Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is that comedian you love. Well, you used to. He was the skinny kid, nervous, scared you’d hate him and he doubted whether his material was any good. That fear drove him to hone his bits, ruthlessly cut out the bloat, kill his darlings, trim the trite, make sure it was original. Still he worried, so he kept working.
You didn’t know much about him. Just another anonymous opener with a ten-minute slot at Dante’s Comedy Inferno in the mall. Your expectations were low, but the kid won you over. He was alert, new, razor sharp. You could tell he wanted this, that he was working it. He acted like his life depended on amusing you. He landed his punchlines and he earned your laughs. You remembered his name and followed his Instagram to see when he’d come through town again.
You weren’t the only one who liked him. A lot of others were looking forward to seeing what he’d do as he got more experienced. He had developed a following, and when he returned to Dante’s a year later his name was the biggest one on the marquee. You were happy to see the kid’s hard work rewarded. He earned it.
Seeing him again, though, something was different. He was the same kid, he even told a lot of the same jokes. Only this time the hunger was gone. Not only had the audience discovered him, he had discovered himself.
He read his reviews, glowing message boards and Youtube comments. He amassed an army of followers on Twitter and Instagram. He had gotten so much positive reinforcement that he stopped wondering if he was any good. He gained confidence. That confidence gave way to arrogance and he began to confuse all that adulation with validation. He mistakenly thought people actually liked him, not just his jokes. And as soon as he did that he stopped trying to be better. All he ever wanted was to be liked.
The nervousness had been replaced by swagger. The jokes weren’t sharp, the bloat hadn’t been cut out, some of the cutesy shit slipped in. He went off on personal tangents because he mistakenly thought you gave a shit about him. He wasn’t trying to earn your laughs; he expected them.
I’m blessed. I’ve never had to deal with getting enough love and praise to feel secure, to stop doubting my worth or the meaning of my miserable, insignificant little life. I am forever indebted to all of you who take the time to tell me I’m an idiot, to remind me my reviews are not the paragon of grammatical and spelling excellence you demand from a guy’s hobby web site, and that my opinion only matters when it is the same as yours. Thank you for always telling me I suck at this. You’re assholes but you’re right.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is not as lucky as me. People told it they loved the first one, and it believed them. It felt pretty fucking good about itself. People like me! It got comfortable. It has friends now, so it can just hang out, relax and repeat a few old jokes.
One movie into a franchise, and the Guardians are already taking a valedictory lap. It’s a bloated spectacle, a jam band encore where every guy on stage gets to do a solo. Except, by the time they finally get to the dude playing the triangle he’s shat his pants because he didn’t want to miss his spot. And yet, there’s still the lady with the maracas, the twins with the tambourines and the weird guy with the flute to get to.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 goes on for-fucking-ever, which is exactly two hours and fifteen minutes. It doesn’t need to. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is reunited with his father (Kurt Russell), a space god who humped an earth woman and then split the scene in a Trans Am. The father wants his son to share in his godly powers and help him take over the universe. Only, to do that Peter will have to help kill everyone, including his A-Team-like ragtag assembly of mercenary heroes, which includes a love interest, a smart-ass raccoon (Bradley Cooper), a burly tough guy (Dave Bautista) and a small tree (Vin Diesel) who the movie is way too sure is adorable, so it spends a lot of time making sure your kid wants one form the toy store. The whole fucking movie is too sure about too many mediocre things.
Peter decides he would rather have his friends than immortality. Not the choice I’d make, unless of course all the porn got destroyed along with the people. Then it’s a toss-up.
This isn’t a complex or terribly original plot. It could be handled efficiently, which is the best way to deal with a weak idea. Guardians 2 does not. Instead, the story is extended and drawn out, that jam band covering a Fleetwood Mac song, reveling in how fucking long it can be and how many solos it can include. Every damn character, regardless of whether they start out good or evil, has a subplot about learning the meaning of “family.” As far as I can tell from what the movie told me, the word means doing shit for people you don’t like. And also, family isn’t always about blood, except when it is. The movie isn’t really sure. It just wants to talk about it a lot.
That leads to some embarrassing Hallmark Card monologs about the heart and the head. There are jokes that the movie never makes funny, like a weak running gag about a bad guy nicknamed Taserface. That it’s a lousy nickname is one punchline, but Guardians feels comfortable enough around its new buddies in the audience to beat it to death.
There are also a many scenes whose outcomes are obvious. Will Peter make it back to the ship before it is forced to evacuate an exploding planet? Of course he will, and the thrill should be in how. Will they find a way to kill an immortal god? Why, yes. Guardians 2 isn’t trying to surprise or impress anyone, just deliver a bundle of the same old shit.
Guardians also thinks it’s earned our sympathy for its characters. Too many villains get to turn good with stories calculated to tug cheaply at our heartstrings. The man (Michael Rooker) who enslaved Peter as a child? He was really protecting him. The violent psychopathic sister of Gomora (Zoe Saldana)? She just wanted to be loved by her sister. Family is important, the movie tells us over and over and over.
Meanwhile, there are indulgent and easy 80s pop culture references like a giant Pac Man straight out of that shitty Pixels movie, and video game sound effects. There are references to the sitcom Cheers. Why? Because that’s easy. There’s even a cameo by David Hasselhoff, which reinforced for me that it’s digging no deeper than every other movie that employs him. It isn’t inspired camp, it’s laziness. As in all Marvel movies, old man Stan Lee makes a pointless and unfunny cameo because Marvel and its fans love routine more than originality.
Plus, there’s too much of that Goddamn awful “classic rock.” That music should have done what pop music is designed to do: disappear and make room for new sounds. The 70s hits was a cute gimmick the first time around, but the way this movie crams it into every nook and cranny is pathetic. Like that comedian you once loved now always ending every joke by saying “Ka pow!” and considers it his brand.
There is a universe of great new music out there by bands like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Thee Oh Sees, Mr. Elevator, Slift, La Luz, Ty Seagall and hundreds more. But no, we have to hear Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” yet again because that requires no risk or thought from a creative standpoint. And because the Marvel Universe isn’t expanding. It’s a tight, tiny little ball guarded by fanboys and executives afraid of the new.
I wish people had told Guardians of the Galaxy it sucked. I wish it were still hungry, or at least didn’t know about social media so it wouldn’t let its earlier success go to its head. Two Fingers for a tiresome headlining act.