So yeah, I finally got around to checking this out earlier today.
Back in the heady summer of 2014, I was actually one of the few people who was actually left rather feeling rather cold towards the first
Guardians of the Galaxy, having been left feeling particularly unsatisfied with the ”style over substance" approach that the film seemed to have taken, specifically taking issue with slapdash nature of the characterization and the trite, relatively shallow nature of the Maguffin fuelled plot with it's paper thin, Power Rangers-esque centeral antagonist. As such, I actually went into this with depressingly low expectations, especially a lot of the initial reviews seemed to downplay the sequel as a movie that was essentially just giving us more of the same.
Imagine my surprise then when this movie absolutely knocked my socks off! So much so that it might just be my favourite Marvel movie so far. It's definitely one of the very few genuinely great movies that I feel Marvel has made so far (alongside
The Avengers and
Captain America: Winter Solider). I had an absoloute blast watching it, feeling it was a dramatic step up from the original in almost every department.
Pros:
-The characters all really worked so much better for me this time around, with the character beats proving to be much more focused and innately personal as it used the original as a jumping off point to really go much deeper with its central past, whilst exploring their various relationships with each other in greater detail. The team just
clicked for me in a way they never really did for me in the first film.
-Huzzah! The MCU Villain curse has been lifted! This time around, we got a truly great and interesting villain in the form of Ego! Easily the best Marvel character we've had on screen...I felt Kurt Russell did a wonderful job with such a strange yet surprisingly multi-faceted character. The scene where he finally revealed his plan in front of Peter with those incredibly creepy, expositional marionattes was genuinely unsettling.
-The film is visually breath-taking, utilizing a borderline orgasmic range of bright and brilliant colours to help highlight the fun, savagery and breath-taking beauty of this universe. Loved all the unique planets and the visual inventiveness of their designs (the general look and detailed architecture for Ego's world was absolutely gorgeous, I also really loved the snow planet of robot hookers)
-I thought a lot of the comedic beats were really great, with the humour for
Volume 2 working for me a lot better than in the original, with Drax proving to be something of a highlight.
-Loved the much more immersive, humanising subplots that helped expand upon Yondu and Nebula's characters. Yondu's sacrifice at the end of the film legitimately got me a little teary-eyed.
-Loved the Sylvester Stallone, Howard the Duck and Stan Lee cameos,
especially the general nature of the Stan Lee cameo given how it's something I've sort of been asking for for ages.
-Mantis was totally adorable and I ended up really loving her character. Props to that particular actress.
Cons:
-Gamora's character arc and related subplot were slightly weak and not very sharply defined, especially in comparison to the rest of the team. I get that she got to repair her relationship with Nebula, but that was more Nebula's story. I needed something more from Gamora.
-The film featured far too many scenes involving dramatic moments being close off by an immediate comedic beat, so much so that it began to get a little grating and far too easy to predict. I wish Gunn wouldn't be so afraid to leave some of the dramatic beats untouched without having to sully them with a countless array of forced punch-lines.
-Super nitpicky, but Ego slowly reconstructing his body got way too visually reminiscent to Doctor Manhattan for my liking, so much so I found it a bit distracting.
-Too many post-credit sequences, I think.
But yeah, after really not being a fan of the original movie, I'm really glad to finally find myself officially onboard with the
Guardians of the Galaxy, so much so I'm legitimately looking forward to finding out where they end up next and will probably be rushing out to buy this film on blu ray when it finally releases.
Final rating: 9/10.
EDIT: By the way, this film did surrealistic, genuinely visually arresting cosmic imagery infinitely better than
Doctor Strange.
