{"id":602,"date":"2017-10-03T16:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T22:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=602"},"modified":"2021-05-18T12:31:58","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T18:31:58","slug":"movie-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/03\/movie-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GuardiansGuardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2<\/strong><\/span>
\nYear: 2017
\nRating: PG-13
\nLength: 136 minutes \/ 2.27 hours<\/p>\n

I sometimes wonder if the strength of the first film in a series dooms the following films to a condition I refer to as \u201cthe trilogy conundrum<\/a>.\u201d If a single film is original and has a strong story that stands by itself, it almost requires the following films to be weaker in comparison, each sequel needing another sequel to tell a complete story. Films like Back to the Future<\/em> (1985), The Matrix<\/em> (1999), and Pirates of the Caribbean<\/em> (2003) are fantastic films that defined their generation, but their sequels were highly dependent on a follow-on sequel, thus making the trilogy complete, but lacking the strength of the initial film.<\/p>\n

I hate to say it, but Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2<\/em> (2017) falls into this \u201ctrilogy conundrum.\u201d The original Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em><\/a> (2014) was a fun and meaningful departure from its Marvel comic book brethren. This sequel, however, lacks a few things that made the original as good and as singular as it was. First off, there were almost too many antagonists in this movie. The Sovereign were essentially a \u201cjoke\u201d antagonist, were it not for the mid-credits scene that sets up the opponent for the third installment, and the actual<\/em> antagonist of the film (whose name is a little too on the nose) was revealed so late that the final battle almost seemed rushed.<\/p>\n

I will give Vol. 2<\/em> some credit, though. The opening credits sequence had a catchy song and an amusing \u201cbackground action\u201d sequence the likes of which I haven\u2019t seen since The Man from U.N.C.L.E.<\/em> (2015). The character development in this sequel was fantastic, helping bridge the gap between this film and its predecessor, while also setting up the characters for the 3rd<\/sup> Guardians<\/em> installment as well as Avengers: Infinity War<\/em><\/a> (2018). As was the case with the original Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em>, the dialogue and nostalgia included in Vol. 2<\/em> were fun and lighthearted. Finally, Yondu\u2019s (Michael Rooker) slow-motion sequence was just as entertaining as Quicksilver\u2019s (Evan Peters) sequences in the latest X-Men<\/a><\/em> films.<\/p>\n

Another victim to the trilogy conundrum, I give Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2<\/em> 3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a01\/2<\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 Year: 2017 Rating: PG-13 Length: 136 minutes \/ 2.27 hours I sometimes wonder if the strength of the first film in a series dooms the following films to a condition I refer to as \u201cthe trilogy conundrum.\u201d If a single film is original and has a strong story that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[349,783,465,785,778,84,779,780,13,8,782,34,28,781,39,806,784],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-movie","tag-349","tag-bradley-cooper","tag-chris-pratt","tag-groot","tag-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2","tag-marvel","tag-marvel-cinematic-universe","tag-mcu","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-rocket-raccoon","tag-sequel","tag-series","tag-star-lord","tag-superhero","tag-the-trilogy-conundrum","tag-vin-diesel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2662,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/2662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}