If you are wondering if you will like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 or not, just ask yourself whether you liked the first one or not. They didn’t change the formula very much. It is still a rag-tag group of rouges cracking wise and saving the galaxy. This time with more daddy issues. That really is pretty much the whole review, but you came for more, so here we go.
“Daddy issues” should be the be the subtitle to the film. It turns out the whole crew, except Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) and Drax (Dave Bautista), have them, and this film explores them. Especially Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt) because his long lost his birth dad shows up. Drax, to be fair, has other family issues because he ‘was’ a Dad.
The concept of family is a common theme with group based action films (e.g. all of the Fast and Furious films), and it is easy to see why. You get the built in drama of learning to love and live with the “new” family juxtaposed against all of the baggage from their old “real” family, and we get to see what happens when those “families” collide. I am guessing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will not be the last film to use this setup. I mean Vol. 3 comes out two years from now, and those “daddy issues” will not just go away.
If you are looking for a funny film filled with a lot of action and a great group of character’s, and you are not looking for something more from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 versus what we got in Vol. 1, you will be very happy. If you did want something more, and you were hoping this film would push the massive and now lumbering MCU forward in any real way, you may feel a little disappointed. Thankfully this crew is too fun to let that disappointment sink in too deep.