Well, did it live up to the first one?

Rating: 7/10 (28 April 2017)

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in my opinion does not surpass the original film however is not a let down at all. The second film managed to tie in a more interesting aspect about family and therefore becomes a much more self centered and confined film which may be a put off to some as in nothing really happens and everything is generally self contained with not much implications on the greater MCU. However as James Gunn has quoted he does want the Guardians to be mostly its own separate thing despite having to eventually join the Avengers in the Infinity War. Which is a creative choice that I fully support, granted what makes MCU great is its ability to tie in all these different characters a separate faction is a breath of fresh air and is a chance for audiences to just have fun without having to worry too much about the overall continuity.
The film is very funny and contains many of the space battle sequences that we would like with a dose of Baby-Grootness that just edges on the line of being too much, a good thing that they have finally decided to bring back the old Groot as suggested in one of the five post credit scenes. My favourite character to come out of this second outing is Yondu and he actually plays a very interesting father-son dynamic between him and Quill also establishing a sort of rivalry with Kurt Russell's 'Ego' the planet.
Gamora and Nebula's relationship was also very interestingly explored, as i said this film features heavily on family and this sort of familial ties. Another relationship that I really liked was between Drax and newcomer Mantis, they make a very good dynamic duo and Drax himself does become a much more interesting character compared to his last outing adding many comedic moments.
One of my favourite moments was definitely Stan Lee's cameo, this is probably the best Stan Lee cameo so far, he is first seen speaking to a group of 'Watchers' an extraterrestrial race from the Marvel comics and then in the end credits seen trying to stop the Watchers from leaving telling them that "there's more stories to tell." What is so great about this particular cameo is that it confirms that Stan Lee is in fact playing the same Stan Lee in all of the Marvel films including his earlier non-MCU ones. Although this may not prove the Stan Lee is a watcher, it does seem like it has some ties to the Watcher and is interesting because he always pops up in major MCU events as Watchers do, as a sort of bystander. So just a fun Easter egg that Marvel throws in there.
So the film was really great and I enjoyed the comedic aspects as well as the further character development that a largely self contained film like this managed to do despite having slight flaws like having the Sovereign popping up randomly felt like kind of a distraction but well i suppose they were just there to set up for Adam Warlock in the upcoming vol. 3.