Visually amazing, really funny, plot was a bit choppy.

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2017)

Guardians of the Galaxy was a break-out hit for Marvel in 2014 and has since become quite a pop cultural icon. Well, three years later and we return to this crazy space extravaganza seeing the likes of Star- Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, Groot and more once again. And it's these cast of characters that are one of the great things about these films.
Chris Pratt always seems like such a nice guy and his Peter Quill character is thus an enjoyable one to watch again. I enjoy Zoe Saldana and even though a notable number of her recent roles have been in very similar settings I find Gamora to be the most interesting. But for me, the best Guardian in this film was Drax the Destroyer; he had the best lines and got the hardest laughs from me. The other returning cast did great as well, I can't pick a problem with any of Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan or Sean Gunn's work here; they did just as well as they did in the previous movies with perhaps one or two having to stretch their characters emotionally and succeeding. Newcomers included Kurt Russell which was great to see and he played Quill's father really well, I can believe that the two are related. Pom Klementieff was surprisingly entertaining portraying the childlike gullibility of Mantis and am looking forward to how she'll be used in the future.
Story wise, Vol. 2 is very different from the first which was great as I don't like repetitive franchises but the plot wasn't as structured. It felt like half the story was focused on Peter and his dad and all that involved but then the writers had to come up with something for the other Guardians to do so paired them off with various characters and had them either sit around or have things happen to them for which they had to deal with. The final third was where it all came together though, as it would, and the climax was, although familiar in parts, visually unique and quite stunning thus making up for any narrative problems. And the Guardians films do have a lot of great visuals which is one of the reasons why I enjoy watching them.
In the end Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 wasn't as good as the first but I'm definitely not saying it wasn't good. I laughed out loud, it was surprisingly emotional, and having five post-credit scenes isn't as bad as it sounds.