I was perfectly ready, willing and able to judge this movie on its own merit and not make this entire review an endless chorus of “Well, what was so great about the original Guardians Of The Galaxy…”

Unfortunately, this movie is half original and half retread. I may have left my expectations at the door but this film made me pick them back up on the way out. Because this movie insists on being self-referential, it set itself up to be a victim of the Pixar Curse, which is when a good, even a great movie is deemed underwhelming just because it’s held against it’s almost perfect predecessors.

Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol. 2 catches up with our favorite galactic heroes as they are going through a bit of growing pains. Peter Quill a.k.a. Star Lord & Gamora still haven’t made out, Rocket & Peter are two male egos run amok on a very small ship, Groot is a tiny baby tree who is now the one the entire team looks out for instead of the other way around and Drax is well, Drax. It’s not long before Peter’s long-lost dad, played by Kurt Russell, finally finds his son and has alongside with him is his empathic caretaker, Mantis, who actually manages to be even more awkward than Drax. There’s also Yondu, the blue-skinned space pirate, played amazingly by Michael Rooker, he’s there because he and his crew are on the hunt for the Guardians. Nebula, Gamora’s cyborg sister, is also there and she still hates her sister as much as she hates her father, Thanos. Oh and there’s a running subplot with a gold-skinned alien race called the Sovereign. And Sylvester Stallone is here too. (I’m not kidding.)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has made a name for itself for being able to pull off massive ensemble films but this movie is far too conflicted for that. The better parts of the MCU are the quiet moments where its characters can just breathe and exist in and while there are a few of those moments here, they’re outmatched by the frenzy of multiple subplots clumsily knocking around together. Add the fact that this movie is far more CGI-dependent means that we traded sincere interactions for spectacle. Impressive spectacle, I’d say even more impressive than what was found in “Doctor Strange” but that’s not what we came here for. I wanna see more of my characters surprised by how much they love each other and while I do get that, I have been spoiled and therefore don’t get enough.

The first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie didn’t have to live up to expectations and I think this movie is a bit obsessed with that.

It’s rough living in the shadow of your successful older sibling but that never means that you should try to go after their kind of success, Loki himself is a cautionary tale of why that never works. What makes Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol. 2 so choppy and inconsistent is that half of the movie is committed to some very original and clever plot twists and the other is regurgitating upgraded versions of scenes from the original. Either instinct isn’t bad and we’ve seen both tactics work for sequels but you can’t half-ass two things. As the wise man once said, “Whole ass one thing”.