James Crowley’s review published on Letterboxd:
I really struggle with this movie, even more than the first. Fundamentally, I don’t think James Gunn is capable of being sincere, at least not for very long. I find it impossible to not read the first twenty execrable minutes, particularly the opening title sequence, as a giant piss-take of the audience response to the first film, memetically mutating every moment which resonated until all the oxygen is used up. (Ego as cancer, feigned indifference as temporary palliative.)
I do think that the ceaseless recapitulation of themes and specific images throughout the film is done with care and sometimes to evocative effect. But amid the moments that sing you have more of the same bloodthirsty humor, the lampshaded sweet pain of suffering and embarrassment, the how-many-levels-of-irony-are-we-actually-operating-on-here negging of The New Chick on the team even as we get more depth to the returning women.
I don’t know if the film is irony poisoned, or if I am, or both. I just know that the more I contemplate it, the more that I feel that there is something slightly false, something slightly off, and maybe even something slightly sinister about the whole enterprise.
