Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (Review)

Walking into Guardians of the Galaxy in the new LG theater for the first time was awesome. The theater was spacious and private feeling, with only a few very large seats and a medium sized screen (as far as theater screens go). I had a small soda, and was looking forward to a silly space adventure with Chris Pratt, one of my favorite actors at the time and a goofy cast of characters.

When I left the theater everyone was talking about how great the movie was but I felt pretty disappointed. Well, maybe that's the wrong word. I felt...like I had missed something. You know when you are going to the theater that has your movie playing and you go through that room that's like a dark hallway with garbage cans and then you go through a second pair of doors that leads to the actual theater with all the seats and stuff? Well, it seemed to me that during the breif trek through the dark hallway, I had accidentally walked into a showing a of a different movie. Shmardians of the Skalaxay, the lesser known knock-off.

It was bland. Really bland for a movie about a space raccoon and a talking tree. Chris Pratt didn't know what to do, the villain was a weirdo and most tellingly of all, the majority of the visual effects were simply unfinished. It all looked like a cheap video game.

That's not to say I hated it, or didn't enjoy any parts of it. Much like previous Marvel movies, characters I knew nothing about turned out to steal the show. Yondu (the bright blue whistling pirate) completely won me over and John C. Reilly was entertaining as always.

But I'm in the minority. Most people like Guardians of the Galaxy. When they describe it they say things like "Original", "Clever", and "Charming". It's this stuff that makes me question if we actually saw the same movie. The 2014 movie "Guardians of the Galaxy" is a pretty forgettable mess that completely devolves into a generic "WE GOT TO SAVE THE WORLD" movie. When all the advertising set me up for a movie about a bunch of jerk space-criminals who are constantly screwing each other over and then band together to complete a heist or something.

Strangely, everyone hated Suicide Squad, which... (Looks around) was actually what I wanted Guardians to be.

Flash forward to 2017 and we have the sequel, Vol. 2 as it's known. I got roped into a work function and went mainly as a team-building experience. I like my co-workers.

Turns out, even though it was a bit long, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 completely shatters the original and fixes all of it's problems.

Pictured: Those stupid rolling slime monsters from The Force Awakens.

After a kind of mediocre intro, the movie kicks off and right off the bat the chemistry is different. The characters are all razzing each other and making fun. It feels right. They feel like pirates who put up with each other just enough to get the job done, but aren't really on the same team. That's what I wanted. Drax steals the show right from the beginning and with the relative absence of Groot (sorta), he's the "big guy" of the movie.

Star-Lord himself gets a check up too, having had a pretty serious attitude adjustment since the original film.

Zoe Saldana is still gorgeous but still plays the generic hard-to-get-tough-girl in this movie. Cute, but boring. But seriously, what is with Zoe Saldana only playing hot aliens?

Rocket Raccoon is basically identical to the first movie, which is fine. He wasn't the star of the show, but he was totally passable. Yondu unfortunately gets kind of shafted in this movie. Without spoiling it too much, he's way less of a badass than he was in the original and even though he does get one scene where he straight-up murders like 100 dudes, it feels forced. He ends up getting kind of whooped but that blue cyborg chick from the first movie, ya know the one that was all bendy? Yeah, she's back too.

Surprisingly the best new character is a socially awkward alien named Mantis. She's pretty cute in the movie and gives the equally/differently socially awkward Drax someone to riff on. These are by far the best parts of the movie.

In fact, it doesn't really feel like a movie at all. It feels more like a long episode of a TV show, but with a big budget. The entire film is plotless, until the last 15 minutes. There isn't really a bad guy or a serious antagonist until that point and what we get instead are basically a series of character focused scenes that get two or three characters in a room together and let them riff on each other.

Rocket and Yondu.

Gamora and Star-Lord.

Drax and Mantis.

Star-Lord and Rocket.

Gamora and Nebula.

Jak and Daxter.

Rachet and Clank.

Wait. Wha-

...anyway the whole movie goes like that until the nutzo climax that pardon the cliche, comes out of fricken nowhere.

Oh and that's another thing. The makeup effects are amazing. This movie kills it in the makeup department. All the aliens and costumes are truly incredible and they all look great. It feels almost like a Star Wars movie!

Against all odds Guardians 2 manages to have no plot until the last 15 minutes of the movie and still be superior to both its predecessor and the last 3 Marvel films. I actually recommend this movie pretty highly. It's not the best Marvel movie... but it's pretty damn close. Here's hoping the next movie is more like this one.

Oh and by the way Pom Klementieff, the woman who plays Mantis. IS FINE. You can't really tell when she's all bugged up in the movie (but when haven't socially awkward alien babes been cute @starfire)

Just goes to show that mixed race people are really hotter than all of us. All the time. Forever. Darn it.