Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) Review!!!

Synopsis – Set to the backdrop of Awesome Mixtape #2, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ continues the team’s adventures as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage.

My Take – There is no doubt that the 2014 Marvel film directed by James Gunn was the biggest surprise hit of the year upon release. The film delivered a fantastic modern space opera which captured the hearts of audiences and critics alike with every single thing you would want out of a summer blockbuster i.e. heart, action, comedy, thrills and the right slice of drama to make it a little better than your average superhero film. In my opinion, one of the biggest reasons behind the success of the film was its surprise element, like who would expect a team of superheroes to consist of a former wrestler, a hyper-engineered Racoon with a will for people to hate him, an anthropomorphic 8-foot tall tree and a homicidal green lady? And the helmsman of the group is the fat guy from a TV show known as Parks and Recreation. However, with the sequel now releasing 3 years later, the biggest question remains: Was it worth the wait? Well, its Marvel right, so of course it was! Director James Gunn knows how to enthrall his audience; he shoots for fun and again delivers it with style! Even though its structure fumbles at times, but collectively is pretty unconventional, this of course for a blockbuster is always a welcome. Is it greater than the first though? It is hard to rank one above the other, but I still believe the first installment (in what is now going to be a trilogy) deserves the nod. While the first film had a wacky sounding premise with direct no links to the established Marvel Cinematic Universe, with its sequel, James Gunn returns with no shortage in confidence or creativity and the expected amount of intense action scenes, met with the classic one liners, tied in with the classic soundtrack your dad would dance awkwardly to. Set to the backdrop of Awesome Mixtape #2, the film continues the team’s adventures as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage.

The story follows the Guardians consisting of Peter Quill / Starlord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), who after saving the galaxy are now working as mercenaries for hire. After finishing a job of battling a gigantic creature for a race of people called The Sovereign, and accepting their payment in the form of Nebula (Karen Gillan), who the crew took in to turn in for a very lucrative bounty and settle some old scores in the process. However, the Guardians find themselves in trouble when Rocket steals from The Sovereign herby creating a very large and motivated new enemy gunning for them which results in their space ship crashing on a remote planet. However a mysterious benefactor saves them temporarily and introduces himself as Ego (Kurt Russell), and claims to be Peter’s father and requests that Peter, Gamora, and Drax head off with Ego and his assistant Mantis (Pom Klementieff), to his planet to learn about his linage, while Rocket & Groot stay back to repair the damaged ship & watch over a tied up Nebula. As if things were not complicated enough, Yondu (Michael Rooker) and his crew of Revengers arrive on the same planet hoping to collect a Bounty on the Guardians set by Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), head of The Sovereign and bring them to justice. But when a new and greater threat is discovered, despite internal tensions and conflicts, the Guardians must once again risk everything to save the universe once again. Part of what made the original so brilliant was how organic the portrayal of its rag tag characters was. They were all broken, weird and made decisions that showed each character. However for this film, right from the start, the whole team gets on an adventure on a very small and preventable mishap. The tone and humor which got so many people hooked on the original, is preserved for its sequel. James Gunn managed to recapture that tone and sense of humor almost perfectly a second time over. Its bright and colorful, it’s filled to the brim with a unique brand of humor, it touches on a deeper, more emotional core, its soundtrack is made up of classic rock and pop from the 70s, and it puts its characters before story or action. One of the signature joys of this film are the snap scenes, scenes that don’t really advance the plot, but provide character moments that are sometimes sweet, sometimes caustic, but nearly always very funny. Other snap scenes are simply extremely stupid – at one point Yondo and Rocket perform multiple hyperspace jumps which wreak havoc on their physiology, a joke so silly that visiting it twice is only natural. Drax and Mantis also had a playful connection at trying to understand one another and as always Rocket and Quill clashing with one another made for good viewing. Baby Groot’s adorable inclusion meant for many scenes showcasing exactly how innocent and cute saving the galaxy can be and Marvel did well at portraying Groot in such a light.

