The summer movie season has officially started, and we are all ready for the big blockbuster movies that drown the next four months. There are some that I am truly looking forward to seeing, but unfortunately, there are also the ones that I am dreading that they have been made in the first place.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2” is again co-written and directed by James Gunn (Super, PG Porn) with stars Chris Pratt (Jurassic World, Moneyball), Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek), Dave Bautista (Spectre The Boss), Vin Diesel (Furious 7, XXX), Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, American Sniper), Michael Rooker (Jumper, Cliffhanger), Karen Gillan (Oculus, Doctor Who), Pom Klementieff (Old Boy, Loup), Sylvester Stallone (Rambo, Rocky), and Kurt Russell (The Hateful Eight, Escape from New York). Taking place about three months after the original left off, the returning crew of Peter “Star Lord” Quinn (Pratt), Gamora (Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Bautista), Groot (Diesel) and Rocket (Cooper). When Peter meets his father, Ego (Russell), they go to Ego’s world, where they may be able to bring harmony to the universe while Yondu (Rooker) and his gang are chasing after Peter as well as the sibling rivalry between Gamora and Nebula (Gillan).
With the basic crew returning from the original, there are the same personalities, characters, and attitudes that we received from the original. Although Stallone is not in the film very long, Russell adds to the film well. I have to give a shout out to Klementieff, whose performance as Mantis has great chemistry with Bautista’s Drax, creating some great comical moments. This is a big budget film and you can tell with CGI that is so good, even though I knew it was CGI, I forgot that fact at certain points. We were able to screen this in IMAX 3-D, which was nice, but I am not sure if it is worth the extra cost.
Now, here is where I get a little conflicted because I feel that this film is way too long. At about 2 hours and 15 minutes long, I could tell, and there easily could have been 20 minutes cut out. In the basic form, this plot is in a way simplistic, so making the film longer by adding a bunch of comical scenes does not work. I did laugh a lot and there are the many good pop culture references, but it does not help the pacing at all. This film is good, but it was just missing that something special that the original had that cannot be replicated. Gunn has already signed on to direct and write “Vol. 3”, but my worry is that it may end up in the realm of films where “should they have really made parts 3, 4, or 5 like the “Ice Age” franchise. I will still recommend this film, but as a matinee in the theaters.