written and directed by James Gunn
Three years after James Gunn and his cast and crew showed the world that D-list Marvel characters can sell movie tickets like hotcakes, they've come back with a sequel just as irreverent and zany as the first film, but which actually has something surprisingly meaningful to say about the importance of family.
The film begins in 1980, with a young couple in love driving through Missouri and the man (a de-aged Kurt Russell) showing off to his blushing bride (Laura Haddock) something mysterious he has planted in the soil.
Thirty-four years later and several billion kilometers away, Peter Quill aka Starlord (Chris Pratt) and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) perform a job for the Sovereign, a race of golden-skinned perfectionists headed by the imperious Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), which involves protecting several large batteries from the Abilisk, a monster with an appetite for the batteries. In exchange, they get Gamora's estranged sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) who has several bounties on her head. All is going well when the larcenous Rocket decides he can't help himself and decides to steal smaller versions of the very batteries the Guardians were supposed to be protecting, thus bringing the wrath of the Sovereign down upon them. All looks lost for Starlord and his crew when a mysterious craft saves them from certain annihilation. In that craft just happens to be the man from the beginning of the film (a properly aged Kurt Russell this time), who introduces himself as Ego, Peter's father. Ego takes Peter, Gamora and Drax to his home planet, where they meet Mantis (Pom Klementieff) an empath who knows more about Ego than she lets on at first, while Rocket and Baby Groot stay behind on the planet where their ship has crashed to keep watch on the captured Nebula and to repair the ship.
Ayesha, however, is keen on revenge, and thus hires Yondu (Michael Rooker) to bring the Guardians in. Yondu has his own problems; he has just been excommunicated from his group, the Ravagers by their supreme leader Stakar (Sylvester Stallone) for some transgression involving the trafficking of children, and has to deal with the mutinous Taserface (Chris Sullivan).
For Peter, meeting his dad is a wish come true, but he's got quite a few questions, and he may not like the answers to some of them.
The first movie was an unabashedly buoyant affair, and this one continues that tradition, though not quite with the same effect. I found myself pleasantly surprised by the way the family dynamics played out in the film. There's the obvious father-and-son dynamic between Peter and his dad Ego, the sister dynamic between Gamora and Nebula, and the whole dysfunctional family vibe of the Guardians in general, but there were some surprises along the way as the film talked about how growing up without a family can affect someone, specifically the likes of Rocket and Yondu. It was the latter's arc which was surprisingly poignant as the nature of his relationship with Peter, as well as the reasons behind his decision not to deliver an eight-year-old Peter to his father like he was hired to do, become much clearer in this film.
As a father of four I was particularly affected by this movie and found myself relating most of all to Kurt Russell's Ego and actually taking the time to examine my parenting, especially given that I have two children navigating adolescence.
Ego is an aptly named character, and the fanboys who may have been annoyed that he wasn't introduced as a giant planet (considering that he is called "The Living Planet" in the comics) will be relieved to see that this aspect of the character is covered, although the visual representation of the character's most basic "core" is a little goofy. The thing is, he's the avatar for parents everywhere who think they want the best for their kids but are really just projecting their own desires for greatness onto them. I don't dare go any further lest I spoil plot points.
For me, though, some of Marvel's usual issues here, that of a lack of decent bad guys or multi-dimensional, strong female characters, are quite adequately addressed here.
The visuals are noticeably more elaborate this time around. The action sequences are definitely on a grander scale with the opening battle with the Abilisk setting the tone for how things will play out, and they just get better from that point onward. I confess to being a little disappointed that I didn't get to see more of Gamora or Nebula kicking butt in hand-to-hand sequences, or more dogfights featuring the Milano, but there was more than enough action in other aspects to make up for whatever the film was lacking. For me, though the visual money shots were on Ego's drop-dead gorgeous planet, which in many of the shots looks like the kind of place I'd like to go when I die.
I can't completely lavish this film with praise, though; some of the writing disagreed with me. It's explained to an extent that Rocket does boneheaded things like steal batteries from his employers because he is who he is, but it didn't sit too well with me. There were also other gaffes in the writing that just came across as illogical to me, like how it took the Ravagers several decades to get angry with Yondu for his trafficking activities considering that the last child he trafficked was Quill, something like twenty-odd years earlier. I also had a beef with one of the central aspects of the marketing, which had to do with Rocket's makeshift bomb. Why on earth did he put a button that could destroy everyone, considering he was the one who made the bomb? It seemed like a lot of writing solely in service of a joke that wasn't all that funny.
Still, notwithstanding some issues I had with Gunn's writing and storytelling rhythm I think this movie hit all of its key storytelling beats. It's not the corporate product some of the more cynical reviewers make it out to be, and while it's a far cry from the best the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had to offer and doesn't quite live up to its off-the-wall predecessor, it's still a worthy addition to the canon. Also, it has the added bonus of not beating viewers over the head with the impending "Infinity War" mega-crossover film just on the horizon.
8/10
