Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 2017

A-

I have been looking forward to this movie for a while and was glad to get to go see it the first weekend it came out. I like that even though this is a Marvel property, it doesn’t really seem like the typical superhero movie, including Chris Pratt’s character who doesn’t have any superpowers. Or didn’t. Also there is a lot of wisecracking and just silly stuff and most of that works really well. Big action movies are kind of silly anyway, so why not add some humor? The side characters Drax, Groot, and Rocket get a lot of funny lines and scenes and the animators did a great job of making baby Groot incredibly cute and emotive. As it becomes a series, some of the danger for the main characters seems to wear off since you are pretty sure everyone has to live. And the end is a little tiresome as things get destroyed and people do ridiculous things, but the movie works quite well for the most part. It is sort of a junior Star Wars with a better sense of humor.

They also manage to throw in a lot of emotion and that’s on top of the romantic sparks between Quill and Gamora. I think that’s all great because it makes the movie deliver on a lot of different levels. Really the only weaknesses are the plot and how many people are killed, particularly by one character where it is kind of played for laughs as he murders everyone on a ship. While the first movie was a bit of a surprise, this movie is still entertaining, which is pretty good for a sequel, so I will give it an A-.

The showing I went to had 25 minutes of movie previews, mostly for stuff I have no desire to see. So many Marvel movies and then there are some other giant special effects movies that just seem like so much noise.

Written: 07 May 2017

Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital