Well… I’m in a conundrum. On the
one hand, I did really enjoy Guardians of
the Galaxy: Vol 2. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of some of the changes
that had to be made to make this film. The comic purest in me is screaming at
me right now. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s dive into this space
opera, shall we?
We open to 1980s Missouri, planet
Earth. Hm… interesting way to start a space opera. We see a young couple
driving through town. One of them is obviously a digitally age reduced Kurt
Russell. I mean, it’s better than the effect done to Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy, but yeah, it’s still not
perfect. Anyway, the man takes the woman, Meredith Quill, to show her something
in the woods. This thing, whatever it is, greatly excites him. He claims that one
day soon, this plant thing will spread across the universe. Nothing ominous
about that.
 |
| Why do I suddenly feel like busting a move? |
Jump 34 years into the future, and
we find the Guardians on a mission. The group, consisting of Rocket Raccoon,
Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Baby Groot, and Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, were
hired to protect some powerful batteries from an interdimensional monster.
Rocket nearly has the sound system set up when the colossal creature attacks.
As the opening credits crawl, Baby Groot plugs the last plug in and starts
rocking out. It’s flipping hilarious to see tiny sapling Groot dancing around,
while the rest of the team battles the creature in the background. I was
actually a little sad when the dancing stopped and we focused in on the fight.
Drax gets himself swallowed, believing that the creature’s hide was too tough
to pierce from the outside. Gamora and Peter both point out how insane this
idea is, as the creature will be the same thickness all the way through. They’re
able to kill it, thanks to a sizable cut the creature had in its neck and
Gamora’s super sharp sword.
The team is congratulated by High
Priestess Ayesha of the Sovereign. The gold skin aliens give The Guardians
their payment, Gamora’s psychopathic estranged adoptive sister, Nebula. She’d
been captured by the Sovereign while trying to steal some of their batteries. The
team leaves, Rocket revealing to Drax that he’d stolen some of the batteries.
Greedy little varmint. The Sovereign discover the theft, and send their fleet
to shoot the Guardian’s down. They fight back, shooting down dozens of enemy
fighters. Not to worry, though, as the Sovereign fly drones remotely. There’s a
pretty hilarious bit showing the Sovereign piloting their ships, their control
modules look suspiciously like an old timey video game. The Guardians try to
escape through a quantum asteroid field, but their ship gets critically damaged
when Peter and Rocket fight over who should be the pilot. They’re saved at the
last moment by a single man on a ship, that blows the fighters out of the sky.
The team warps to the nearest world, crashing onto a planet. Their savior lands
a few minutes later, Kurt Russel stepping out with an antennae-having alien attendant, Mantis.
He calls himself Peter’s father, and reveals his name to be Ego. Oh no. More on
that later.
We then cut to Yondu, Peter’s
adoptive dad and leader of a Ravager ship. The Ravagers are, for those just
joining us, like an intergalactic mercenary group. They work as hired muscle, thieves,
transporters, and so on. Yondu is taking some R and R time at an alien brothel,
when he runs into Stakar Ogord, another Ravager Captain. Stakar storms off
after seeing Yondu, claiming that the planet they were on just lost the
business of 99 of the Ravagers 100 factions. Yondu, it is revealed, was exiled
from the main Ravager group for breaking their most sacred rule. Heck, it seems
like it’s their only rule. Namely, that the Ravagers don’t deal in human… er, sapient
trafficking. Specifically children. Seeing this scene, some of Yandu’s crew
express frustration at being banished and think a change might be in order.
Before things escalate, Ayesha arrives and offers to hire them to capture the
Guardians of the Galaxy.
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| Kurt Russel, one of the most disarming bad guys ever. |
The team splits in two. Peter,
Gamora, and Drax go with Ego and Mantis to Ego’s planet. Rocket and Baby Groot
stay with the ship to enact repairs and keep Nebula in check. What could
possibly go wrong? That night, the Ravagers arrive on the planet and set to
ambush Rocket. Unfortunately, Mr. Raccoon is wily. He set up a number of traps,
and gives most of the Ravagers a run around for some time. He knocks out a
bunch with tranquilizer darts, throws some around with gravity manipulators,
and then shocks a few more. Unfortunately, Rocket is cornered by Yondu’s flying
arrow. Rocket tries to barter his and the Guardian’s freedom by offering Yondu
the stolen batteries. Yondu wants to take them, but the crew calls him out.
