The comic book movie genre and I are in a weird spot these days. After so many years spent following the various releases from the studio, each of which part of or attempting to start a big, shared cinematic universe, it's only natural to hit a point of exhaustion with the genre. One I didn't feel could get elevated.
However, the strong quality from the likes of the Lego Batman & Logan more than justified the money spent to go see them. They represent the best qualities of the genre and an example of how just making a movie can do more wonders than assembly line products that're essentially little more than trailers.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, from what I heard pre-release, seemed to fit into this category as well. A more creatively driven venture where the scales were smaller and the story far more personnel among other tidbits which gave me hope for a third, strong entry in the 2017 lineup of comic book films.
And what a total jackass I was for thinking the third time would be the charm because GotG Vol 2 may just be one of my least favorite movies of the past few years. If you were someone expecting a smaller, more directorially driven movie about fatherhood and the value of family, you have two choices. 1) go [frick] yourself or 2) go watch Lego Batman and Logan as they do everything Vol 2 attempts to but with far greater success it only makes the latest MCU venture look worse by comparison.
Not that it isn't perfectly detestable on its own merits because it certainly is. The structure of the film is broken in a way I've never seen before. The film literally has nothing approaching a plot, story or structure to either besides a generic final blockbuster act that undermines whatever aspirations the film had tried to build up. It feels like someone took a 10 episode season, cut it to pieces and then smashed the disparate elements together into a 2-hour film. The end result is a movie that just has stuff happen that are barely connected to one another until bringing them back in one of the worst attempts at a "let's set em up then knock em down" I've ever seen.
Now, a non-existent plot can be used to give the characters something to do but the issues are in the multitude in this regard. Almost everyone with the exception of Gamora is an obnoxious caricature of themselves from the first film. If Rocket was a damaged individual who tried to hide it through violence, expect the sociopath angle to get taken to an obnoxious extreme. If Drax was too literal, he is a bonified idiot in this film, not oblivious, a total, borderline pants shitting idiot. So much so he resembles his character the least from the last movie.
Baby Groot is probably the most blatant Disney thing ever to appear in the MCU. He literally has nothing approaching a personality and he's just there to look cute and sell merchandies. Chris Pratt's Star-Lord has fallen into the RDJ trap where he assumes we'll all love him unconditionally just for being here so he reacts to discovering his biological father to being under attack or being sarcastic: with an expression of constant eye bulging and barely present "wit".
The humor is another major issue that perpetually infuriates. No matter what kind of scene you're watching, whether it's trying to be dramatic or somber or heartfelt or anything, James Gunn will, [frick]ing WILL end it with at least one dumb joke or gag (if God has mercy on your soul it'll only be the one) that will totally undermine everything established beforehand. This movie never knows when to shut the hell up and give its audience another reason to care about what's happening. It always thinks it's being funny and clever when it isn't: it's just infuriating you to the point of wanting to walk out of the cinema.
It would be one thing if the jokes weren't majoritively cliche or downright obnoxious but they are and good lord does they add to the feeling of tone deafness permeating throughout the whole viewing experience. There is a moment where, and I shit you not, Ego is explaining his loneliness in the cosmos and how he's attempted to overcome it by spreading himself out into the universe only for Drax (because he's a borderline pants shitting retard in this) to ask Ego if he has a dick (yes, really) then go into a bizarre exchange between himself, Peter and Ego about Ego's dick and Ego having sex with Peter's mom. What a way to emotionally invest your audience into the plight of an ancient, lonely God!
Not that you should care because Ego is little more than a cliched cartoon villain, entirely destroying any semblance of nuance concerning the themes of fatherhood and family so the movie can have a boring, mandatory let's blow the hell out of everything climax.
Imagine if Logan stayed the exact same for the first two-thirds then the last half hour was some Avengers or MoS level destruction porn event where everything else that made you invested (or tried to) got its throat slit in favor of a shitty climax that ups the cartoonishness of the proceedings. It literally gets so bad that characters blatantly expose out the morals and parallels between one another. If there is ANY Marvel picture that treats the viewer with obvious contempt on every conceivable level, it is GotG Vol 2.
When I finished watching this I asked myself "What the hell happened and how did I like the first one when the same exact people just shat out something like this?!". A sequel should never do that, leave you mind blown in the worst way possible to the point you start to doubt the previous movie(s) you liked and want to rush out and see them again just to convince yourself you weren't snorting some serious cocaine before without even being aware of it.
Which is appropriate because the only way you won't want to blow your brains out an hour into this multi-layered disaster of a movie is to BE high as all hell.