Sequels are hard though. Even for a Marvel machine that regularly engages in the dark art of extended stories.
Volume 2 picks up shortly after the first movie. The team is a well oiled machine in their own sloppy way. Seedling Groot is now an adorable baby Groot. Otherwise, they are the same motley cast of rogues. After a job goes sour, the gang narrowly escapes the army of a group known as the Sovereign, led by their thin-skinned High Priestess (Elizabeth Debicki). They do this with the help of a man named Ego (Kurt Russell), who says he is Peter Quill's (Chris Pratt) father. While Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Baby Groot (Vin Diesel, kind of), and their prisoner Nebula - because who doesn't bring Karen Gillan back if she's available - are busy fixing the ship, Peter, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and Drax (Dave Bautista) join Ego on his planet. Eventually, Rocket and company have a run-in with Yondu's (Michael Rooker) gang, who have been hired by the Sovereign to capture them, and Quill's group tries to figure out what to make of Ego.
Now most of that is gibberish until you watch the movie. While that all sounds very plotty, the movie itself doesn't feel that way. In fact, the first hour and a half feels like it's killing time. A lot of the story is feeding on leftovers from the first movie. Not in a "completing a story arc" way either. Things like Nebnula and Gamora's ongoing feud took up a lot of time, even though where it ended up was inevitable. Yondu's story was the same way, getting telegraphed from his first scene. The Ego story killed a lot of time before it turned into actual plot, then the movie becomes the standard "team races to a macguffin to save the universe" story that superhero movies normally turn into. I was really bored by the story.
And that's OK. You don't bring James Gunn in to direct and write a movie for his plotting abilities. You bring him in because he makes something that is a lot of fun. That much is still true about Guardians Vol. 2. It is very funny, knowing how to use each character for maximum comedic effect. All the characters are funny in the ways they were before. I can't think of any new shades added for anyone, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Sovereign are entertaining because, despite the size of their army, they are only seen as a nuisance. Going in, I was worried that baby Groot was going to take over the movie. He was maybe a little overused, but not a crazy amount. The music is still great too. Terrific use of Fleetwood Mac among many others. The opening number of the film is lively in a silly and clever way, and the end credits might be the best part of the movie. No one can say this doesn't have the full James Gunn treatment.
However, this has a bad case of sequelitus. While nowhere near the severity of the quality swing, I'm reminded a lot of the first two Transformers movie. I love the 2007 Transformers movie. If people can look past the reflexive Michael Bay hate, it's a really entertaining action movie. The sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, is a shit movie for a lot of reasons, but the big one is how it handled escalation. Like a lot of sequels, it tried to do what the first movie did, only more. The action was bigger, so the comic relief had to be bigger and more constant to try to balance it out. And, in the process, the story got ignored. Guardians Vol. 2 has the same problem, on a smaller scale. I.e. "People like the jokes and music, so we'll add even more of that". Good sequels start with the story and use the fact that the characters and world are already established to allow bigger stakes, bigger laughs, etc. Guardians 2 tries to reverse that formula and it doesn't work.
Then there's the fact that I'm not sure how much James Gunn wants to make a superhero movie. To some extent, the same thing could be said about the first movie. Perhaps, it's just more apparent since Volume 2 has a few more problems to pick at. Or maybe it's because we live in a post-Deadpool world. I'm not sure why, but Gunn wasn't as successful at playing with the superhero tropes. It felt like Gunn was trying to have his cake and eat it too. There's a lot of undercutting scenes with jokes. A lot. Near constant. There's a certain amount of sincerity required to buy into a traditional superhero movie, which Guardians is, despite its efforts. It still fits too neatly into the MCU to pretend it's not. Volume 2 undercuts just about every sincere moment with a joke to diminish it. Volume 2 does it just a little too much for my taste, which made it difficult to buy into any of the stakes.
Gunn is not a technical wizard at staging action sequences. The geography of the climactic fight is a mess. It's the equivalent of a character diffusing a bomb with 1 second left happening over and over again. One character stops a ship from crushing someone else just in the nick of time. Two other characters manage to jump on a spire of rock that pushes them up right next to the ship. I never had an understanding about the limitations of the central antagonist's powers or how to destroy him/it. It's not something I want to harp on too long, because I think it was deliberately not a priority for Gunn. It's the kind of thing that makes a difference in the long run though.
I'm very pro-MCU. I think they deliver a good to great product that takes advantage of the benefits of seeing a movie in a theater (big screen, better sound, communal enjoyment). There's is not a big difference between the quality floor and ceiling for any of these movies. Even the worst of their movies is pretty enjoyable even if it isn't memorable. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is an average MCU effort and I'll take that. It's fun, with a cast who meshes well together. What worked the first time around didn't as much this time. I say some version of this a lot, but even an 70% as good version of the original Guardians is pretty good movie. Most of my concerns with Volume 2 are the nitpicky kind that built up, not a single severe misstep. If you are just looking for some enjoyment, it delivers.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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