Marvel struck gold with Guardians of the Galaxy two years ago: it was a light hearted action-adventure space opera. It set new box office records and its soundtrack got us grooving. We met Star-Lord, Groot, Gamora, Rocket and Drax for the first time and we had a fun ride with a story that didn’t sag.
So can lightning strike the same place twice? Would Gunn (the director-writer) try to ape what he did in the first movie or set a new path? Would Volume 2 be a Terminator 2 or Iron Man 2? Let's dig in...
Let's start with what works in Guardian of the Galaxy Vol. 2; James Gunn has upped the production quality of Vol. 2. The movie looks beautiful. It’s thus far the most colourful Marvel movie to date, you’d think it's shot on film instead of digital.
The rich hues also seep into the comedy. Drax's one liners are funnier, Baby Groot brings on the cute factor times a thousand. Gunn tries to deepen the themes around family - what family means and the challenges that come with family ties and even the family units that we manufacture.
Each character deals with different aspects of being part of a family unit. There’s Star-Lord's daddy issue, Gamora and Nebula's sister rivalry is explored again and Rocket's antisocial behaviour comes back again.
Which starts my issue with Vol. 2.
Story and character wise, Gunn has stagnated. Star Lord, Gamora and even Rocket re-tread the exact same issues that they dealt with in the first movie.
Characters don't deal with anything that shows a new dynamic in the characters. Even the new stuff, at closer inspection, are call backs from the first movie.
Then the other issue is the villain, the Sovereigns are under-utilised in the movie. They look beautiful in gold but one of the story decisions to withhold a very big comic book character really does not help in bringing something new to the mythology of Guardians instead of reworking what's already been done in the first movie.
As far as Ego’s story is concerned, Peter Quill's old man (thanks to the trailer for spoiling that) - is quite predictable and it falls for a lot of comic book cliches that one would think Marvel would easily side step.
Instead of innovating, Gunn seems to try to repolish what worked in the first movie by just adding more. More music, more “we are Groot moments” by not calling them that and more "we are family" motifs again ala Fast and Furious franchise - I almost gagged.
People will watch it, it will make a lot of money but once the hype dies down, people will see Vol. 2 just like Avengers: Ultron because it is form over substance. It looks beautiful, sounds cool but not even cool cameos can save what's basically a place holder for a third movie.
It re-treads what we liked about the first but adds nothing new we didn’t know from the first movie. It's not an awful movie, it is enjoyable
but forgettable. Repeated viewing will actually show how weak the plot is. Let's just say I'm looking forward to the honest trailer for this one.
Rating ***
* utter rubbish ** meh ***it’s aight ****we cooking with gas *****buy the blue ray/dvd/it’s a keeper