something that contributes to that feeling is the fact that when Suicide Squad came out, I tried to make the argument that Guardians of the Galaxy did basically the same thing Suicide Squad was trying to do and one movie is regarded as one of the greatest Marvel films and the other was regarded as one one of the worst films of 2016. I have since backed off that when I came to the realization that Suicide Squad was not a very good movie, but some of my feelings of Guardians of the Galaxy remained. Since, I have re-watched the first movie and I will admit that it is a fun movie. HOWEVER, I do believe the hype of the first film is incredibly overblown and while it is a good movie, it is far from the best of the MCU standalone films.

GOTG Vol 2 picks up not long after the first film as the Guardians are mercenaries for hire who help people fight giant monsters, etc, basic hero stuff.

After a deal goes wrong, the Guardians are on the run from people trying to kill them and they find themselves stranded on a planet with their ship disabled. This doesn't last long because soon they are greeted by a mysterious Kurt Russell who introduces himself as Ego and says that he is Peter Quill aka Starlord's (played by Chris Pratt) long lost father.

Quill who has been searching for his father for years is at first skeptical of Ego but he goes with Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana) and Drax (played by Dave Bautista) to Ego's planet while Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) stay behind to fix the ship. For some reason there is some real animosity between Starlord and Rocket in this movie that I don't totally understand... sometimes it just felt mean spirited and counter intuitive when we know what this team went through in the first film.

So there's a good amount of subplots in this movie, the race of aliens that were chasing after the Guardians is still chasing after them, Yondu (played by Michael Rooker) gets thrown into the mix as the Ravagers start to question his metal, Sylvester Stallone is in this movie for some reason I still have yet to really figure out. But the main story is Peter and Ego having father and son moments trying to figure out one another. And it's... okay. I mean Kurt Russel is great in the film. I am convinced Chris Pratt has transcended this franchise as an actor and is a little bit too good for a simple movie like this. The father son moments between these two are good but they just have a couple of conversations. They're good ones, but I would have liked to see these two fight along side one another. It is revealed that Peter has celestial heritage and he starts to harness his power as a celestial. It would have been cool to see Ego and Peter team up and get to know each other more.

But as it is, it's a decently fun romp with A LOT of comedy. Where Guardians of the Galaxy 1 was your typical Marvel blend of action and comedy, Volume 2 feels more like a comedy than anything else, almost to the point where it's hard for me to really take it seriously at times.

And yeah the comedy is good. But a lot of the time it's not nearly as funny as the characters think it is. I'll mention it here, Drax laughs at a lot of things in this movie. Especially in the first act they have Dave Bautista do this belly laugh. You probably saw it in the trailers and yeah it's funny... the first two times. Then it just gets obnoxious and  a little bit forced.

Also while we're on Drax, he didn't need to be in this movie. I hate to say it because I like his character and I like Dave Bautista, but he served absolutely no purpose in this film. He could have been written totally out and the story would not have changed.

In the first film he was seeking revenge for the death of his family and his humor was more unintentionally funny because he didn't understand sarcasm. In this he goes full comedic sidekick and is really only there for comedy. Yes, some of it is good, but a lot of it is sex jokes. Again, good the first few times but it gets old after a while.

I think after watching The Mummy, I've seen the Marvel comedy effect at its worst. The Mummy did not know how to correctly implement comedy the way Marvel does in this films. Again, I think Volume 2 implements comedy well, but you can see the cracks in the armor. Furthermore, they go so far overboard with the comedy that you're almost not prepared for the parts where this movie gets legitimately sad or it ruins a legitimately sad moment for the audience. If I do a spoilers review I'll talk more about this, just know this movie had the opportunity to create some very serious moments and they are a little bit undercut by the comedy that was laid on heavy.

On the Guardians themselves, the team expands a little bit in this film. You've obviously got Starlord, Rocket Racoon, Drax, Baby Groot (who I will talk about in length in a little bit) and Gamora.

But then you add on Yondu and Nebula (played by Karen Gillan). You also add Mantis (played by Pom Klementieff), an alien with psychic-ish abilities. Overall, I think they're pretty decent additions. I think I like the core team more but I did have fun with these characters and you get to know them a little bit more, especially Yondu and Nebula.

