Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 - Movie Review

By: Hamza Shafique

James Gunn‘s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2’ confused me on so many levels. I am not sure if I liked it or not. It’s definitely not a classic like Captain America’s Civil War but it’s also not horrible as Batman vs Superman. I guess it’s somewhere in the middle and my problem is that I am not use to of Marvel films being there.

To be honest this super hero franchise from Marvel universe never fascinated me and for this reason I skipped volume 1. I only went for Volume 2 because I read somewhere that at one point guardians timeline will overlap with avengers, so I thought it would be good to stay up to date. First off all, screen play has a lot of references to volume 1 and if you haven’t seen it then I will suggest to go see it before you go for this one. Volume 1 is available on E life for 15 dirhams and when I watched it a lot of things in Volume 2 plot got cleared. Secondly from trailers I expected plot to be focused more on Star Lord and his lost heritage but instead Vol 2 focused equally on every one’s insignificant story and made significant story of Star Lord insignificant. This is how it went for me, I wanted to see Star Lord’s story but instead I got Yondu’s story and his unexpected similarity/chemistry with Rocket. When I finally made my peace with it and started to enjoy their chemistry, story shifted to Nebula and Gamora. It was nice to know why Nebula hated her sister but what it had to do with the plot of the bigger game (where this installment was supposed to lead us to) is beyond my understanding. And when finally, I forgot about Star Lord, screenplay shifted its focus back on him and by this point I was not interested in any one’s story. On top of that there is abundance of jokes which is good who hates good humor but placement is not right, for example, when you are hoping for an epic hero vs villain climax show down, your hero turns into a giant Pacman and that sucked the required intensity out of the scene. Don’t take me wrong, screen play is not horrible, its simply is confusing. What made previous marvel movies great is the balance of content they brought to the big screen (something DC is still struggling to achieve). Marvel always bring every element like humor, action, character development etc. in its required proportions and as per the mood of the project. Guardians of Galaxy vol 2 is unfortunately slightly off balance in this regard. I wished James Gunn’s screenplay had some balance between the characters as per their significance and had a stronger antagonist.

There are some Marvel moments here as well. As far as the characters and their portrayals are relevant, I enjoyed ‘Drax the destroyer’ played by Bautista, he has all the funny lines and he delivers them with required innocence. Baby Groot is the cutest thing I have ever experienced on screen, it’s hard not to laugh or aww when he is on screen. Rest of the cast is decent as well, especially the rivalry between Nebula and Gamora is quite evident on the screen and their story together is the most interesting one. Another thing that vol 2 excelled in is the graphics, very sharp, very real and these graphics could be used as industry standards on which future films can be judged. Marvel has themselves raised the standards when it comes to action sequences, so in this context action sequences lacked the usual wow factor but it is still above average especially the fight sequence between Nebula and Gamora is the one to look out for.

I know, It’s a big budget marvel film which you will any way go for, so just read my review from the perspective of expectations alignment and once you have those aligned you might enjoy it more than I did. For me overall I experienced both dull and fun moments throughout 150-min Marvel muddle. Don’t take me wrong it’s still a good film and for most parts enjoyable, I am only disappointed because I was expecting it to be a classic like every other Marvel film. I go with 2.5 stars.
There are after credit scenes like every Marvel film, but these will also confuse you but I will suggest to wait till end as there are total 5 end credit scenes, which are placed throughout the credits. This technically makes them mid credit scenes rather than after credit scenes. I know, I am confused go watch it for yourself.