A flashy production with no substance

Rating: 1/10 (1 May 2017)

At the time of writing, there are only 7 out of 120 user reviewers that did not like the movie. I know I will receive a multitude of unhelpful votes for voicing my honest feedback about this movie. However, I hope that my feedback will be helpful for people who are able to judge a film in an objective manner so that they, at least, will be able to save their hard earned cash.
Firstly, the main antagonist is a Marvel character that has been completely changed for this movie. It bears no background similarity to the character in the comics whatsoever. I understand that the Marvel movies are all about making a spin on the comic book story arcs, but this difference was far too large for me to accept.
Whilst watching the movie, I had to ponder whether I had stepped into a Marvel Superhero version of "Fast and Furious". There was a continuous message that family is important and how the protagonists became who they were due to disenfranchised childhoods. Whilst this is a valid point, I do not feel that it belongs in a superhero action movie as it serves no purpose. Worse was when the message contradicted itself when we see Peter Quill betrayed by his Father. The clumsiness of this contradiction did nothing to alleviate the sickly sweet message that the movie was trying to convey. I get that James Gunn is trying to send out a message to the younger generation but I would think that kids go to watch a superhero movie for the action, and will not really appreciate or acknowledge the message that he is driving.
Unlike the first movie, there was a distinct lack of character focus and their abilities. It could easily have been an action movie without superheroes. In fact, the movie seemed to be focused on two characters when it came to showcasing their abilities. One of these had a sequence that was inspired by the Quicksilver scenes in the X-Men movies. The other was extremely underwhelming and was defeated far too incredibly when you consider the differences in age and experiences. None of the characters were interesting with the exception of Nebula and Mantis. However, Pom Klementieff played her role like a stuttering female cyborg that I even thought the role was played by an East Asian actress before I checked the cast members. The actors paid to play the new characters were miscast in my opinion. Sylvester Stallone's performance reminded me of his Judge Dredd and not in a good way.
It was clear that the popular factors in the first movie were taken and overdone in the second movie. Drax was made to look like a dumb fool once again but even more than in the first movie. While the CGI effects were good, the cuteness factor of Baby Groot served only to market the movie to kids and geek girls, and to rake in merchandise profit. There was also constant mention and focus on the cassette mix which was totally unnecessary (again, for merchandise promotion).
With the exception of Captain America and the first two Avengers and Thor movies, why do the Marvel movies have to be over-saturated with humor? It's one thing to market the movies to a wider audience but it's totally another thing when it's taken too far, and the humor becomes so clichéd.