James Gunn takes all the style and flair from his first beloved (and slightly smug) space adventure, and adds a great deal more substance this time around. Too often blockbusters have taken the shortcut to meaningful character development, audaciously implying or declaring their heroes to be a “family” without putting in the necessary leg work. Director Gunn shrewdly invests in some unexpected pairings, leading to a whole new wave of hijinks, heart and hilarity. This isn’t the Peter Quill show anymore. Rocket & Groot aren’t the only dynamic duo in the business. Each sub-plot imbues these heroes/anti- heroes with greater depth, even if it’s at the sake of the story’s momentum. I liked the introduction of Nebula again because it gave some emotional moments with her relationship with Gamora. Also one of the best improvements is the character of Yondu. At the beginning you feel like he won’t do anything special, just kill a few people with his flying arrow, but when he goes to rescue Peter to the planet of his father, you start to like him, and at the end you feel like he is the real father of Peter, not his monstrous planet-destroyer father. Even the various antagonistic figures feel more fleshed out than the shouty-pouty- Ronan – and you’re given a very strong reason to hate a few of them here. There would be some Empire Strikes Back parallelisms here if you look at how the film is structured, such as how they split each character into groups and let them develop. Some would say this was a very bad decision to make, splitting the main cast when them being together was probably the best part of this franchise. Despite this, the film tie up all loose ends up until the end and this film truly makes the team realize how much they needed each other. Plus, fatherhood and family is a massive theme that permeates almost every conversation in the movie. Starlord finally gets to meet his father after nearly thirty years, while Drax continues to struggle with the loss of his wife and daughter, and Gamora and Nebula come to terms with the awful treatment they suffered from their father. Yondu and Rocket share a heartbreaking moment when they realize their loss of any kind of family gives them more in common than they ever thought as well. The Guardians are starting to turn into the space-faring version of Dom Toretto’s team in the Fast and Furious franchise, but arguably do it better and touch the emotional core better. However, as the film pays so much attention to character development for a lot more characters than just the Guardians, the story loses focus and a firm grip on the plot.

Although the back stories given to our characters are pretty cool and interesting, it’s the way they are conveyed that makes the film lose some steam. There’s a lot of exposition and not all of it through well written dialogue. I would’ve preferred some tight flashback scenes. A lot more “Show”, a lot less “Tell”. All this makes for a bit of a messy film with some pacing issues. Gunn clearly tried to balance all these character and plot-points and hasn’t come unscathed out of the ordeal. It’s weird he went down this route because story-wise, this film is even more disconnected from the Infinity War than the first one. So setting up so much material for a sequel, is an odd choice because it feels so unnecessary. Yet, the film manages to engage us with a bunch of entertaining scenes; with my favorite is when Rocket Raccoon uses traps to his advantage to defeat an incoming horde of ravagers. The other great thing is the Awesome Mix of songs used in the soundtrack. The music makes you feel, from the first hilarious scene, with Baby Groot dancing around, to the final emotional scene with all the ships shooting the fireworks in the funeral. Each character has their moment to shine, especially Michael Rooker as Yondu, who is given a lot more on screen time this time around. Dave Bautista did really steal the show as Drax, as he did with the first one for me. His comedic timing and deadpan humor was a real treat. Chris Pratt leads the team with his expected charm and charisma, which just oozes on screen. Zoe Saldana is great as well, plus she’s got a lot more to do with her sister Nebula played by Karen Gillian, who is good too. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel do excellent jobs projecting their voices to Rocket and Groot. Yondu’s right hand played by Sean Gunn, James Gunn‘s brother is extremely likable. The newest addition to the cast, Pom Klementieff, is not bad, while Kurt Russell‘s Ego was an enjoyable character. He brought a sense of warmth to his character within a few scenes, simply because Russell knows how to be awesome. Sylvester Stallone is likable in a cameo. As for Taserface and Ayesha played by Chris Sullivan and Elizabeth Debicki, they don’t bring too much into the table, but they also bring enough, mainly as they don’t have much to do, but in a film that’s got so many moving parts, Gunn again finds a way to have them be a part of the story. On the whole, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2’ is a worthy sequel & definitely as entertaining as the first due to its whip-crack dialogues, clever character moments & joyous action sequences.