Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2

2017’s “Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2”, directed and written by James Gunn.
Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Kurt Russell, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan.

2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy was Marvel’s biggest surprise hit. It featured a B list of little known characters from it’s comic books, and cast wrestler Dave Bautista as a criminal learning the use of metaphor, Bradley Cooper as an animated trigger happy raccoon, and Vin Diesel as a one sentence repeating tree. It’s central protagonist, Chris Pratt, was best known for playing an underachiever in television’s “Parks and Rec”. His love interest, Zoe Saldana, had proven herself adept at wearing blue (“Avatar”), but the jury was out on not just the cast but also on her being painted green…

Yet, GotG grossed almost three quarters of a billion dollars, as audiences responded to the film’s irreverent mix of swashbuckling silliness and retro music nostalgia. It featured a rag tag group of spectacular diversity, who unite through a common goal (and a love of bickering) to battle a rogue villain while exploring plenty of spectacular places across the universe. Not content to be thrilling and funny, it also had the patience to have sequences casually celebrating the wonders of the cassette tape and Walkman headphones. The film ended with a united group ready to embrace their role of heroes in a confusing and indifferent universe. It’s influence was such, that DC tried to ape it’s style in 2016’s stillborn Suicide Squad, as well as trailers for the upcoming, Thor: Ragnarok.

In GotG, we find our heroes at it again, defending an energy silo from an enormous beast, for an alien race called the “Sovereigns”. Their reward is the handing over of Nebula, last seen in “GotG” betraying her father Thanos’ wishes, to get back at him for favouring her sister, Gamora. Gamora wants to take Nebula home to stand trial for past crimes, however due to Rocket having a penchant for five finger discounts, they soon find an armada of Soverigns upset at the Guardians for stealing from them. The gang crash lands on a planet and meet Kurt Russell (appropriately titled, “Ego”), who claims to be Chris Pratt’s father. While most of the gang goes to Russell’s home planet to further investigate these claims, the rest get separated when they run into Michael Rooker’s pirate gang.  Eventually the majority all end up in the same place, with much at stake, and so many buttons for poor little Groot to remember to push in the right order.

GotG keeps the group’s wisecracks flowing, the interstellar travel zanily zipping along (there’s an inspired jump space sequence), the retro music/playing devices appreciation, and the special effects exploding off the screen in a psychedelic haze of colour. Yet, even as the gang of superheroes deepen their fraternity of a now established bond, it spends the majority of the movie exploring family, and how communities are formed through relationships. From a mutiny of pirates, to the universe’s most deadly pissing contest between two sisters prominent on the colour wheel, to discovering the difference between a biological father and a guardian, the movie is about exploring where we come from. While the heartfelt (and celestial energy infused) message is nice to see, it sometimes gets lost in the screenplay by James Gunn. With Guardians no longer an underdog (Avengers 1a?) , it starts to creak under the weight of expectations and studio based paint-by-numbers formula (as well as more than just one token Stan Lee cameo). For all of these characters, with their amazing powers and skills, and all of the familial tension, the scene that speaks loudest is when the character whose power is empathy (feeling others feelings), sees through a character’s machismo- and together they say nothing.

3.5/5

Trailer: Click Here.