SPOILERS for Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2 ahead
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Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is a very good film. That’s all I can tell you at this time. I’m not going to call this movie a cinematic mastery that would make the best directors of all time shake in their boots, and I’m certainly not going to call this a movie so bad that it makes Birdemic look like an Alfred Hitchcock film. Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is a very good movie.

One thing I can’t do is try and compare this movie to its predecessor that came out in 2014. I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t like to hold both of them up and see where they sit, but I’d need to live in a world where GOTG 2 has been in the HBO rotation for a few years and I’ve seen it about 10 times. Only then would I be able to fairly compare both movies.

One thing I will say about this movie, however, is that the characters are pretty freaking good in this. Star-Lord does a bang-up job as the leader of the rag-tag group of misfits, Drax knocks it out of the park as the dumb brute that is simply there to make the audience laugh (more on that later), Gamora is a good garnish, a term I sadly have to use because she isn’t given her own plot that revolves around her.

Thankfully we’re finally given a backstory to Nebula and a reason to understand why she’s a “bad guy” even though she isn’t the conventional bad guy that is in most comic book films. Baby Groot is a wonderful edition to the crew that was sullied early on in the promotional material, I mean he isn’t half as annoying as one would’ve thought he was. We had Yondu, whose death was probably one of the best and most emotional sacrifices to exist in this universe. And then there was Mantis, quite possibly one of my favorite new additions to the MCU.

One thing I remember reading from people who had seen this movie before I, was that Drax was a waste action wise and that a majority of the jokes he cracked fell flat. I’d have to say that wasn’t the case for myself or the audience I saw the movie with, as everyone in that theater let out some hearty laughs after every joke he cracked. From “some might think she was dead” to “I like a woman with a little meat on her bones,” the dude was nailing it. A lot of that can be given credit to Pom Klementieff as Mantis, as the both of them worked together very well: Drax being a massive dumb idiot and Mantis being a small innocent creature. They had a very yin and yang relationship that balanced each other. That was an aspect of this movie that I’m very excited to see resurface in future installments, and hopefully even Infinity War.

Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2 very much felt like a movie that is helping us to get from one point to another, especially in the aspect of wrapping up Quill’s plot of finding out who his father was. This now is going to clear the path for the Guardians to make their way to Earth and run into the Avengers. It also helped give closure to several character’s stories, such as Drax and Nebula. The movie is very much a “door closing” one, which makes it easier for future stories to open up.