Movies Roundtable: Can Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Delight Audiences?

Features, Top Story

This week’s topic:

Given Guardians of the Galaxy 1 was a departure from the other MCU movies and ended up as a surprise smash hit, can the sequel still delight audiences with a completely different (and higher) set of expectations?

Here is the Inside Pulse Movies’ crew’s takes!

John Turnbull

Having seen the sequel last weekend (due to a rare early Australian release date) and having seen it again since, I can confidently say that GOTG vol 2 surpasses the original in every way. The pacing is better, the action is bigger and the villain actually has a bit of depth, which is a bit of a departure for Marvel movies. This movie will make all of the money at the box office, and for once that’s totally justified…

Crystal Shards

I think it looks pretty good. As long as it keeps not taking itself seriously and keeps integrating awesome music, it’ll be good.

Steven Kess

Just saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, so have some impressions but no spoilers.
It was a really enjoy able film and it had more emotional up and downs than any Marvel movie to date. Drax and Yondu ran away with the film by being non stop hilarity. Great effects, some cool creature designs, good music but not as good as last time.
That aside, it was maybe to much of a roller coaster. It never gave you time to not laugh or aww (the sad kind). You had no time to process at all. The plot is razor thin even for a Marvel movie. Drax was probably too funny becoming a one liner machine. He had one great scene that needed to be built upon.
To me it suffered a bit for one reason, it met expectations. As good as that sounds, Marvel has a certain range of quality now that it doesn’t miss. The first Guardians was one of the few that felt like it took a few chances, this did not feel that way. I really hope they step out of the comfort zone soon and try some stuff. They may fail, but if they fail for trying I will applaud them for it.

Mike Noyes

Sequels always have it tough from the get go. Especially when following a “smash hit” like Guardians. Everyone loved it so much, most, I imagine, going in with low expectations. I know I did. But now it has a huge fan base with huge expectations. I think the best James Gunn can do is stay true to himself and the story he set out to tell. People are going to be disappointed, it’s inevitable. I’ve already seen some comments on fan feeds of people bitching about it. I for one am looking forward to it. I’m not expecting it to be better, sequels rarely are. I think the best we can hope for is more of what we already love and hoping Gunn didn’t totally screw it up.

John Cavanagh

As we were all still feeling the high of bobbing around in our sets dancing along with baby Groot, not a single person leaving the theater would have given up the chance to buy a ticket for part two right then and there. What Volume 2 does is exactly what we wanted back in 2014; We get to see more interactions, answers to questions are revealed, familiar faces from the comics make their onscreen debut, the stakes are raised higher, the CGI somehow even more impressive, and Rocket once again gets to laugh maniacally at the disabled. Everybody wins — while listening to some great new tunes!

The problem is that these are all coming after three years of people watching the first film on repeat, humming along to the soundtrack on their daily commutes, lining their desks with Funko Pop figures, and pumping the Internet with an endless stream of Groot and Drax gifs. Both The biggest compliment and complaint that can be levied toward the film is that it’s exactly the movie you wanted it to be. For me personally, I left the film feeling like the narrative loose ends that kept me from unabashedly loving the first Guardians were finally wrapped up and the overarching story finds a heart warmingly satisfying conclusion. I just wish Gunn had dug around a little deeper inside his bag of tricks, because the story feels one or two passes away from truly knocking it out of the park.

A large majority of the audience is going to walk out feeling the same high they did with Marvel’s first cosmic outing with this band of A-holes, but I can’t exactly argue against anyone who leaves feeling like the charmingly punk rock styled rough edges that made the original feel so refreshing have been somewhat smoothed over by Disney’s sudden vested interest in the property.

Jonathan Widro is the owner and founder of Inside Pulse. Over a decade ago he burst onto the scene with a pro-WCW reporting style that earned him the nickname WCWidro. Check him out on Twitter for mostly inane non sequiturs