Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a 2017 action/sci-fi film directed by James Gunn and is based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name, as it is the fifteenth film in the continuing Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Sylvester Stallone, and Kurt Russell. The film continues a few months after the events seen in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) as the Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage.
So this one was a hard one for me. I loved the original Guardians of the Galaxy that came out in 2014, as it had to be one of the most innovative films in the MCU, and I was just blown away by it when it first came out. But.. since there is always a but.. shortly after the film’s initial success, Marvel Studios had already announced a sequel seeming to try and replicate the success of the first one’s release. Now I knew that this wasn’t going to be a better film than the first one, but what I didn’t know was how much I WASN’T going to like it.
So what did Guardians get right? Well.. I don’t know. Everything in this felt mediocre to me. The acting was either fantastic or bland, the visual effects were either stellar or overused, the plot was.. yeah, no. The plot was just bad. But that’s just the thing, I went into this film with absolutely no expectations, and I mean that, and walked out severely disappointed. The only thing that really kept me engaged was the fact that this relates to the MCU, yet little did I know that there wasn’t any connection between this film and the MCU at all, (except a short post credit scene) and that was such a freakin let down. These characters are the closest to Thanos, and yet he doesn’t even make the slightest appearance in this film.
The film’s acting was just all over the place as there were moments that had you either crying in your seat, or moments where you were rolling your eyes because of horrible line delivery. That’s the thing. There wasn’t one performance that was better than the other (exception to Rooker and Cooper, but I’ll speak about that in a sec) and that’s just sad when you have such great actors working together. There was really no character progression other than with Rooker and Cooper’s characters, which I loved, as the other characters seemed to have progressed jack squat from the original film. Both Rooker and Cooper really stole any scene they were in, and I was surprised by how well they made them relate to one another.
The one thing that bother me the most about this movie was its horrible moments of humor. This isn’t at all a spoiler, but there’s a scene where a bunch of guys are sleeping on the floor and you see one of them sucking their thumb. Like, how is that funny? It’s like they tried making this movie for a 4-year-old to watch, because that’s the target demographic for that kind of joke. Not to mention there are a bunch of stupid poop jokes which made me feel like I was watching freakin Shrek. But man was the humor so bad and dull in this movie. Compared to the original film which I had watched again shortly after this one, I was incredibly disappointed in the force humor that you see in this film. Sure there were some moments where Bautista and Klementieff’s characters had me rolling laughing, but that was about it when it came to comedy in this film.
My last major complaint had to deal with the plot. It’s a freaking mess. There are a bunch of antagonists throughout this film, and not one of them feels like a major threat (other than a specific one, but saying so would reveal a huge spoiler), and when the resolution comes it just doesn’t feel at all satisfying. My biggest pet peeve was the gold people, or the ‘Sovereign’ people. They have little to do with the plot, and are as annoying as a fly on cow dung. Honestly, if they were never in the movie it would have been the same film. Now that’s just bad writing. Sure they set up that post credit scene I mentioned before, but that is basically the only thing they do to move the plot.
I know this isn’t much of a review, as it’s mainly me complaining about the film, but I was just so let down by this movie. Rooker and Cooper were probably the best thing to come out of this film, and the only real comic relief came from Bautista and Klementieff’s characters. Other than that, Guardians was just a mixed bag for me. I really wanted to like it, but the forced comedic moments, poor plot design, and mediocre characters and performances just left me feeling pretty dull about this film. In the end, I decided to give Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 an “Alright” on theVade Review Bar. This film had so much potential, but ended being a giant let down. I knew from the moment that they green lit this movie after the initial one’s success that it would never live up to its expectations. Scary part is, the third one has been green lit after this one too.
