Disjointed galaxy

There’s an old maxim among fiction writers that your story is only as good as your villain. It’s a concept Guardians of the Galaxy writer/director James Gunn would have done well to remember. Because despite near-constant jokes, eye-popping set pieces, and an adorable little sprout named Baby Groot, Guardians Vol. 2 feels as if it’s missing something. That something is an antagonist capable of producing high stakes.

While Gunn co-wrote the first Guardians with Nicole Perlman, this time he penned the script alone, which could account for why the plot often feels disjointed and rambling. The hallmarks that made the first movie a hit are still there. Chris Pratt as Peter Quill still makes an appealing half-arrogant, half-vulnerable hero while his galactic sidekicks, including mutant raccoon Rocket (Bradley Cooper), warrior babe Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and blue muscleman Drax (Dave Bautista) still offer plenty of opportunity for infighting and banter.

But this time there’s something manic about many of their punchlines (the extra helpings of PG-13 language that come with them are more of a bummer than usual considering how many kids will be clamoring to see little Groot). Rather than flowing naturally out of the characters, as it did in the first film, the dialogue often feels as if Gunn wrote it merely to fill some sort of joke quota. Extended fight scenes set to ’70s pop songs play a similar role—as if they’re simply there to check a box audiences loved in the first film. Only this time the soundtrack isn’t nearly so awesome. Sorry, but Looking Glass’ “Brandi” can’t hold a candle to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain't No Mountain High Enough,” never mind Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling.”

The bigger problem, however, comes when the “small g” god, Ego (Kurt Russell), arrives on the scene to inform Peter he’s his long-lost father. Ego offers to fill the hole in Peter’s heart that cries out for a dad. Gamora, who has father issues of her own, is naturally suspicious but nonetheless agrees to leave Rocket and Baby Groot behind while she and Drax accompany Peter to Ego’s distant home planet.

It’s intriguing to note that the self-dubbed Star-Lord, Marvel’s first millennial, is also the first major cinematic superhero to have a deadbeat dad. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor—all, even if they were orphaned, had fathers they could feel proud of and look to as moral compasses. Peter Quill had no such advantage and was forced to learn to navigate the galaxy on his own. His love interest Gamora was worse off, contending with an abusive childhood. Rocket bears his own scars of being a test-tube creation with no real parentage.

Guardians 2 doesn’t shy away from showing the fallout of negligent parents. Or from suggesting that the modern notion that a family can be created from any group of people who love one another may have been forged from necessity.

It’s a shame then that with such a relevant premise, Gunn buries it in the chaos of too many confusing plotlines. The gold empresses and Ravagers hunting the Guardians provide a few thrilling chase scenes at the outset, but their continued involvement in the larger story allows Gunn precious little time to develop a villain as singular and significant as Ronan the Accuser was.

Ronan, the ascetic rule keeper who wanted to “cleanse” the galaxy of behavior offensive to his culture, made the perfect opponent to All-American, freewheeling Peter. Without giving away spoilers, this time out, the bad guy is even more freewheeling than Peter, working from a worldview that the powerful don’t have to abide by the rules or morality of the little people. This should have presented some fascinating ideological challenges to Peter and his gang given their backgrounds and experiences with Ronan.

But the time to develop the theme is wasted with lots of literal tail chasing as the team splits up and goes on separate adventures. The emotional family theme thus lacks the punch it could have had and is no match for the ingenious symbolic ending to the first film. It’s still a fun popcorn ride, but not much more.