Even his loyal #2, Kraglin, calls his boss out on the obvious favoritism Yondu
shows Peter Quill. Yondu gives a believable lie, that sure the batteries are
worth less than the Guardian’s bounty, but if you take out the Guardians of the
Galaxy they’ll be enemy #1 of that planet Xandar, it’s Nova Corps, and dozens
of other systems. Obvious lie, but a rational lie. Yondu is still in control of
the situation, since his arrow moves faster than anyone, but he’s shot from
behind by Nebula. She fries his ‘Fin,’ the metal plate on his head that lets him
control the arrow. Not good.
Peter and co arrive on Ego’s planet. Ego
explains, using some nifty displays, his backstory. He’s an ancient being known
as a Celestial. Over the millennia of his existence, he learned how to
manipulate matter, formed his giant planet form, and then perfected a smaller
humanoid Avatar to explore the galaxy. He eventually discovered other intelligent
life, and then kind of just trails off. After showing Peter around the planet a
little, Ego teaches Peter how to tap into his Celestial power and the two bond
a little. Hooray.
On the Ravager ship, all of Yondu
loyalists are jettisoned out the airlock. Messed up way to kill people, just
saying. One of Yondu’s Lieutenants takes over, an ugly SOB that named himself
Taserface. Rocket mocks him incessantly for it. Rocket and Yondu are safe, for
now, since the Sovereign want to do the executing. Groot is also taken as a
pet/slave for the Ravagers. Nebula is given a ship as a reward, and flies off
to get her sister. After being thrown in a cell, Rocket and Yondu get Groot
help the escape. Yondu had a spare ‘Fin’ in his room and they task Groot to get
it. Unfortunately, Groot isn’t so good at finding things. He brings a desk, a prosthetic
eye, a space rat, human toe, and Yondu’s underwear. Thankfully, Kraglin helps him out. He was
really upset to see the loyalists killed, as they were his friends. Yondu equips
the fin, which looks like a giant mohawk, and he and Rocket obliterate the crew.
It’s one of the most artsy and awesome scenes I’ve seen in a while. Taserface
lets the Sovereign know where they’re going before dying.
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| Baby Groot, too cute for words. |
On Ego’s planet, Gamora let’s Peter
know that something feels off about this whole thing. Mantis is obviously
terrified of something, Ego is hiding something, and all that jazz. Peter, who
is still too excited about meeting and bonding with his bio-father refuses to
listen. Gamora leaves in a huff to try and contact Rocket and Groot. While
sitting in a prairie, she’s attacked by Nebula. Nebula crashes, they fight a
little, nearly die in an explosion, and then fight a little more. They bond a
little when they seem to realize, at the same time, that they really should
both focus their hatred on dear ol’ Dad Thanos. They notice something odd in
the cave they’re in and investigate. They discover a gigantic pile of bones. Oh,
that is super not good. Gamora and Nebula meet up with Drax and Mantis, and
demand answers. Mantis reveals that the bones are Peter’s siblings.
Meanwhile, Ego reveals the final
bit of his story to Peter. When he discovered intelligent life, he was unimpressed.
He decided it was his purpose in life to spread. To this end, he seeded
thousands of worlds with seeds like the one mentioned in the beginning. The
problem is, even with all the power of a Celestial, mass terraforming… (Ego-forming?)
thousands of worlds is too tall an order. But with two Celestials… the impossible
suddenly becomes possible. To get that second Celestial, he impregnated
countless woman on the worlds he seeded, and then hired Yondu to bring him the
progeny. Yondu was under the impression that he was just reuniting the kids
with their father, or something. In actuality, Ego would test them to see if
the children had the Celestial potential. Those, namely all of them except
Peter, didn’t have the power and were killed by the process. Yondu discovered this
before dropping Peter off, and elected to keep the boy to keep him safe.
 |
| Nebula's back, and she's pissed. |
Rocket, and his team, and Gamora
and her team reconvene and rush to save Peter. Peter almost looks like he was
seduced by his father’s vision of perfection, that is until Ego drops a huge
bomb. While he impregnated many females, Meredith Quill held a special place in
his heart. She was the one that might have convinced him to just enjoy being a corporeal
being. He visited her four times, and admits that if he’d come again, he’d have
stayed. To make sure he was never tempted… he gave her the brain tumor. Peter
refuses to help his father after that, but Ego is done asking. He uses his
powers to force Peter to help power the Ego-forming, but the other Guardians
arrive to save the day. The team decides that they need to stop Ego once and
for all. Using a small nuke and the stolen batteries, Rocket jerry-rigged a super
bomb to blow Ego to Kingdom Come. The problem, they need to plant the bomb
right up next to Ego’s core to make it count. And Ego is not going to go quietly.
And the Sovereign fleet have arrived. Damn, this is complicated.
