Guardians of the Galaxy 2

(Movie Review)

Pros
* As with the first film, an awesome retro soundtrack.

* Admittedly, not all of the quirky humor in this film worked.  Some of the jokes fell flat.  But the jokes that did work were funny.

* I'm not sure the film as a whole rose to the level of genius, but there were some really genius moments.  One example out of many: That opening scene where Baby Groot was dancing around while his teammates were fighting the monster in the background.

* Those folks over at Marvel Studios are doing some brilliant work.  It's great to see these wonderfully bizarre and convoluted comic book plots actually go mainstream.

Negatives
* As with so many Marvel movies, the filmmakers completely disregard the physics of what a human body can physically survive.  So you have to work really hard to suspend your disbelief.  (There was a little voice in the back of my head that kept saying, "Okay, so he should have been dead 10 times by now", and I constantly had to tell it to shut up.)

Mixed 
* In my review of the original Guardians of the Galaxy, I wrote *quote*  [This film] Tried to milk the sentimentality a little too much—something I have little patience for in dumb comic book movies where my investment in the characters is minimal *endquote*
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 takes that same sentimentality, and cranks it up to 11. But... but I actually didn't mind it so much in this film, because by this point in the franchise it feels like we've actually spent a lot of time hanging around with these characters, and we're invested in them.  So the sentimentality is earned this time.
But that being said... I think in that last scene they milked the sentimentality just a little bit too much.  It seemed like it went on for just a couple beats too long.

* There was a lot of jokes in this film.  Many of these jokes were pretty funny.  But some of the jokes just didn't land, and I frequently felt embarrassed for this film at all the attempts at humor that didn't work.
In the end though, the positives outweighed the negatives.

Rating
A movie that definitely had genius moments, even if it wasn't flawless.  8 out of 10 Stars.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Links:
Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Captain America, Captain America 2, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers,  Guardians of the Galaxy. Civil War. and Ant Man.

Video Review
Video review here and embedded below



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