Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

It's like gutting the core of Red Dwarf, stretching it for two hours, throwing it in a magic box where special effects slaves work, and then having it generate a "movie." The first half is still quite bearable, and, in particular, Rocket manages to do what nobody could do in the first part, which is to plant personal moments and one-liners. However, the moment when the villain is defined, the following came to me: "Fuck it!", because then you're just honestly ticking off all the properties of the standard Marvel menu. No dessert, no surprise. (19/08/2017)

David Hasselhoff and his talking car meant a lot to me too… volume 2 of Guardians of the Galaxy plays on a family note (did Vin Diesel drag this in from Fast and Furious?) and an emotional cartwheel. An evil bastard can have a heart of gold and, vice-versa, a golden bastard can have a heart of evil. The continuing storyline revealing Quill’s origins is convincingly perverse and the idea with the living planet is sufficiently unusual. A welcome return of Tango and Cash, parody of the USA’s drone policy, Drax’s humorous interjections and Groot’s cute smile. Nothing changes in terms of acting, everybody is having a great time, Gunn’s childhood dream with rainbow bubbles comes true and nostalgic music creates gallons of good feelings with an emotionally draining ending even more intense than volume 1. Absolutely happy with this. (09/05/2017)

The sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy is more or less in the same vein as the first one, but it doesn't bring much new. It's decent fun no doubt. Drax and the raccoon are the funniest again, Starlord is a bit bland and didn't seem to have enough space, I didn't like Kurt Russell much and Stallone is only here for maybe two minutes, so there's not much to look forward to. The film is a bit too colourful and quite infantile in places for my taste, and the big finale is actually the weakest part, as it is nothing but a massive digital mess that you can't really absorb and you don’t really care how it ends. The highlight for me was the scene in the forest where the raccoon disarms his opponents with ingenious traps. I probably won't watch it again and would classify it as one of the more mediocre Marvel films. I suspect DC will kick Marvel's ass this year with Wonder Woman. 75% (04/05/2017)

I had fun, but I can't say that I would rush to the cinema a second time. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 plays it safe, and unfortunately so much so that it's a little disappointing at times. What does that mean? More of the things that worked last time: more dancing Groot, more dumb Drax, more Peter Quill slapstick, and even weirder aliens. All mixed with spectacular action, humour and an 80s feel. This is what fans want and expect, and James Gunn gave it to them. But unfortunately, in his quest to "cram in more of the stuff we liked last time", he forgets a little bit about the story and, most importantly, that he should have shown some new stuff too. It's as if there was someone in the studio walking around with a stick and slapping everyone who wanted to come up with something new or try to do something different. The second Guardians of the Galaxy is exactly what it should be, but unfortunately it doesn't try to step outside of its own shadow in the slightest, which is a bit of a shame. Two days after the screening, the film practically disappeared from my mind. (04/05/2017)

Blockbuster equivalent of the 90th TV Nova Saturday variety show, too colorful, trying to be funny at all costs, but it´s simply not funny. It´s excessively long, dull and relies only on famous people making faces. Perhaps only Petr Novotný was a better villain than these ones. The characters themselves are not that bad, but the way they are (not) uses in a confusing coloring book digital is hopeless. The first hour can keep up with the first movie in terms of quality, put the second one destroys the whole "feel good" concept. (06/05/2017)