I laughed.  I cried.  A whole ocean.  The seemingly endless amount of during and after credit scenes were awesome, as well as the expected Stan Lee cameos.  I also appreciated that the theater I was in, everyone knew to stay until the very end.

I am writing this after just having watched this movie, and I am still overwhelmed.  It was amazing, and I was thoroughly impressed.  It is rare that I feel like the sequel tops the original, and this was definitely one of those cases.  I cannot wait for this to be released so I can own it and watch it again, despite how many layers of heartbreak half of the movie gave me.

This was so amazing, that I am going to try and my best to be mindful with the spoilers, because the scenes that tugged at my heart strings the most I think really need to be experienced firsthand.  To be honest though, even if I were to spoil the entire movie from start to finish, I promise I would never be able to do it justice.  That said, here we go.

**SKIP BELOW TO NEXT RED SECTION IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ SPOILERS**

There are scenes in this movie that reminded me of other movies at times.  (Like Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, Titanic…especially Titanic.  I’m still so very mad about that, which I will get to in basically two seconds.)   I don’t think it was intentional, by any means.

I think the most amazing thing about this is how awesome Michael Rooker is as Yondu, and here is my only contention with the movie.  While Rooker is PHENOMENAL in his role—he most certainly steals the show, in my humble opinion—I was so upset with the outcome, even if I was well aware of what was going to happen due to the extensive foreshadowing.  And okay, I’ll admit it—I adore the heart and life Rooker brought to the role.  His whistling was awesome, and every scene where he used his arrow I held my breath because the scenes were so visually appealing.  I really could go on and on in a vague manner about his performance, it touched me that much.

I do realize I’m probably the only one who walked out of the theater feeling that way, but I’m not at all sorry about it.  (Deep down, I’m still crossing my fingers that Marvel will do the right thing, and I’m going to take this moment to say—Dear Marvel, if you decide to do something that makes absolutely no logical sense so I can get even more Yondu, I am not going to be mad.  AT.  ALL.  My heart is still shattered into pieces like it did when I was too young to be watching the Titanic and somehow I convinced my parents it was okay to see it.  Please fix it.)

I appreciated the nod they give to the original Guardians of the Galaxy as well, but again, I wish the writers would have just given me the full set and a spin-off movie.  Or at least a new Guardian.  I realize that the trend right now is to deviate as much from the source material as possible to surprise audiences, but I would have preferred a happier one.  Anyway, I realize I’ve been a little too in my feelings just now, so now I shall move on to the rest of the movie.

Groot also stole my heart once more.  From start to finish (including up to the during/after credits scenes), Groot is even more adorable than the first movie, if that’s even possible.  There’s one credit special scene with Groot where I died laughing, it was so precious.  His interactions with Rocket were just as hilarious as the first movie.

I’m glad they didn’t focus so much on the romance between Peter Quill and Gamora this time around.  While I don’t mind their romance, the movie really focused on character development, which I appreciated.  I was also impressed by how they successfully turned around my opinions on returning characters without making me feel like they were forcing me to accept the “new normal,” so to speak.

The soundtrack is also fantastic.  Usually in movies I find that background music usually doesn’t register for me, but just like with the Fast franchise, the soundtrack is essential.  They do use all new songs, for anyone who might have been concerned from their trailers.

Speaking of trailers, I think the only other disappointment I had with this movie (very minor, in the whole grand scheme of things) is the fact that the final cut has completely different scenes from what we were shown in trailers.  Some of the scenes, particularly with Groot, I felt were better done in the trailer cuts than the theatrical release.  Hopefully they’ll have those trailer cuts on DVD.

Aside from Yondu, I particularly enjoyed the character development of Drax, Nebula, and Rocket.  I hope that next movie, they flesh out those characters even more, as well as continue to build upon Mantis.

Now for the last few spoilers.  First, the villain.  I half-expected it the minute they randomly appeared, plus as soon as I heard the name, I feel like that’s when things solidified for me.  The whole situation ended up being honestly unfortunate, and I will say, the villain made an incredibly stupid move towards the end.  Why on earth did they tell the truth, I wondered.  They had to be smart enough to know that such a revelation would cause things to end super poorly for them, but hey, this is a movie.  Anything can happen.

What I do appreciate, however, is when the villain told Peter Quill about their “master plan.”  (As a random aside, there’s this series on Netflix called Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir.  It’s a series where not only was the origin story not until about 14 or 15 episodes in, but that said episodes only raised more questions than answers, AND the villain claims there is some master plan.  However, he never tells the audience what that master plan is.  As if we might be able to tell the characters what’s up, and thereby helping them along to victory.  This is going to be a longer rant/story for another time, however, in order to fully explain how hilarious my best friend and I find that series.)  Back to the master plan though, some of the antagonist’s explanations made me tilt my head because their thought process just didn’t seem sound to me.

Second, another incredibly sad scene happens I would say roughly in the middle.  A rather short-lived mutiny happens, which broke my heart.  They try to make it up later with a scene that is totally rad, but then they tear my heart back into pieces again.  Yes, I’m still recovering, and yes it is related to my long rant from earlier in this entry.

Finally, the end-credit scene where that one guy (whose name escapes me at the moment) who fools around with Yondu’s arrow.  That scene cracked me up, but it also had me holding my breath because I was worried something fatal was going to happen.

**END OF SPOILERS**

Normally I’ll watch a movie again an additional time or two in theaters while I contemplate whether or not I want to add it to the permanent collection, but I can say for this one, I am going to wait until it’s available for purchase because this is definitely going in the permanent collection.  I am then going to watch it again and savor every last moment.  Maybe rewind and replay several scenes.

Final Thoughts: Go see this movie.  In theaters.  Today.  Yesterday.  Tomorrow.  Again.  If you’ve been following this blog, and from reading the entries, if you feel like we have similar tastes and thought processes when watching movies, then I am almost certain you’re going to enjoy this film as much as I have.