A Movie Filled with "Whys?"

Rating: 7/10 (11 June 2017)

The Guardians of the Galaxy 2 tried to one-up the first movie in many ways, which is great. It also failed to one-up the first movie in each of those ways, which is less great.
I don't want to seem like I am simply dumping all over this movie because I genuinely enjoyed parts of it. To avoid that, I will discuss some things that I didn't like, followed by some things that I liked, and then I will end with a few things that I didn't like and give a brief recap. Sound good? Cool. Here we go.
The Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is funny, but not as funny as the first one. The second one may have had more independent jokes that made me laugh, but the jokes didn't fit naturally the way they did in the first movie. I imagine I could probably pluck jokes from a given scene in Guardians 2 and place them in other scenes and they it wouldn't really change anything. They already felt out of place, so they wouldn't feel any more out of place if inserted elsewhere. Most of the jokes in Guardians 2 halted scenes in an awkward way that was especially noticeable when they failed to get a laugh. That wasn't the case in Guardians 1.
The star of the movie, since Pratt was stolen by his dad, was Dave Bautista playing Drax. His laugh alone should win him some kind of award. He also had many of the movies best jokes and began a fun, if not unusual, romance with a new "disgusting bug lady," as he would call her. Shouts to Drax. He's the movie MVP. Sorry, Baby Groot. You're still adorable.
Sequels are tricky. They need to walk a fine line between remaining true to the original without falling into the trap of cheaply ripping it off. Guardians 2 was not quite sure how to do that. It tried to add additional layers to the story by making the audience feel for the characters.
It tried to make the one-dimensional characters deep and sympathetic. This isn't a terrible idea, but it resulted about 50 too many mentions of "family" in the cheesy heartfelt conversations and an unnecessary overarching theme of daddy issues. Missteps like this make Guardians 1 ostensibly superior.
I know I shouldn't dissect this movie so thoroughly. It's not meant for that. Yet I couldn't help noticing the movie's flaws.
If you are looking for a zany, fun time at the theaters involving little to no thought, this movie may work for you. If you plan on asking questions or thinking about the plot, you should probably watch something else.