REVIEWED: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 ¦¦8/10 ¦¦

SPOILERS AHEAD – BE WARNED

So, here we are. Two years after the second Avengers movie and with one year left until the supposedly big battle against Thanos. My intial thoughts on the film if I was being really critical was that it wasn’t better than the first. I can’t say that GOTG2 was bad or OK becuase I feel the film was actually pretty great not just as good as the first. It is just because I always focus more on the bad elements of a film rather than the good elements of the film. As I currently leave the cinema I have begun writing this (you see… commitment), so I have a fresh take on the film. If I had to summarise my thoughts of the film into one sentence. It would be: “Well it’s good but it’s not better than the first”.

I’m going to delve straight in there by naming my biggest issue with the film. The emotion, now don’t get me wrong. I loved the relationships and the emotion and that is one of the positives of the film but at times it was wayy to much. The relationships the characters build, Nebula & Gamora, Gamora & Star Lord, Star Lord and basically everyone, was the issue for the film. Where the first film had subtle emotion, with the GOTG becoming a family, the second one almost pours the emotion down your throat. Now, don’t get me wrong I’m wiping my eyes from that Yondu scene, but I feel like too much was going on emotion wise, with the original 5 members, the 3 added members, the father and mother. But I think this is because James Gunn had to break the bonds to build them up again. This is set only a couple months after the first, and we assumed everything was dandy, but he knows he wants to build these characters up maybe in the third movie, and so works hard to cut them down.  I reckon that Rocket decision to leave Peter will come up again.

For example, Rocket Raccoon almost becomes unlikeable but luckily his humour   outweighs stubbornness. Another example is Yondu and Nebula, from where they were at the end of the first film to the end of the second film was a complete U-turn.

Apsrt from that the only have issue I have with film was

“You killed my mother”

Why must every single fricking (Baby Groot) comic book film have to be about dead mums.WHY!!! Captain America, BvS. It is just so snnoying. But that being I loved the Yondu dad arc bar the line “I’m not your father, I’m your daddy”

But surprisingly, if I look deeper I can’t really find any more issues I really had with the film. I would have loved a little bit of interconnectivity, with maybe Thor showing up or something that would’ve made me so exicted for the future, but Adam Warlock has suficed my anticipation for quite a while.. Whilst I was watching it, I thought the power that Star Lord was given was ridiculous, but then I liked the way that it is only true if he stays on the world and leaves his family GOTG.

The only other thing I can think of is the one thing Marvel gets critisced for, is the villian good enough? By no means is he a bad villian, but I don’t think he is a great villian, but he is definitely one of the best we have seen in the MCU.

But if I had to really nitpick, and I am really, really, nitpicking here. It almost feels as though they were like ‘Hey we have these really cool visions, throw them all in let’s see how much we can do”. I feel like some of the visuals were unneeded, but I still loved them. I would rather have that than no visuals at all.

On to the positives, the characters and their devlopments are fantastic. I loved the links between them all, Drax and Mantis, Raccoon and Yondu (I know my other point was against emotion, but I said that the overuse of emotion, but this wasn’t), getting to see this made sense and I found it really intresting

The actual characters were amazing; Drax was surprisingly enjoyable, Yondu tugged on heart strings, James Gunns’ brother made me care about a character I didn’t even know had a name and OF COURSE BABY GROOT. I love thst guy.

And finally, the things that stand out in the film are it’s humour – the funniest Marvel film to date, the music and the cameos,- they got FRICKING SYLVESTER STALLONE, they got ROCKY!

BTW,  I loved Groot’s growing stage.

So yeah that is it, a good film but not Marvel’s best. It’s not the worst either, I would say it is better than Dr Strange, but not Civil War. Maybe if the film didn’t have a predecessor to be compared to, I would rank it higher ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m changing the way I review films because people keep telling me my reviews are always 8’s more specifically Marvel films. So I award GOTG2 a 8 rating or a B+.

AZ