A super sappy film. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 lacks the illusion of three-dimensionality, which is to say it lacks what Marvel is most famous for in its comics: depth, visual and thematic. The world of the film seems a badly drawn cartoon one, with human faces occasionally popping out of the one-dimensional backgrounds to bring a little life to the otherwise inert. This is a movie that is so scared of anything approaching human truth that it’s willing to jump to another dimension to avoid it: the sequel’s idea of wit is jokes about turd size. The CGI, however expensive, makes the film look cheap and fake. However, the audience I saw it with liked it, with one group guffawing loudly at every cheap joke. I found there were too many characters, too many cameos, in a way that detracted from the playful dynamic of the protagonists that was such a pleasure in the first film, which I loved. Nothing here approaches the grace and wit, the exuberance, of Chris Pratt’s first scene in the original movie, the scene that turned him from the loveable Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation into a fully-fledged film star. Having action scenes taking place in the background as characters bicker might be considered inventive if the action scenes the film did show were more exciting and memorable. As with the first film, I did very much like the 70s soundtrack: it’s the am radio of my childhood. Yet whilst I enjoyed hearing Cat Stevens’ ‘Father and Son’, and whilst the film’s deployment of the song might be seen as ironic, it still didn’t cut through all the schmaltz Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is propagating. The gross sentimentality is the opposite of what made the first film so memorable and is unbearable in all its manifestations, be it love in a couple, between friends or between fathers and sons. It’s a curse on American cinema. It all seems one screeching lie no matter how buttery or sweetly rendered. To me, the best thing about the film was a chance to see Elizabeth Debicki again, so sexy in The Night Manager, this time as the villainess and still enticing in spite of being covered in the ugliest gold make-up imaginable. All that glistens is most definitely not gold.

José Arroyo