It's OK, but not as good as the first one

Rating: 6/10 (30 April 2017)

There are quite a few nice things about this movie. Baby Groot is cute. Do watch through the credits to see a great Teenage Groot "cameo". :)
There are a lot of other good jokes. It tries something different, which is very refreshing in the time of remakes, reboots and rehashes.
Unfortunately, it's not as fun as the first one. Some of it is by design, the stories here are very sad, the two main ones both having to do with Star Lord's father figures. But, it's much more than that. The characters are simply not having so much fun even for the parts that they're supposed/expected to have fun in, and we, as the audience, follow.
Also, the movie doesn't hold together as good as the first one. It feels like "Saturday Night Live in Space", with a touch of sad family drama.
The idea of casting Kurt Russel as the villain was interesting, but didn't work out. Such casting "against character" was done before with success, but here it fails. It's partly because the character is silly. It's not the basic idea of a living planet that's the problem (hey, it's a comic book movie!), but, what it does, how it does it...
FWIW, the main villain of the first movie, though all he did was go around and say "I accuse!" was better (in the context of such a movie, of course).
Though one does feel disappointed after watching it, one also feels that it's OK, sometimes things just don't work out. As far as modern movies go, comic book ones especially, this is a good one.