Review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) by Vladimir J — 01 Jun 2017

"I kind of liked it and kind of didn't." - Random woman at the theater after the movie.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the follow-up to the smash hit of 2014 and most fans of the movie have been waiting almost 3 years for the next installment of the rag-tag team of misfits fighting space adventures. While the first movie was almost an homage to Star Wars, this movie tries to establish it's own identity by showing in more depth the makings of each team member and what makes them a family. While the film gives fans a visually delightful space quest the majority of the story is broken up into teams (coupling) where you learn a little bit about everyone in sections but then ultimately rejoin to beat the bad guy at the end.

Positives.

The film is certainly the visuals and depth of characters. The visuals are always very well done and Marvel takes no breaks on making sure their movies are visually stunning. The characters are fairly defined, you learn a little bit more of why Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillian) are so hateful towards one another, why Drax (Dave Butista) feels soo close to his new friends, and the meat of the story... who Starlord's father is. Those moments when you learn a little bit more about the characters are very well done but the execution is lacking in putting together a proper storyline.

Negatives.

Sadly the pacing of the film and how the story of each character is revealed. There is a lot of stops and go, jumping from one storyline to another sacrificing pacing and smooth transitions into another characters moments. While you have a touching moment with Starlord (Chris Prat) with his father Ego (Kurt Russell) the movie will then jump away to another characters mission on a completely different planet. While it is understandable when you consider that James Gunn had to balance not only the main core of the Guardians but also have them interact with new characters and try to flesh them out and make them memorable for the audience to have an emotion bond with them. Had the movie decided to focus more on fewer than more, it could be said that the story would flow better (considering there will be a Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and 4 coming so why not spread out the stories a bit?).

Another negative of the film but most likely a choice handed down from Marvel is the overuse of jokes and comedic timing. While it is sometimes nice to recall a joke from a previous film, the film decides to throw about 10 jokes a scene at the audience hoping that majority will leave the audience laughing but rather leaves the audience a bit tired and bored. There are many examples of scenes that go a bit too long and struggled to get to the point because the act of "fan servicing" to fans of the original movie's humor, it will make a scene that could have been 5 minutes into 8 minutes because 3 minutes are just recalling and rehashing the same joke or pushing the same joke to a tiring point.

Overall.

Although the film did have pacing issues, very harsh story transitions and painful overuse of humor, the film does stand on its own and is a good, not great, installment for the Guardians franchise. The film is enjoyable at more points than not but in the overall sense of entertainment, you probably won't stop and watch this film when it comes out on cable but die-hard fans of Marvel Studio films will be sure to love this to the very last scene.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 score card.

Rating: 3/5.

Rewatchable: Yes.

"Drop Everything" factor: No.

Entertaining: Overall yes but it can get slow.