A standard superhero movie that works more during its lighter moments than its deeper moments

Rating: 6/10 (8 June 2017)

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" is an American movie from 2017, so really fresh and new still, that runs for 2 hours 15 minutes approximately and was co-written and directed by James Gunn. He was also the man in charge of the first film that plays before this one. The key cast members return as well, like Pratt, Saldana, Bautista plus Diesel and Cooper with their voices. Add to that the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Elizabeth Debicki and "Walking Dead" fans will be happy to see Michael Rooker play a core character in here. This one is all about family. It's about fathers, about sisters, about past loves and children, but also about future family and how friends can count as such as well. It was unclear for a long time who would be the main antagonist in this movie, if there even was one main antagonist. Stallone's character? Rooker's character? The golden gal? The female protagonist's sister? But then it is one you would not expect initially. Maybe the golden gal would not have been the perfect choice because honestly some kind of theft would not have been enough to justify that, would it?
Anyway, this is of course a Marvel adaptation and this means not only that Stan Lee has a cameo again as always (even two if you count credits), but also that you will rarely get as many shots at comedy as in this film here when it comes to other superhero films. This is good on the one hand as some of the jokes are indeed working, but it is also a negative aspect as with this quantity of funny one-liners many jokes aren't working (like the one about Kurt Russell's character's penis) and make this a film at times that just tries way too hard to be funny. Another negative side effect is that the comedy takes away majorly from the dramatic parts. Just take the scene in which the sister raves on in an insane manner about how she wants to kill Saldana's character and her father and then there is that guy who is the companion to Rooker's character (no idea what his purpose was anyway) and he must give this outburst of rage a comedic note by talking about simple stuff (jewellery or so). It was pretty embarrassing. And there are more moments like that, like Bautista's constant rambling about how Mantis is not really that attractive which was only funny the first one or two times. But luckily the characters in here are so unique (a talking raccoon nuff said, Cooper is actually pretty bearable when you don't see his smug face and grin) that it is still a really entertaining watch. I liked Drax, Rocket, Ego and Yondu the most I believe. On a negative note, this film proves once again that Chris Pratt, who had his breakthrough on Parks and Rec, is just not lead actor material as he was overshadowed by pretty much everybody else and that things don't look much better for Saldana, even if her make-up hides it pretty cleverly. Their interaction together about forbidden romance between protagonists was downright embarrassing and the story with Saldana's character and her sister was basically saved by the sister really and honestly the film still could have done without that story entirely. It also did not feel that authentic that she wants to kill her sister the most gruesome way and then they start bonding all of a sudden. You could say okay they have not seen each other for a long time and that changed everything, but they have when the bad girl is cuffed inside the spaceship. So the story sure had some flaws and while I enjoyed Russell's performance a lot, I still am not sure if the plot about his planet was good enough to be in the center of it all.
The one area where the film delivers without a doubt is the technical side. Visually and acoustically this film is as good as it gets and with that I am of course referring to sets, but also to make-up, cinematography and costumes of course. I would not be surprised if the movie manages to get in at the Oscars for one of these just like the first one did. I must say there is one exception though. The use of music was a bit exaggerated in terms of frequency and the only scene where the song played was truly working was the very first scene that is all about Baby Groot and that also was perhaps the best scene of the film already. However, the liberation scene with Rooker's character and this red laser was pretty cool as well. Speaking about this character in general, one could almost think that he and Stallone's character could get their own film, even if it is not too likely to happen I guess. What is likely, basically safe already, is that there will be a third GotG movie, probably in 2020. This one here is the second most successful film of 2017 when it comes to box office and that's a major (not unexpected though) success, even if there is perhaps a slight deterioration in quality compared to the first film. I recommend them both. Worth checking out.