**Spoiler Alert** For those who haven't seen the movie and want to keep details a surprise, stop here...I can't promise I won't give away too much.
I observed a few Catholic articles a few weeks back when Guardians of the Galaxy 2 hit theaters. Interesting enough, most of them were fairly positive.
Guardians 2 follows the group as they keep bugging each other. They find themselves on the run, and Quill has a chance to learn about his long-lost father, who intercepts them. Here the story line splits in two. Part of the group is on the run from the people that Rocket stole from during their latest gig and get abducted, while the other part of the group follows Quill and his father Ego (I will say, that was a fitting name choice) to Ego's home planet. Everything starts to unravel when Quill realizes that Ego is using Quill for his own devices to take over the universe. The whole group is reunited to defeat Ego.
The articles I read pointed out the family aspect of the movie. Indeed, the point is raised over and over that the misfits have created their own unique bonds, which is supposed to be evident by the way they annoy each other yet still defend each other. Family extends beyond blood relationship, and Quill leans on his adopted family of friends when his "biological" father turns out to be power hungry enough to destroy his own son in order to gain more planets.
So here's my maybe unpopular opinion: I did not care for the movie. Now I am all for Catholics interacting with media and calling out the good and bad themes... shoot, I watched 13 Reasons Why, which morally speaking was probably 10 times worse. However, in story-telling, 13 Reasons Why was 10 times better. Why?
Overall the plot of Guardians 2 was decent and did have that family aspect. Really, they could have made it very successfully and really had strong material to work with... it's Marvel, after all. I just didn't understand then why the writers felt the need to fit in sexual innuendo, body anatomy jokes, and women-shaming. Really, the fact that they resorted to such low humor makes me wonder why they didn't think they could rely on the strength of their A-list celebrities/lovable characters to carry the story.
A big part of my annoyance with the crude humor was that they market the movie as a family movie. The level of humor was not "potty humor" you might expect from an immature child flick. No, it was rom-com/adult humor fit into a movie that young kids were watching. I was blushing next to my husband and he was squirming in his seat. I pity the parents in the crowd. Maybe it's prudish of me, but it was extremely unnecessary.
The other big part of my annoyance was the women-shaming (or rather maybe emotion-shaming?) story device. This came up in the relationship between the ever dry and stoic character of Drax and the new character of the naive and slavish Mantis. The relationship borders on romantic except that both characters struggle with bonding emotionally, despite Mantis' ability to "read" other people's emotions. That's comic enough, but then the majority of their interactions involve Drax completely amplifying all of her "negative" aspects (you're so ugly, I only like you because I pity you), and the naive Mantis accepting them (yes, you're right, I'm very ugly). Again, I realize that this is supposed to be a comic device... the "humor" is that Drax is blind to his degrading comments, and the actress who plays Mantis/Mantis herself is gorgeous. But when young, impressionable girls are watching with their families and observing a lead female character accept, even welcome degrading comments... come on. This is why I'm excited to see Wonder Woman.
So no, I was not impressed with Guardians 2, and despite the couple of maybe morally praiseworthy themes, they were sorely overshadowed by awful story-telling. However, if you have other thoughts, I'd love to hear them!
