Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Full disclosure: I love the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and it wasn't until 3 years after this movie came out that I finally saw it (there are several reasons for that). I'd heard from others that this movie was very good, but not quite as strong as the first one. After seeing this movie finally though, I don't know what they were talking about. This movie was every bit as strong as the first movie, if not stronger in a lot of ways.

I won't spoil anything about this film, but I will say that Quill's father is one of the most interesting characters they've had in marvel films, and the fact that he's played by Kurt Russell certainly doesn't hurt. The story is more interesting and fun than the original, with a lot of very well crafted jokes within the movie. There are some that overstay their welcome just a little bit, but as a whole, they are all great.

My favorite aspect of the film was there was no sign of MCU in this movie really at all. There were no random cameos from other marvel superheroes, and there was no "infinity stones" or other nonsense like that in this movie. Not saying those things are bad necessarily, but it just feels so nice not having to deal with unnecessary shoehorning in of Marvel things. This was kept relatively tame in the first one as well, but the macguffin in that film was an infinity stone, but this film was it's own separate thing and that made it feel fresh. It didn't even feel like a superhero movie all that much if I'm honest.

I don't rate many superhero movies as highly as this, but this one is great. Go watch it if, like me, you put off watching it for fear of not being good.