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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Movie Review

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a 2017 superhero film which is the fifteenth entry in the MCU. It is a pretty good, but inherently problematic flick.

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“He may have been your father, Quill,

but he wasn’t your daddy”

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First, the story. What I liked about it is that it is very engaging and the entire film is immensely entertaining and a lot of fun. It also found good use of each of its characters which is a great accomplishment as its set of characters is so large. Each one of them got their proper due and their moments to shine and to me they were very well incorporated into the overall storyline which was impressive. And of course I loved its setting. I will talk more about the plot’s deficiencies later on.

Star-Lord isn’t as funny as he should have been and that was definitely a problem. He is good as Peter Quill here but totally fails as Star-Lord. But the theme of fatherhood is really well explored here and I loved his relationship with both of his fathers. The fact that he lost both of his fathers here is commendable and very dark, albeit predictable. So he is very good here as a dramatic character, but just not good as a comedic one.

Gamora is as boring as ever and their relationship lacked spark. But I loved her relationship with Nebula who is excellent here and such a tragic character. Drax the Destroyer is the opposite from these two as an entirely comedic character. Sometimes the film relied too much on his jokes, but he was mostly really funny and enjoyable.

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Yes, Baby Groot is adorable. I have to be honest. The film again relied too heavily on his cuteness, but again his scenes with Rocket were so funny. Speaking of Rocket, he is a bit too mean here, but still memorable and fun to me personally. I just loved Mantis! She is just such a sweetheart and I hope that she joins the Guardians team as was hinted here.

So let’s talk about Ego. I disliked him in the end. He had potential, but he basically became a clichéd superhero power-hungry villain in the end. And that is one of my major problems with Guardians 2. I thought that the twist with him being evil was so obvious and the entire storyline was very predictable from start to finish. I liked that he led to good development and emotional scenes for Peter Quill, but Ego himself is so typical and ultimately boring. Some of his lines were as subtle as an earthquake.

And my second and bigger problem is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s sentimentality. It is overly sentimental to the point of being pathetic. Okay, it is great that all characters got their moments, but those moments were extended and became scenes and that was not right. Everyone was crying, everyone has a hard life and a set of problems and each one of them got their extremely emotional sequence. This is the reason why the film is so unsubtle and the big reason why the first Guardians was so much better.

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But the actors all did a really good job with Kurt Russell being admittedly very good in a weak role. The dialogue is weak, but the performances are good. The film is long, but is so fun that it never overstays its welcome. And I loved the special effects here as they were gorgeous and that entire Ego’s planet felt alive and it was very well explored and simply fascinating. The designs are beautiful here. The score is interesting and I guess I know why they chose calmer and more country oriented songs to fit the more dramatic mood, but I would have liked to have heard more fun songs regardless. The humor is pretty good, albeit not as good as it was in the original.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is overly sentimental – frequently even unbearably so – and extremely predictable, but still a lot of fun and it never overstays its welcome. The special effects are gorgeous and that entire planet felt alive and was fascinating to watch, the performances are quite good, the humor is solid and each character got their moment to shine.

My Rating – 3.5

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