The second Guardians of the Galaxy film is fine enough. The main export that the first 2014 film had was a freshness separate from the other Marvel franchises, and comic book franchises in general. By the nature of sequel, Vol. 2 simply cannot have the same freshness. We’ve literally seen this story before. The enormous success of the first Guardians film may have been an inevitability, but the movie was incredibly funny and clever and it’s one of the few times that the obscene box returns felt earned. Of course, the film’s success also guaranteed that the movie would be slated into a franchise washing machine, forever turning over and over, feeding a mass desperate for content no matter the form. Vol. 2‘s opening credits sequence (set to the tune of Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky”) is so funny and so well put together, it leaves everything that follows in the dust. The grand majority of Vol. 2 can be described as something the first one so obviously wasn’t: boring.

Let’s just start with the film’s running time that sits at a bloated two plus hours, and feels it. At the few times that I do venture out to see one of these Marvel Universe films, I’m always astonished that, despite literally dozens of films slated for the coming years, the individual films themselves find it necessary to mash so much plot and character into a single narrative when one would suffice. Vol. 2 is more beholden to the extended universe than the first one and it shows. The filmmakers are placing their allegiances with the movies of the future than with the audience watching the one that is currently playing. There are, in fact, two parallel narratives running through Vol. 2; one for the film you’re watching, and one for the film you’re presumed to see later. It’s that arrogance that turns me off so many of these films, and its that ham-fistedness that betrays the looseness of the first film.

The whole clan is back for Vol.2, including the 70’s-radio-hits-loving Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), his will they/won’t they romantic foil Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the feisty racoon hybrid Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), the hulking, ultra-literal warrior Drax (Dave Bautista) and a miniature version of the original film’s Groot (still voiced by Vin Diesel apparently, but it seems like there’s a lot of work in post). They are hired as protection by a vain, golden planet called The Sovereign to protect their ever important batteries from hideous creatures (whether these creatures want to steal or destroy these amorphous batteries is left a mystery). They succeed in their protection, but when Rocket takes it upon himself to take a few of the batteries for himself, it sets off a galactical conflict between the Guardians and the Sovereign who are more offended by the lack of respect then they are the actual theft. This conflict is the peripheral narrative, set up along the fringe to be further paid off later, presumably, in a film that I am not going to see.

The film’s main plot line involves a celestial being named Ego (played by Kurt Russell with great enthusiasm), who also happens to be Quill’s father. Ego lives on a planet that he created himself and, in fact, the planet and he are actually – technically – one and the same. Quill is shocked to learn the true nature of his heritage, but during his family reunion, Rocket ends up teaming up with Yandu (Michael Rooker), leader of the Ravagers and Quill’s former paternal figure, to fight off a mutiny by Yandu’s former followers. Another figure who returns from the first film is Nebula (Karen Gillan) a sadistic half-robot who also happens to be Gamora’s vengeful sister. Nebula is gifted to the Guardians as a prisoner when they successfully protect the Sovereign, but Nebula vows to free herself and kill not only Gamora, but their legendarily evil father, Thanos. Thanos isn’t seen in this film. In this Marvel Cinematic Universe, he is the Final Boss, meant for a collaborative defeat by all of the good guys together, and his total absence from Vol. 2 should suggest just how seriously we should take this film as a standalone story.

Add it all together and you won’t need a Sparknotes tutorial to realize that Vol. 2‘s biggest theme is FAMILY. The ones we are born with and the ones we develop through life. To this movie the idea of parentage and relationships is purely just who happens to be starring alongside you in the movie’s story. The script (written by director James Gunn) is filled with elementary familial psychology, and its obvious that Gunn has so little understanding of the nature of human relationships, that even the most ambitious one in the movie (Quill and Gamora) ends up getting over-explained through annoyingly meta dialogue about Cheers and the nature of romantic entanglements in television. Gunn is a director who loves carnage. It’s not necessarily in his nature to make a PG-13 movie, but he’ll do it if it pays the bills. He does know how to draft an entertaining sequence, but the morals within it are usually clouded by a sadism that’s akin to Tarantino, but he has none of Tarantino’s self-awareness. He finds violent deaths very, very fun until it happens to the good guys, and then he gets very, very sentimental.

Vol. 2 is both Gunn compromised by the monolithic Disney franchise enterprise and Gunn stubbornly shoe-horning his anarchistic style of mindless blood & guts contrasted with ironic humor. If I seem particularly peeved at Vol. 2, it’s because it had all the ingredients to replicate what Gunn did so well with the first Guardians film, but instead came up with something closer to the worst of George Lucas, only with a little more violence to it. Dave Bautista is still a delight as Drax, arguably the only the character in Vol. 2 that manages to pull off what the film wants: high-stakes action alongside broad comedy. Like I said at the beginning, this movie is fine enough, but not enough for me to find myself interested in vol. 3.

 

Directed by James Gunn