James Gunn is back to direct the second installment of this new trilogy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Guardians of The Galaxy Volume 2 is the film audiences are excited to see, its opening box office numbers proves that this movie has a large following.
The first Guardians of The Galaxy is very similar yet a different approach to telling a Star Wars story. This formula of storytelling is repeated in Volume 2, this time being very reminiscent of The Empire Strikes Back in it that our heroes face their inner struggles and go on voyages of their own trying to cope with the past.
While the first movie caught everyone’s attention by having a distant universe with likable characters and variety of scenery, the second installment takes its time in dedicating character development making a very emotional journey along the way.
Guardians of The Galaxy Volume 2 is much more slow in terms of pacing. The movie really wants the audience to care for the group of misfits in their ongoing journeys of having a good time.
The first movie shows the group surviving the impossible in order to prevent the planet Xandar from dying.
The sequel has to handle its conflict properly because the first movie established that they have prevented something that was once thought inevitable by touching the gem that destroys worlds.
Just like Star Trek Into Darkness, when death can be prevented there is no point establishing a conflict if the audience knows that the character will be alright.
This is why it worried me when I heard that there will be a young Han Solo movie because it tries to establish something that was already there to begin with.
Without any tension a movie is left with no conflict that we could hope our characters can overcome, the Matrix trilogy is a good example of this problem because after the first movie agent Smith was no more than a minor menace never being able to break Neo like in the first movie.
James Gunn must have noticed this as well. While the Guardians did save a planet from being destroyed, they were not broken internally, they shrugged it off and dealt with their issues as being outcasts externally in the first movie.
This movie allows us to go further into the Guardians inner conflicts and especially Peters issue with an absent father in his Earthly childhood.
The only exception to this is Drax and Groot, they have nothing new to offer and they simply just become side characters and are used as comedic relief.
Toddler Groot is at times fun but his presence had hardly any impact in the story besides the moment like when he was in jail.
The plot is similar to the first movie in it that the Guardians are in a situation and that a certain group wants them dead, and the same steps are being taken but in a different order.
The first movie featured a prison escape, large convoy of ships, and a crazy idea to blow up or exterminate life.
The interesting side of this movie, however, is not really the action, but really the characters and their struggles, the past that always haunted them throughout most of their lives.
This movie compares itself with Empire Strikes Back with plot points such as the group splitting up, everything going bad, exploring one’s true purpose in the galaxy, and conflicting decisions to either abandon something they once hold or to hold on to something that filled the void of absence.
The gold people do nothing significant other than to constantly follow and pretty much bully the Guardians throughout the movies runtime.
The only moment where the gold people at least were given something interesting that we should care about is in the end credits. Kurt Russell plays as Peter Quill’s father, he was looking for his son for so many years and now Peter has to know why his father was absent on Earth.
A new character is in the group and Mantis, played by Pom Klementieff, is the one who tells us what we should feel in moments where she can read others emotions. Mantis was the companion of Ego simply by serving him just like the servant of the collector in the first movie.
Yondu is back and in the first movie he is simply a minor character but his role becomes much more important in this movie by practically being a father figure to Peter Quill.
Yondu is impressive with his use of arrow whistling but there was no tension felt when he happens to kill dozens of people left and right. His power just makes him look cool rather than having any challenges with it.
A prime example is the prison escape sequence. Yondu happens to go through everyone with just a simple whistle and it just does not feel the same as the amazingly fun prison escape in the first movie.
Guardians of The Galaxy Volume 2 delivers in being a sequel by focusing characters inner conflicts and helping build and strengthen this connection with the audience.
There is similar retreads and some sequences are deemed unnecessary, but the explosive fun and the diverse characters give us a unique world we want more out of. James Gunn will go to direct Guardians of The Galaxy 3, so hopefully we can have a new mix tape once the movie is released.