Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Kurt Russell, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Sylvester Stallone, Sean Gunn, Ving Rhames, Michelle Yeoh, and Michael Rosenbaum, with cameos from David Hasselhoff, Seth Green, Rob Zombie, and Miley Cyrus
Grade: A+

I’m sorry, but Drax not understanding a fucking thing is still funny to me.

Summary

In 1980 Missouri, we see a young man (Russell) hangout with a young Meredith Quill (Laura Haddock), Peter Quill’s (Pratt) mother. After the man shows her a plant never before seen on Earth, she admits she can’t believe she’s fallen in love with a “spaceman”. After they kiss, we go to the present day, 34 years later.

On a planet known as the Sovereign, we see the collective Guardians of the Galaxy so many months after the events of the first film. Peter Quill/Star-Lord is now regularly leading the team on planet-saving missions. The team consisting of Gamora (Saldaña), Drax the Destroyer (Bautista), and the unhinged raccoon Rocket (Cooper) is gelling now more than ever. Also still with the team is humanoid tree Groot (Diesel). Unfortunately, he’s still recovering from the effects of the crash at the end of the first Guardians of the Galaxy and is slowly regrowing into where he used to be at. Currently, Groot is still in a childlike phase and size, complete with the mind of one. So, in his current state, he’s pretty useless to the team and their missions. Their most recent mission was to protect some Anulax batteries for the Sovereign because they’re worth thousands of units apiece. After beating a gigantic tentacled monster known as Abilisk to protect them, the team goes to meet the leaders of the Sovereign government. Before they go in, Quill notes the Sovereign people are easily offended by things, so they have to watch what they say because the cost of transgression is death.

They meet with Ayesha (Debecki), the High Priestess of the Sovereign people. Once she thanks them, she flirts with Quill a bit, and he gives it right back until he sees Gamora is annoyed. Gamora interrupts to ask for their reward, and it turns out to be Nebula (Gillan), who has been imprisoned on the planet for trying to steal their precious fucking batteries. As you may remember, she escaped during the climax of the previous movie. Gamora lets Ayesha know she doesn’t care Nebula is her sister. She’s just trying to collect her bounty on Xandar. As they leave, Ayesha questions what Quill’s heritage is, but he admits he doesn’t know what his father is. He only knows his mother is from Earth. Right after, Rocket offends everyone with a not-so-subtle comment, saying the Sovereign aren’t douchebags but winking to Quill for everyone to see. Walking out the door, Rocket shows Drax he stole a bunch of the batteries, and they laugh. On the ship, Quill apologizes for flirting with Ayesha, but Gamora acts like she doesn’t care. At the same time Drax gives Quill advice on women, Gamora shackles up Nebula, who promises to kill Gamora eventually. Once they take off, they are interrupted by a fleet from the Sovereign. A confused Quill wonders why they are about to attack, so Drax accidentally lets the cat out of the bag and admits Rocket stole the batteries. They then have to elude thousands of battleships remotely piloted by the Sovereign who fly these ships like a video game. Back on the Sovereign planet, Ayesha is told if the batteries are destroyed, the entire fleet may explode, but she doesn’t care because she wants to kill the Guardians.

A panicking Quill asks Gamora what the nearest inhabitable planet is, and it’s Berhert. Unfortunately, they have to go through a quantum asteroid field to get there. They go into the field but have some trouble due to Quill and Rocket arguing with each other as they both fly the ship in different directions. At one point, Drax puts on a spacesuit, attaches himself to the ship with this contraption they have, and hangs out the back of it to fire at one of the Sovereign ships, destroying it. More ships from the fleet swarm them, but they are all immediately destroyed by a single, unknown man. Not having enough time to check on this person, or care, they go straight into the jump point and crash land on Berhert, with Gamora barely saving Drax from flying out of the ship completely. As they all argue about who’s fault this was, the man that saved them lands his ship. Out comes Ego (Russell), Quill’s father, and Ego’s assistant Mantis (Klementieff).

On Contraxia, we see Yondu Udonta (Rooker) fresh off plowing through a robot hooker. He goes down to meet his Ravager buddies by the bar and runs into Stakar Ogord (Stallone), a high-ranking Ravager. He greets him meekly, but Stakar is still mad at Yondu for breaking the Ravager code back in the day by trafficking children. Yondu still denies knowing about it, but Stakar counters by saying Yondu just didn’t want to know because it would make him rich. He tells Yondu he will not have an honorable Ravager funeral once he passes away because of what he did, and it pains him to do so. Yondu’s crew watches from afar and one man (Chris Sullivan) in particular talks about how Yondu is going soft, and it’s been exemplified by him letting Quill get away with shit. Everyone is interrupted by Ayesha, who shows up and hires Yondu and his crew to capture the Guardians of the Galaxy for her.

