Movie Review - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

One thing that I am liking about Marvel's films this year is just how retro they feel with the logos, the pretty colours and of course the music. Now when the first Guardians film came out, it came out at a time where only the hardcore Marvel fans would know who they are and by hardcore, I am of course referring to the comics. It was a risk that Marvel Studios chose to take and it paid off. In fact it paid off so well, that Marvel felt confident in taking other risks with their films such as Ant-Man and Doctor Strange. So that was what made the first film great. For the second film, its come out at a time where everyone now knows the Guardians of the Galaxy so Marvel know that it will do well. They even have full confidence in James Gunn that its guaranteed to be good. So grab your Walkmans and your baby Groots, let's dive into this film:

The year is 2014 (a year I personally want to forget) and our heroes have been renowned as the titular Guardians of the Galaxy. We meet the Sovereign race, a group of humanoid beings who seem to have a thing for gold who recruit the Guardians to stop a monster from stealing valuable batteries in exchange for taking Gamora's (reprised by Zoe Saldana) sister Nebula (reprised by Karen Gillan) who previously attempted to steal the batteries herself. But when Rocket Racoon (reprised by Bradley Cooper) steals the batteries himself, the Guardians end up having to escape them. And then we kind of get two stories where one is Star-Lord (reprised by Chris Pratt) reconciling with his father Ego (played by Kurt Russell), unaware of his true intentions for the universe while the other sees the Sovereign race recruit a divided group of Ravagers led by Yondu (reprised by Michael Rooker) to recover the stolen batteries from the Guardians and putting a bounty on their heads as a result.

One good thing about this film is its nostalgic value. The awesome music, the pretty colours, the one liners as well as the subtle pop culture references, all of it is great. But here's the thing. I personally feel that while it is a great film, the first one can be seen as the better one of the two purely because no one knew what Marvel would do with the Guardians in the film and it basically become Marvel's first attempt into the sci-fi genre and it worked out well for them in the long run. This film's Awesome Mix only has a handful of music that people will know as opposed to having music that everyone knows which can be seen as a let down for those of us longing to hear the music of Vol 2. Having said that though, it is well acted as always, its pretty badass at times, the timing of the music is well done and who thought things can be done in very surprising ways. Finally without spoiling it, Stan Lee's cameo is pretty funny and addresses one theory most of us had about a particular Marvel character. Sylvester Stallone's character is surprisingly very interesting. 5 post credits scenes which while don't draw any connections to future Marvel films, are still pretty good. And its generally a great film if you want a good time, though you'd probably find the first one as more of a good time than this film, but its still very good. 8/10