Review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) by Shane S — 12 Oct 2017

Not as strong as the first entry, but Guardians still has a unique formula that works for a genre stuffed with competitors.

This is a good popcorn flick with an added dynamic of really likable and interesting heroes. The use of campy comedy in these films is really excellent. Zoe Saldana and Chris Pratt also work really well together on screen and the "unspoken something" between them is fun and entertaining. Their interactions might not be terribly original, but it gets some fresh life with the Guardians over the top silliness.

There is some emotional heft to some parts of the movie, especially the end, which only happens when the characters are well done. They certainly are well done. Kurt Russell also does a good job embodying one of the strangest characters in the marvel universe.

The negatives are unsurprising for this type of movie, especially a sequel. In attempting to up the stakes of the origin story, the film gets almost too hard to follow. The stakes are nothing less than the very existence of the universe this time. I am also not opposed to eye candy and abstract villains, but the visual overload in this film starts to become too much. I was too fatigued by the time the big showdown finally happened that the stakes seemed meaningless.

Action can be so much more powerful when it burns slower and less often. The film simply progresses too fast and rams in too much. Some of the simple dialogue scenes with all of the characters is what makes these movies work so well, there is no reason not to add more of that to break up the action.

Perhaps my biggest issue with this movie though is that it commits that horribly irritating sin of constantly telling the audience what they already surmised. Why do all of these cosmic level movies feel required to narrate so much of what we already now? You do not need CGI dioramas to visualize the story being told, you do not need to repeat lines about obvious feelings and spell out those feelings. These things work so much better when the audience knows enough and fills in the rest themselves.