Around a campfire back on Berhert, Ego explains how he hired Yondu back in the day to pick Quill up from Earth once his mother passed away, but instead of returning Quill to Ego, Yondu kept him. Apparently, it was because Quill was small and could help steal things adults couldn’t sneakily do themselves. Ever since then however, Ego has been looking for Quill. He explains to the inquisitive Gamora that he’s heard of the tales of Star-Lord and that’s how he was led here. He then invites them all over to his planet, with a promise to Quill that he can finally explain his very “special heritage” to him. Once Ego goes to the bathroom, a skeptical Quill and Gamora talk in private. As this happens, the awkward Mantis, Ego’s innocent assistant that was raised alone on Ego’s planet, interacts with Drax and befriends him, even though she’s not accustomed to much social interaction. In the woods, Gamora reminds an annoyed Quill about how he used to carry a picture of David Hasselhoff with him when he was a kid and would tell people it was his dad. She’s not entirely convinced of Ego’s intentions either, but she can’t help but think..

What if Ego is his Hasselhoff?

There’s no harm in hearing him out. If she’s wrong and he turns out to be evil, they’ll just kill him.

The next morning, Quill, Gamora, and Drax leave with Ego and Mantis to go to Ego’s planet. This leaves a still angry Rocket with baby Groot and prisoner Nebula, as he gradually fixes the ship. On Ego’s ship, Mantis hangs with Quill, Gamora, and Drax after Mantis puts Ego to sleep. They discuss the use of Mantis’s antennas and how it may have to do with her empathic abilities, meaning if she touches someone, she can feel their feelings. She touches Quill and outs him for his feelings of love for Gamora. Quill tries to deny it, but Drax drowns it out with his laughter. Mantis laughs with Drax after touching him too. She goes to Gamora, but Gamora threatens her before she can, so Mantis changes the subject, revealing she can alter emotions to some extent. Usually, she uses this ability to help Ego sleep because he’s constantly thinking about his progeny. Drax asks for Mantis to demonstrate on him, so she touches his forehead, and he immediately starts snoring.

On Berhert, the Ravagers come for Rocket and the crew. Rocket is able to destroy a majority of them through some carefully placed traps and ingenuity, but he’s eventually captured by Yondu and his arrow, with Yondu noting they’re being paid a lot by Ayesha to capture the crew alive to deliver back to her to kill them. As they talk, Nebula convinces baby Groot to release her from her bonds so she can save Rocket. Yondu offers instead to take the batteries from Rocket since it’ll still give them 250,000 units, prompting the one Ravager from earlier to speak out because Ayesha was offering them a million for the group. Yondu argues that if they take out the Guardians, the entire Nova Corps would be after them. However, even Yondu’s righthand man Kraglin Obfonteri (Gunn) takes their side over Yondu’s and notes his preferential treatment of Quill over them. Because of this, everyone starts taking sides and pointing their guns at each other. Yondu is about to use his arrow on the one guy, but Nebula shows up and shoots his artificial mohawk off, rendering his arrow useless and knocking him out. Then, she tases Rocket and takes over temporary co-leadership of the Ravagers.

On Ego’s planet, Quill, Gamora, and Drax are introduced to a Babylon-like paradise. Everything seems perfect, but it seems way too good to be true. Something is up with Ego, but will it be too late for Star-Lord to see it?

My Thoughts:

How do you replicate the originality of the first Guardians of the Galaxy? How do you make things feel fresh but also faithful to its predecessor? Keeping the spirit of the first movie and the fun of the personalities involved is essential to a sequel’s success, but you’re always at risk of doing things too similar to the first movie or going too far in the opposite direction and forgetting what made the first one popular. It’s hard to make a well-received sequel because of this. Could James Gunn retain the entertainment factor while also giving us a new adventure for the characters that’s worth watching? The answer is yes, and Chris Pratt leads the charge once again, showing that his new status as a leading man was not a fluke.

He’s still charismatic and funny as hell. You got to love moments when in the middle of the biggest “life or death” fight scene in the entire movie, he gets a moment to himself and quips, “What a day”. Something that simple shouldn’t have been that funny, but Pratt just has “it”.

