Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

The second edition of Guardians of the Galaxy took quite some time to emerge (the first one appeared in summer of 2014). Somehow mysteriously during the interim we lost big Groot and acquired baby Groot, as well as a bunch of other characters, for example, Nebula (Karen Gillan) as the antagonistic sister of Gamora, or Kurt Russell as EGO (and boy is he appropriately named, he’s god in his own little world which he created), and Sylvester Stalone (basically playing himself in the commando movie style). The movie is mix-tape driven (with some excellent and some just o.k. tunes from the late 70s and 80s), and there are moments of humor, and long stretches of action (the movie clocks in at 2 hours and 17 minutes, and it drags in spots). The visuals are once again good, but you may want to think twice about whether you want to do XD, Real 3D, or just regular digital. The movie is pricey if you go for the glasses versions, and honestly, they are just o.k.

Here is the official summary of the plot— “Set to the all-new sonic backdrop of Awesome Mixtape #2, Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2″ continues the team’s adventures as they traverse the outer reaches of the cosmos. The Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes’ aid as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand.”

I would give this one about a B, but then it is hard to match the zip and zing of the first installment. It is a rare event when a sequel is equal to its prequel, if you catch my drift. And the cameo by Stan Lee is cute, but by now we all know to look for it. There are of course more summer popcorn movies coming including: 1) Wonder Woman; 2) Spiderman (yet another reboot with some Avengers included, and Michael Keaton as the bad guy); 3) a second installment of the Kingsmen movie series, and the beat goes on.

Marvel Comics has certainly provided us all with some mindless fun in the last decade and some of its movies have been really excellent, some fair, and some truly bad (Fantastic Four comes to mind). This one comes somewhere between fair and excellent. There is always a danger of dilution of the brand when one attempts too many things at once, with too many different actors, directors, producers etc. But on the whole Marvel has done well. This movie is fine for older kids and adults. It is probably too loud, too long, and too adult (the humor is all adult humor, by which I do not mean blue humor) for the littler ones.