Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 Review (spoilers)

I watched Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 last week, but haven't been able to brain out loud about until now, sorry for the delay. The movie begins as the ragtag team battles a massive inter-dimensional monster, as shown in the trailers. What the trailers don't reveal is that the battle is set to the entirety of Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" and plays like a music video with Baby Groot innocently dancing around as the chaos unfolds. The bad part is that it plays like a music video as the credits role and the movie's logo is displayed. Mr. Blue Sky is a long song, it's an amazing song and one of my favorites, but clocks in around 5 minutes and feels like a waste of time. Fortunately, this is the only time such a thing occurs.

Just as in the first Guardians of the Galaxy music is a large part of who Peter Quill aka Star-Lord is, music is his only connection to his mother and to Earth, it sets the film apart from the other MCU films and exists basically as another character. Vol.2 takes it a step farther when Kurt Russel as Ego the Living Planet interprets the lyrics of "Brandi You're a Fine Girl" by Looking Glass to express the love he felt for Peter's mother and the jubilation of finally finding his son. The soundtrack is chocked full of great hits from the 70's and 80's but has not lived up to its predecessor. Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1 soundtrack titled Awesome Mix vol. 1 had made it to the top of the Billboard chart, while Awesome Mix vol. 2 only reached the tenth spot. In fact Awesome Mix vol. 1 appears to have benefited from the release of the second movie, rocketing over 40 spots back into the top 20. Speaking of music, the orchestrated scores in the MCU have been criticized for not standing out and being forgettable, and rightfully so in my opinion. Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1 and vol. 2 have great toe-tapping soundtracks, however, it's just a greatest hits type album from artists of the past and nothing original...until the end credits role and the play "Guardians Inferno". A disco-inspired dance track from The Sneepers featuring David Hasselhoff, who also has a humorous cameo in the film. It's a catchy melody sure to stick in your head, and the MCU certainly needs more memorable music.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 was a great film, very exciting with several action-packed sequences, lots of laughable moments,  and loaded with Marvel history and Easter-Eggs. Other than the Mr. Blue Sky music video misstep, I only had a few criticisms. Something I caught from the trailers and that continued throughout the movie was the drastic shift in character for Drax the Destroyer. In the first film his humor came from his species lack of emotion and taking things very literally and came off very dry. In the second film Drax has a boisterous laugh, insults other characters, and makes penis jokes. The shift came from nowhere. Baby Groot is another annoyance. The sentient tree sacrificed himself to save the team in the first movie, but lived and has now grown into an infant for the second movie. At least that's the excuse they came up with for Baby Groot. However, it's the curse of the Ewoks all over again and Baby Groot is cute just for the sake of cuteness. Obviously, the fierce warrior is now a merchandise-selling mascot. In one of five post-credits stingers, Groot is shown to have advanced into puberty and should be back to his original adult state by the time the Guardians of the Galaxy appear in Avengers: Infinity War. Which is another downfall, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 did not mention Thanos, the Infinity Stones or impending conflict at all. With only three movies to go you would think the the galactic heroes would give us some details. I'm certain Spider-Man Homecoming won't mention the Infinity Stones and I'm doubtful Black Panther will either, despite being the last MCU movie before Thanos arrives to conquer Earth. Not counting any stingers during Spider-Man's or Black Panther's credits, that leaves Thor Ragnarok as the last opportunity to find the remaining Infinity Stones (the soul gem for those not keeping track) and the final set-up we need before Avengers: Infinity War next summer. As well as the last or at least most likely opportunity for Beta Ray Bill to debut dammit.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 has remained on top at the box office, making over $630 million for Marvel/Disney and is already ranked as the second highest grossing movie of 2017 despite only being in theaters for less than two weeks, at the time of this post. It easily took the top spot on its second weekend, defeating King Arthur which made just under $15 million and is officially considered a bomb. King Arthur was meant to set up a blockbuster franchise for Warner Brothers but that is now unlikely. The studio only has the DC Extended Universe to rely on now, and that hasn't been going too well critically speaking. Perhaps things will change when Wonder Woman hits theaters on June 2nd. The studio's anticipation is high and a squeal has already been confirmed. Reviews for Wonder Woman won't be published for several more days but it's apparent Warner Brothers is charging ahead full steam with their DCEU movies no matter what critics or their audiences think or considering how poorly the movies perform after their opening weekend. Speaking of which, Wonder Women will have serious competition both before and after with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales opening the Friday before and The Mummy opening the Friday after. We'll just have to see what happens. It seems like every DCEU film is the one that's going to be better than the last one (which is not hard to achieve) and the one that will determine if the DCEU continues on the same course or forces Warner Brothers to reevaluate their plans. Good news is Spider-Man Homecoming comes out in July.