REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2By Quinn OxleyMay 6, 2017As a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I adore Marvel’s opening weekends. The modern quips, the magnificent effects, the post-credits scenes - it’s a new media experience, even if it is basically the same gift in a different package each time. (These movies are gifts; don’t think twice about that. Also: I am not biased.)

However, we all know that not all Marvel movies are created equal. You can’t compare Captain America: Winter Soldier to Iron Man 2, or the original Avengers to Thor: The Dark World. (Sorry, Carlos.) As with people, I love all Marvel films equally, but I like some more than others.

I don’t care what IMDb, Metascore, or Rotten Tomatoes say. I did not like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Or, to be fair, I guess I should say I was very disappointed in what should have been an incredible sequel.

So, after a quick job on the Sovereign, the Guardians very fortuitously run into Peter’s father (Kurt Russell). Bearing the name Ego, he brings with him the innocent empath Mantis (Pom Klementieff), as well as some very questionable motives for suddenly wanting to be a father to Peter.

I can count on a Marvel movie for three things: at least half-interesting banter, a grand-scale battle of some kind, and a Stan Lee cameo. While the cameo hardly deserves acclaim, I’ll give Vol. 2 credit that it avoids what TV Tropes refers to as the “high-altitude battle” found in The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Iron Man 3, and several other superhero films.

However, the film also avoided much of the witty dialogue present in the original. I laughed maybe three or four times - and, given, when I laughed, I laughed out loud, and hard - but most of the rest of the time I spent cringing at cliched dialogue (show, don’t tell) and many characters that were awesome originally who have been reduced to caricatures of their former selves.

The plot gets going too quickly, seems to land in the middle of the Guardians’ world from nowhere (why again is this happening right now?), and once it gets going, tries to focus on too many new variables at once to be interesting. Batman v. Superman suffered from the same syndrome.

What was most devastating about Vol. 2, however, is not its shortcomings in particular - it’s that it could have been amazing. It could have been just as good as the original. Sure, Vol. 2 had a few LOL-moments, but it was missing much of the charm of the first - which is painful to say, because the core of the movie really is a fascinating new subject for Marvel. The third act picks up significantly; once the main conflict is realized, things become much more interesting. If some more thought had been put into what was built up from this foundation, it would have reached Captain America-sequel quality.

Is it good, though?

Ugh. It pains me to say this. It was alright. Not nearly what we deserved.

Rating: 5/10

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