I have to admit I was more excited about this film that I had been about any in recent history, something about the last movie just hit the spot so I was really looking forward to the next installment.

Now before I get on with the actual review let’s get some of the boring information out-of-the-way. Guardians of the Galaxy was released on the 28th April 2017, was written and Directed by James Gunn and features Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Sean Gunn, Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell.

The first movie relied greatly on the soundtrack, I’m well aware of the reasons behind this and the significance of music in the movie so this isn’t complaint but rather my issue is that it gave certain expectations for the second movie that I don’t believe were met. Before I continue I need to say that I really enjoyed the second movie, but the soundtrack for Vol. 1 and the opening to Vol. 2 wrote a cheque that the rest of the movie didn’t deliver. The first movie used music to connect with our emotions and to express how the characters feel, and if I’m being honest to make everything a bit more awesome. The second movie started off well, we had an action packed opening scene where the Guardians who’ve been working together for a few months now since the first movie are fighting some big space monster to protect some super powerful batteries for a race of golden people called the sovereign. The entire scene is cut with Electric Light Orchestra’s Mr. Blue Sky which punctuates the scene incredibly well and we get to see baby groot dancing…and man I can’t get enough of that little twig. But then that’s it really, I was expecting a repeat of the awesome musical repertoire we were treated to in the first movie but instead the soundtrack is far more sparing and I can’t work out if that’s because this movie is meant to be far more introspective than the previous movie, which was far more about awesome space adventure and epic accompanying music or perhaps it was because they just ran out of songs, after all most of the soundtrack is played on an old Sony Walkman owned by Peter Quill.

Moving on from the music I want to discuss a few moments in the movie I thought were significant. I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers. Something I was quite happy about was that Yondu played a vital part in this movie, perhaps the most significant second only to Ego. He’s different in this movie, a little broken and definitely lonely, I guess he misses his boy. We come away at the end of the movie feeling like we know him much better. Rocket Raccoon also goes through a change in this movie, and as expected he bites and scratches and fights it every step of the way. Even Gamora and Nebula get some sort of closure, about the only member of the gang that didn’t get any real resolution was Drax. In the first movie he is motivated by revenge and anger, he even drunk dials Ronan the Accuser but by the second movie he seems to be unburdened by his past, that’s all been shoved under the rug so to speak so that we can deal with Peter’s daddy issues and Rocket’s whole ‘being a Racoon thing’. Now Ronan is dead and so with that Drax has some measure of closure but I seriously doubt that would heal his emotional scars. We only get one real hint that he’s not just some big hulking comic relief and that’s when the Mantis, the touch telepath and Ego’s pet touches him, she feels his deep sadness but even that’s largely overlooked because they need to get on with the movie. So I feel that everyone in this movie gets something except him, whether they’re saving that for the next movie, or they’re happy with him the way he is, only time will tell. I for one hope that Drax (and his writers) just decided that he was happy enough with his surrogate family and he’d heal in his own time, after all resolution is just a word and anyone who’s lost a family member will say the pain never really goes away so maybe the writers were just being realistic.

As well as the main plot of Peter finding, joining then fighting his planet sized dad ‘Ego’ we also have a subplot where the Sovereign keep attacking the Guardians and as cool as epic space battles are I feel that the movie didn’t really need it, especially since the reasons for the sovereigns pursuit is incredibly petty. The movie didn’t really need a secondary antagonist and if it did then the Ravagers would have served nicely but sadly the writers felt the need to have these gold aristocratic aliens go crazy and start what amounts to an interstellar feud for a relatively small slight against them. No doubt they’ll be important in the next movie though.

So with all that in mind, I think I’ll give this movie a 4/5 for strong characters, a great storyline and for proving again that Marvel really knows how to make a movie.

Video courtesy of Marvel Entertainment

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Thomas Neil
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