Doubling down on the outrageous humor that made the first movie such a success, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 follows another breathtaking mission for Star-Lord and company to overcome while also delving deep into the inner selves of our main characters, with Gunn peeling back the layers of their mental anguish without being too somber to ruin the tone of movie. These added developments that make things harder for our heroes engage us and remind us why we love the Guardians so much. The added character development shaping this sequel is mainly with Peter Quill, Gamora, and Rocket, but this sequel helps us see Nebula and Yondu in a new light too.

Peter Quill loves his new role as the leader of the galaxy’s biggest mismatched soldiers of fortune and has grown to care for all of them, despite their many flaws and annoying habits. We can now see Quill is much more focused, coming to a level of acceptance regarding his mother’s death because his “new” family in the Guardians have filled the gap he had in his heart.

Enter Ego.

The aptly named celestial, played by a rejuvenated Kurt Russell who reminds us why he was such a popular star back in the day, bursts onto the scene with pure joy. He’s finally found his long-lost son and he wants to make up for lost time. Ego himself is a god and his powers have been learned over millions of years, resulting in the planet he created. This means that Star-Lord is an immortal god too, explaining how he was able to hold the Power Stone at the end of the first Guardians without dying. Russell’s performance was intriguing to watch because though he’s inviting and very grateful to reach his son, we are just as skeptical as Quill. As Ego goes through his initial impassioned speech, Quill plainly says to Gamora once Ego leaves them alone, “I don’t buy it”. Quill has become as jaded as Rocket. Can this be the real thing? After all these years, Quill’s father has come back into the picture and wants to be a part of his life? It’s too good to be true, and Quill sees things as disingenuous right away. He’s experienced too many bad situations and scammers in his life to assume all is finally right in the world and he will finally catch a break. The audience has trouble too. Because we know how things go in these types of films, we are anticipating something bad involving Ego because there has to be some kind of conflict involving the second biggest actor in the film. Things can’t go smoothly. The real scary part is the reveal and that’s what we’re waiting for.

The tough part is that Mantis is right: Ego has a way about him. As he explains his plans of the Expansion with such energy and excitement, you can see where he’s coming from, especially with him bonding so much with Quill beforehand (them playing catch with a ball of created energy like a father and son playing catch with a baseball was a nice touch). You may not agree with his plan, but you can why his sales pitch works to an extent. It’s all about the purpose, having meaning. Quill wonders about immortality and how an eternity of living may get boring, but Ego responds excitedly with “not if you have a purpose”. Having a goal drives you and gives your life meaning, so Ego planting extensions of himself on thousands of worlds (by plowing through women left and right in classic Kurt Russell fashion) to make everything in his image is the lifelong goal that gives him meaning. It makes sense why his name is “Ego”, right? When Quill worries of his friends, Ego explains how they are past that because they have a much higher purpose in making the Expansion a reality. Going into detail as to how he wandered until he found meaning, you can see the wheels start to turn for Quill. Maybe this is his purpose too. Maybe everything has been leading to him rejoining his father and recreating the galaxy with him. It’s as if everything that has happened before this was inconsequential to the larger picture. This is the internal struggle Quill has to deal with because what his father is asking of him can change his life along with the entire galaxy’s.

As Ego goes on, it starts to make sense, but you can tell he walks around certain points involving Quill’s mother. This is where Quill’s feelings creep back up to the surface because he wants answers, and this is the only time he’ll get them. In a very powerful moment, the two argue about how Ego left his mother when she needed him, but he tries to play the sympathy card about seeing her in the state she was in, complaining Quill didn’t know what it was like. Quill snaps back with, “I had to watch her die!” and you could hear a pin drop in the moment. Ego almost loses Quill. Though he’s accepted his mother dying, the fact that he’s faced with the man who could’ve helped her brings back unresolved feelings and eventually, this subject will make things hit a breaking point. Kurt Russell was an excellent casting choice. I’m so happy we got to see Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone in an MCU film (and even David Hasselhoff). The fact that it’s the same movie makes it even better. This franchise always felt like a homage to the space adventure and action movies of the 80s, so James Gunn managing to get two of the biggest box office stars from that time period just furthers this point.

It’s only a matter of time before we see Schwarzenegger.