Yondu's character is a little bit retconned in this movie to serve a father son role with Starlord. It is a little bit rushed and doesn't exactly fit with some of the stuff that happened in the first movie. It's not really bad, it just provides an example of Marvel seemingly starting to regret the handcuffs they put their directors in and you can see it in their most recent films. Spider-man Homecoming, Doctor Strange, and I've even heard rumors about this with Thor Ragnorak. All of these movies, including Guardians seem to take a little bit of a new direction. I think in a certain way they still follow the Marvel formula that I'm getting a little tired of, but they all have elements about them that kind of buck what has been built up and we're forced to accept a little bit of a retcon of what we've known as fans. It's not a huge thing, just an interesting theory I might talk more about in my Thor review, a movie I am legitimately excited for.

Something worth mentioning is the relationship between Gamora and Nebula. While I felt it was a little bit tacked on, it actually builds these characters really well and you learn more about them.

Gamora's character is a little bit watered down from her deadly assassin role in the first film. She's still cool, I just think they wanted to make her more tangible and relatable as a core member of the Guardians so they could bring in Nebula and knock our socks off with this new character development they put her through. It is really great and these two together really do bring a new element to the story. Well done James Gunn... well done.

Oh... and I need to talk about Baby Groot.

While this movie has flaws, while Baby Groot has the possibility of being just a gimicky character like the Minions, only brought in to make the audience go AWWWW. They did everything right with this character.

Something that I didn't really expect was that Baby Groot is literally a baby. While he was never a very smart character, he is still developing in this film. The team can't depend on him the way they used to and they more have to take care of him like a baby. And that may sound annoying but it's actually really adorable. While they have to take care of him, he still does do stuff for the team and while many times it fails miserably for comedic effect, Baby Groots comedic moments were absolutely perfectly timed and placed throughout the film. And then you have the Awww factor. It's there but it doesn't feel like a gimick. I actually thought he was going to talk more and make everyone annoyingly swoon with his baby "I am Groot"'s. But he actually speaks less than I originally thought he would. I wanted him to speak more in fact cause he was adorable. They didn't overplay their hand, they used this character masterfully. So thank you Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, the way you used Baby Groot was phenomenal and now I want a Baby Groot toy.

I cannot deny that this film was visually stunning. It almost looked too good to the point where the good CGI seemed so glossy that it almost seemed fake and like it was a video game.

And that kind of blends into another criticism I have of the movie, this movie feels like a bunch of really good video game cutscenes. A couple of the action sequences feel like video games that I can't play. Overall this entire movie feels like a video game. A video game I would like to play but couldn't and therefore I'm left wanting more out of this movie. This seems like it's own little adventure not connected to anything, which is good, but not quite the epic that I think we got from the first film and therefore it feels small.

Video game cutscenes can be really good, and these ones are. But have you ever watched a youtube video of all the cutscenes from a video game stitched together to make a little movie? As good as that movie can be, it's not the full experience and I kind of felt that with this film. Throughout the film there is your mini bosses that they fight until you get to the main one. And because there's so many character they're jumping back and forth between characters. Again, you either feel like you're watching other characters in a cutscene or your character fighting out of your control.

I want to get my Last of Us review up so I can talk more about that interactive storytelling and when it's done right, but Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 needed that interactive story telling and I just didn't feel it.

Of course you're going to have Starlord and his music which is another big and pretty good element of the story. I do think the Awesome playlist Vol 2 had pretty big shoes to fill because the first playlist was phenomenal. In my opinion it's not quite as good but it's still got some classic tunes and it educated me on some 70s music.

Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is a pretty underwhelming movie. I am trying to be as objective as I can because I have had a bias against these movies in the past. It took me a while to actually see this movie due to a couple of things. I heard mediocre reviews and I just haven't been very psyched for this movie. If there was ever a movie from the MCU that you could straight up skip without any repercussions with future movies, besides Iron Man 2, this could probably be that movie. However, if you're just looking for a fun time, you'll get it with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, its a fun movie, just not the best.

It's not horrible and I think there have been worse Marvel sequels, but it definitely doesn't rank very high among the billions of Marvel movies we have out right now.

But those are my thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. What do you think? Where does it rank among the other MCU movies? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me you requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I feel like I might have been a little too rough on this movie and on the Guardians of the Galaxy in general. This video kind of showed me that. I think James Gunn and this entire team is just trying to make something entertaining and they do succeed at that. I won't take back the criticisms I've made, especially since I need to look at this superhero movie the same way I do every other one I review, but it is worth giving credit that this cast and director just like to have fun with some wacky characters and make an entertaining experience, and that they do. Enjoy!