The 2014 film Guardians of the Galaxy was a major success. It had great humour, great music and a good storyline. Everything put together about the film seemed good. Now, the second film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 did not exactly live up to the expectation.
First, the film was a tad too long. I would argue that the film could have been cut down by a good 20-30 minutes, to save us from those moments where we want the film to fast-forward. So many throw away scenes and shots that did not really need to be there. One of my bigger criticisms of the film is that it should have had less focus on all the characters. I feel as much as it is Guardians and not Guardian, the attempt to cover all emotions and feelings from all characters carried the film away from the bits that make it so great such as the funny little moments that the characters have between each other. Therefore, I think the film should have been more compact in the range of character stories it is trying to tell as it becomes a bit dull by the end of it.
The success of the film really has to go down to the comedy. The character of Drax played by the ex WWE star Dave Bautista really delivers that throughout, which for me is still odd as he doesn’t seem like the type of actor that could do that. Meanwhile, the rest of the ensemble have their moments in the film where they really make the audience chuckle. I would say the film had pretty good amount of quality comedic moments, which most films that are comedies lack these days.
Furthermore, I would say the music chosen really did its job well. It is not easy to top the first film’s playlist but I feel this feel lived up to that. I enjoyed the vast range of music chosen for the film just as much as I did in the first from Mr. Blue Sky to Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain the playlist was lively and fitted the film rather well.
Overall, I feel the film delivered. If I had to describe the film I would say it is “pretty good”. Good as the first? Probably not. Much worse? Definitely not.