So, the good first. The cast is top
notch. Everyone brings their A-Game for this one. The new additions are up to
par as well, with Kurt Russel being deviously evil, and Pom Klementieff as
Mantis is just a delight. She’s an empathic alien that has 0 social skills. She’s
like on the same and yet opposite end of the bizarre spectrum that Drax is.
They’re a treat together. Sylvester Stallone is also fun, for the little bit of
the film that he’s in. I had to look this up myself, but Stallone’s character
Stakar Ogard is also known as Starhawk. Starhawk being the leader of the first-generation
Guardians of the Galaxy, there’s even a post credit scene where Stakar and his
former team reconvene, resolving to work together again. I doubt we’ll see a
Gen 1 Guardians spin off anytime soon, but somehow I just feel better knowing
that they’re running around too. Just saying. The visuals are stunning. One of
the best was when Yondu, Rocket and Groot are going ham on the traitorous
Ravagers. The raining of corpses, the Arrow flying about, and those three of
them strutting their stuff, it’s just spectacular. And it’s funny. So very
funny. I glossed over most of Drax’s story in this one, simply because they’re
too funny to describe. Baby Groot’s gags are funny as heck, but, not going to
lie, I’m glad they make it clear he’ll be full sized again for next time. Too
much baby Groot is a no-no. Do I even have to mention the sound track? Top hits
of the 70s and 80s. Interestingly, Looking Glass’s “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”
could be viewed as the ‘theme’ song of this one. In much the same way that Blue
Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” was for Guardians
Vol. 1. Ego on a couple of occasions uses the characters of the song, the
sailor and Brandy to describe his relationship with Meredith. Namely, she was
Brandy, the woman that could keep him (the sailor) from returning to sea. His
destiny. Which ultimately led to her own untimely death. Very sad.
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| It's a good group. |
The bad is there, but it’s once
again kind of minimal. I’ll get the most minor of minor out of the way. Ego is
not Star-Lord’s father. Peter Quill is not a Celestial. Peter Quill in the
comics was fathered by J’son, Emperor (Or Star-Lord) of the Spartoi space
empire. He is a jerk, but not a “I’m
going to destroy all of creation” jerk. More of a “my son will do as he’s told
regardless of how he feels” kind of jerk. This bad is only for those of us that know the
source material to some degree, as it took me out of the movie ever so
slightly. The next one feeds into this slightly, as Peter learning how to use
his Celestial powers is kind of a big deal. These powers were only hinted at in
Vol. I, and only really shown in this one. Namely to form an energy ball for he
and Ego to play catch with, and then to fight Ego to the death. And yet they treat
it like a big deal when he opts to lose these powers when they go to kill Ego.
Kind of hard to get emotionally invested in this loss when it’s kind of just
being shown now. There were also a LOT of forced and/or cliché moments. Yondu
actually advises Peter to “use his heart,” in the climax to get a handle on the
Celestial powers. He also has a really kind of awkward chat with Rocket, as
they were the asshole on their respective teams. It just feels weird. Also,
Gamora and Nebula’s reconciliation is a little odd. They are at each other’s throats
for what is implied to be years, and yet they bury the hatchet after Nebula
accuses Gamora of being a crappy sibling. What the heck? Also, one thing that
was bugging me from the start of the climax to the end. Ego is the planet. Ego can form a body from just about anything. So WHY couldn’t he stop the nuke at his core? They never really
establish why he couldn’t do something to save himself. Like, why didn't he make a new body at his core to remove the bomb? Or transport it
away from himself? Or encase it in heavy metals and move it? I suppose you
could argue that fighting Peter was distracting him but… then you’re telling me
the eons old being of near infinite power never learned how to multi-task? What
the heck?
Overall, I give this one a B. It’s
a good film, but if you’re a fan of the comics or have a basic knowledge of the
comics, it’ll take you out the film a bit. And aspects of the climax were just a
little too odd for me to just let go. I know what you’re thinking, Michael,
aren’t you getting hung up on little details? Yes, yes I am. That’s what I do.
I’m not saying don’t see it, far from it, I’m just saying that I didn’t enjoy
it as much as a lot of folks. It’s a decent movie, just not Marvel’s best. In
my opinion. Have a good one, everyone.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/95/GotG_Vol2_poster.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6e/Kurt_Russell_as_Ego_in_Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_Vol_2.jpg
https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelcinematicuniverse/images/4/40/GotGV2_Trailer_WP_12.png/revision/latest?cb=20170411154719
https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelcinematicuniverse/images/a/a9/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_Vol._2_82.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170206231052
https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelcinematicuniverse/images/4/4f/Guardians_V2.png/revision/latest?cb=20170206230940
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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