Temper expectations, fun but not like the original

Rating: 7/10 (25 April 2017)

This will be a fairly short review because if you are at all familiar with the first Guardians of the Galaxy or the Marvel Universe, then the characters and actors, directors and writers will be well known.
The second volume explores Peter Quill's/Starlord's parentage and unfortunately as a narrative hook it is a dead end. It requires a huge amount of exposition to set up Ego (Kurt Russell) as the God like father of Peter and the plans he has for his son now he has found him.
The second hook involves a race called The Sovereign who also end up hunting down the Guardians. This is all incredibly messy as the chess pieces are forcibly moved into place to swell out the structure and give us the ending we all want.
The film looks great and all the cast turn up...this was not phoned in. The charisma of the leads and the use of Baby Groot for humour keeps momentum going but it just feels like the wheels spinning faster but going nowhere. I can only assume that Gunn was trapped by requisites in the lead up to the Avengers: Infinity War which restricted what stories he could explore.
My 11 year old son really liked it. It will make a mountainload of money so if you temper expectations it might make for a more fun experience.