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The original Guardians film was the first display of the power the Marvel brand has in terms of box office draw. Based upon a little-known comic series (and not even the original line-up of said comic) and set millions of lightyears from the rest of the on-screen Marvel Universe, it was entirely possible that casual audiences wouldn’t flock in such high numbers to it but performed strongly at the box office and received much audience and critical praise. Director James Gunn gave the film more comedy than any other element in the first outing embodied by lead Chris Pratt as Peter Quill aka Starlord. His comrades were filled out by Zoe Saldana as Gomorra (daughter of Marvel Archvillain Thanos), Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer (vengeful, socially illiterate powerhouse) and the motion captured combo of Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and cute Ent / living tree Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel). Together, they produced an entertaining laugh and light show that left audiences clamouring for more.

The plot of the sequel is loose at best but centres around the lineage of Peter Quill. After the first ended with the vague “your father is something very ancient that we’ve never seen before” and it being this ancient bloodline that enabled him to hold the Infinity Stone, Volume 2 seeks to answer those questions. From here on, depending on which trailers you have seen, there may be some spoilers as it’s hard to talk about the film without it. Well, one spoiler. So please, divert your eyes if you don’t want to know who Star lord’s father is.

 

Last chance not to know.

 

The film opens introducing us to Kurt Russel as Ego the Living Planet, and given the nature of films and TV it is quickly apparent he is Starlords’ father. In a flashback to 1980 we see him falling in love with Quill’s mother before snapping to the films present. Side note – kudos to the effects in making Kurt Russel appear younger in 1980, this time done with practical effects in the place of the CGI version seen on Michael Douglas in Antman and Tony Stark in Avengers: Civil War. The opening “action” sequence is more a music video with Baby Groot as the star and rainbow effects in the background. After the popularity of the soundtrack of the first film it was inevitable that the sequel would be another compilation CD with the smallest amount of new score. This in of itself, is not a bad thing but here some of the musical accompaniments are as jarring as some of those Suicide Squad, feeling thrown in to be able to include on the soundtrack and becomes very repetitive when every scene needs its own song.

 

 As stated, the plot is Peter Quill meeting and bonding with Ego leaving the rest of the squad in a limbo. Drax and Gomorra accompany Quill to meet his father and just orbit his narrative until the action starts. To give another dimension, the film does at least give us a B-plot with Rocket, Groot and Yondu becoming entangled with the Ravagers (Space Pirates Union) and the Sovereign. The Sovereign are introduced in the opening as a perfect race of gold people with highly advanced technology. It is Rocket’s unnecessary theft of some of their tech that sees them appear as a kind of secondary villains, popping in whenever the film has talked for too long to give a short CG-heavy action scene, to be quickly dispatched. Nebula (Karen Gillans blue sister to Gomorra) makes a return also, given a hammy, over the top performance as a tag along to the Rocket/Yondu story. As you can see, it’s a very disjoined affair.

 

In circumstances like these when films have thread bare plots, it is said they are a “character piece” and here that tag does not apply. Character and plot take a back seat to comedy with every exchange between character undercut by a punchline. No serious or dramatic moment is allowed to breath more than five second before somebody throws out a one liner. In the third act there are 2 or 3 moments that deliver good character moments – Nebula and Yondu especially – but did little to earn the emotion it thinks it deserves. The excessive comedy detracts from the later seriousness, a trait made worse by much of the comedy being lazy or overdrawn and failing to land.

 

This time out, most of the comedy seems to fall on Dave Bautista’s excessively broad shoulders in what feels like a much different version of his character from the first. Previously, he had been stoic with his humour coming from his lack of social grace but here is a louder, quippier version serving as a comedic relief in a film that is already a comedy. Gamorra too has had her stoic badassness replaced by a softer, lighter version. We do get some nice moments with Gamorra – the sitting in the wheat field and her history exchange with Nebula particularly – but serves mostly as Quill’s motivational speaker. Rocket has had all his worst qualities turned up to 11 and Groot had almost his entire character stripped away to be replaced by simply being cute.

 

Rhythmically, the film seems to have a basic structure of 10-minute segments of comedic exchange, exposition exchange, serious-ish moment, a quip to finish and queue the 80’s song. By the fifth character exposition dump upended by lazy jokes, it becomes apparent that there was no real plan for this film. When you choose to take an ensemble movie and focus entirely on one character’s arc, there is a great deal of wheel spinning and obligatory-feeling scenes with the other characters. The Starlord and Ego arc is executed well, with Kurt Russel providing a great foil for Pratt in both the comedy and drama. Ego is one of the more interesting villains to grace the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the most part, with his motivations understandable and horrifying making him more likely to endure in audience minds than Malaketh or Whiplash.

 

Throughout the film, you can almost feel James Gunn trying desperately to get you to laugh, leaning far too hard on what he thinks worked in the first. His efforts come across as almost self-indulgent at times, particularly in his inability to let a scene pass without an attempted joke. The tone shifts abruptly more than once but most significantly in the weak third act. Joking, obviously, is not an inherently bad thing in any sense but in this case, having gone for less quantity and more quality jokes would have served the film better as a whole. It’s a shame Gunn got so wrapped up trying to exceed the comedy hype set by the first film as there really seems to be a good film in the background here. The performers deliver varying degrees of performance with Rooker and Russel giving the most consistently good ones. The writing was weak throughout, absent of any coherent structure or goal. While certainly pretty to look at with very occasional genuinely touching moments, it is unlikely you will find yourself watching it again.