Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Review

Marvel Studios are the undisputed daddies of the box office at the moment, so much so that now with each new release people tout as the film where the bubble bursts. Back in 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy was singled out as their biggest risk by far. It was a comic that even comic book fans weren't big followers of, it features a talking raccoon and a walking tree alien, it was to be written and directed by James Gunn alumni of Troma Entertainment, and its leading man was the chubby one from Parks and Recreation. A haul of almost $800million at the box office and Marvel once again could do no wrong. The Guardians will join up with the Avengers next year, but before then James Gunn returns to bring us volume 2.

After the events of the first film The Guardians have essentially been working as guns for hire, in a really charming title sequence the now baby Groot dances to ELO whilst in the back ground Peter Quill/Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) battle with a giant space slug. Whilst on this mission they upset the sovereign race. Fleeing across the galaxy the Guardians run into a charismatic individual named Ego (Kurt Russell) who turns out to be Quill's father, but he may be much more than that.

Right from the off Gunn sets the tone that this film wants to have, its freewheeling and animated, its fun and its incredibly daft. The interplay between the guardians grows here, there is a really fractious relationship forming between Rocket and Quill, there is a romantic relationship possibly forming between Gamora and Quill, meanwhile Drax is getting used to being part of his new family. Stylistically it is filled with colour and explosions and it really is one of those fun sci-fi films that zips here there and everywhere offering brilliant vistas and new worlds. As with the first one, Gunn also punctuates the film with a brilliant soundtrack of classic tracks aptly named 'awesome mix vol 2'.

The problem however is that after about half of the film has passed you realise that nothing has really happened yet in terms of consequence, and then it feels a bit later like the film realises this and reacts by remembering it needs a plot and a villain and quickly throws one at you. It's sad that all the enjoyment of the silliness and hijinks feels perfunctory by the end. It's nice that this feels like the closest you'll get to an MCU film that doesn't connect with all the other films, but as a side effect of that it also feels a bit superfluous.

It does however show a level of maturity towards the end that really stand outs in the context of the rest of the film, which gives Michael Rooker in particular some really good stuff to do. Plus you wont be able to listen to Cat Stevens at the end and not come at least vaguely close to shedding a tear.

(3 Stars)