I'm Mary Poppins Y'all......

Rating: 6/10 (9 May 2017)

There's always a problem with that difficult second album, when the first was such a fresh take on the powerhouse/sometimes trying super/comic book hero genre that has literally taken over Hollywood since 2008.
The first GOTG was original, genuinely funny, and had a lot of heart. Plus it finally gave Howard The Duck the box office hit he'd been waiting for for nearly thirty years.
So Gunn was going to have to do something special to usurp his original.
And has he?..........no he hasn't.
GOTG VOL.2 is still a vibrant, colourful piece of cinema, but it loses its way in the second act,thanks to Gunn trying to emulate James Cameron's trope of making the nuclear family a pivotal point of his narrative.
Yes, it's great that we finally discover Quills origins, and Russell is truly wonderful as Ego, looking like a cross between Michael McDonald and Barry Gibb, but during this pivotal part of the plot, the rest of the guardians are given very little to do.
Gamora feels like a spare part in this film, she is either a thorn in Quills side, or an angel on his shoulder, and does very little else. Drax has become more of a silly comic relief this time, rather than unintentional as he was in the first film, spending much of the second act being detrimental to Mantis. Rocket Raccoon does a little better, he is one of the funniest things in the film, but again, apart from his acid tongue and finding Yondu, he's also sidelined.
So thank heavens for Yondu and Groot. Yondu plays such an important role to the whole story, that he could almost be a primary character, and he shares some wonderful scenes with Groot, especially the hilarious scene where he is trying to get Groot to find something from a draw.
Stallone pops up in an extended cameo, and when we first meet him, you are thinking to yourself 'what's the point of him being in it?' But it all makes sense in the end.
There are some wonderful set pieces, the escape through the asteroid field is a highlight, and the film is book ended by some really standout action scenes, even though the finale reminded one of The Mummy.
So all in all, it's not a bad film by any means, the scene shared by Quill and Yondu is very touching, but you can't help but think that this could have been so much more.
And to those moaning about five stingers in the credits, it made the credits go faster for me, even though I kept asking myself 'Why is Goldblum's character from Thor: Ragnarok featured in a picture?'
And it was good to see Howard again.....