It’s a film about fathers and sons in which the use of Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” is one of its more restrained moves – that’s how overly earnest it is.

At worst it’s a misguided misfire, a heavy-handed Pixar film squeezed into a lesser pre-reboot “Star Trek” film where the labored metaphors are too often made manifest. The great visual style and cast chemistry remains intact, but too much of their energy is used to shore up fundamental structural flaws that can and should have been caught sooner.

Pixar films at least rely on a brains trust of creatives to objectively look at a project – meaning every line and emotional beat in the final script is one that had to be fought for and justified. The film has to work not just for the overly emotional, but also for the most jaded cynic in the room as well. This feels like it has had no such vetting, and that lack of oversight at a script level yields a more overworked and uneven result which feels oddly devoid of the natural life, confidence, and energy that coursed through the first’s veins.

The cliched "difficult second album". Sure, the first one will always be your favourite, but you know you'll grow to love this one almost as much.

Director James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 begins rolling out overseas on Tuesday, more than a week ahead of its debut in North America, where it kicks off the summer box office on May 5.

Tracking suggests the quirky superhero tentpole, from Disney and Marvel Studios, could approach or top $100 million from its first 58 foreign territories. Major markets include Australia, France, Germany, Brazil, the U.K. and Mexico.

When comparing previous Marvel debuts in the same suite of markets at today's exchange rates, 2013's Iron Man 3 debuted to $141.4 million, followed by $85.4 million for 2013's Thor: The Dark World and $64.6 million for the first Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

In North America, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is tracking to open in the $130 million-$150 million range, well ahead of the first film's $94.7 million launch in early August 2014. The movie was a surprise hit and went on to earn $733 million globally, a rousing number considering it featured a rag-tag group of lesser-known superheroes.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will open in raft of other major territories next week, including North Korea (May 3), Russia (May 4) and China (May 5).