In terms of charismatic presence, onscreen persona, and ability to blend comedic timing and light-heartedness with tough action hero characters, Pratt is almost a modern-day Russell. The similarities are evident. That’s why the transition for Russell to play Pratt’s biological father played out so well.

Side note, did you see the de-aged Russell in the opening scene? The technology we have in film today can truly make anything possible.

Once again, Rocket’s character development is a scene-stealer. His moments of breaking and giving us a little insight of his horrid backstory became one of the many highlights of the first film. Though they don’t go into specific details or events as to why he’s like the way he is (it’s saved for the third movie), we are shown a new side to his personality here that makes sense of his outward demeanor. He pushes everyone away, yelling at his friends for the slightest inconvenience and acts out, welcoming trouble that could very easily be avoided. It’s like he has to cause problems even when the situation doesn’t call for it. Though stealing the batteries from the Sovereign seemed to be a one-off joke to begin the movie in hopes of getting a good laugh and to remind us of the hijinks of this crew, it actually unravels into a “B” story that almost costs the Guardians their lives on several occasions. We even see in a post-credits scene that the Sovereign are still making it their mission to kill them because of Rocket. It shows that though it’s fun to mess around, these actions have consequences when you mess with the wrong people. Because of Rocket stealing batteries he admittedly didn’t need, he has put his friends’ lives in jeopardy. In typical Rocket fashion however, he refuses to admit it’s his fault as his ego won’t let him. His Napoleon complex is consistently his undoing. It’s not until he’s without his friends there to back him up and dealing with a regretful Yondu in which he realizes a change is in order.

Drax doesn’t go through the character development his counterparts go through, but he doesn’t need to because most of his character arc has concluded (temporarily until Thanos re-enters the picture) in the first film by taking out Ronan the Accuser. Now, he’s just along for the ride as the consistently funny comedic sidekick for the team. Eventually, he’ll go after Thanos like he told Gamora in the closing scenes of the first movie, but until then, he’s the comedic relief in an already funny film. Bautista’s comedic timing is impeccable. I laughed out loud when he’s told the “earth-shattering” news of Yondu not being Quill’s biological father. Rocket questions why Drax could possibly think this because Yondu’s blue, and Drax just motions to Quill because he sees no difference whatsoever in a hilarious sidebar.

Of course, we can’t forget his line about how “extraordinarily humble” he is too. It’s absolute gold.

Drax’s friendship with the ultra-adorable Mantis is hilarious. Every time we get another sidebar with these two trying to interact in the most awkward way possible, you’re wondering how they were able to do it with such straight faces. When he kept hammering the point home about how ugly she is, I couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t know much about Pom Klementieff, and I don’t really care how her character had nothing to do with the one from the comics, according to the creator himself. I love what she and James Gunn turned this character into. Nebula was a standout too. Learning about the horrors of what Thanos did to her, breaking off parts of her body and replacing them with machinery anytime she’d lose to Gamora in battle (which was every time) to make her Gamora’s equal, is absolutely heartbreaking. If you remember, Thanos even refers to Gamora as his favorite daughter in front of Nebula in the first Guardians. Suddenly, everything is starting to make sense. This serves as an understandable justification of her vendetta against her sister Gamora. When I remind myself of her actions in the first film and how bitter she was, with her breaking off her own arm and free falling onto a ship rather than helping Gamora defeat Ronan and blowing up Gamora’s ship and temporarily killing her to get the Orb until Star-Lord saved her on the outskirts of Knowhere, we start to see where she’s coming from. She even tries to kill Gamora here, even when Gamora saved her from her burning ship. After finally wrestling her down, Nebula backs off saying, “I win”. As they bicker like the sisters they are, Nebula blurts out “You always had to win. I just wanted a sister!”. With these simple lines, Nebula is immediately forgiven in Gamora’s eyes and the viewers.

Finally, we are able to emotionally understand her by getting to the core of the character to see the years of torment Thanos put her through, as well as the stress of having to compete with her sister when she just wanted someone to count on. It’s such an important scene, completely changing our opinion of the character. Going along with this, the same thing happens with Yondu.

The Yondu/Rocket friendship was something we didn’t know we needed. Yondu finally calls Rocket out at one point, and it turns into the breakthrough they both required to realize their own struggles. After Yondu talks about his greediness and bad decision-making that led him to where he’s at, Rocket starts to see the regret and the hidden good in Yondu. Rocket’s reaction to Yondu reiterating the lie of the reason he stole Quill from Ego was also telling. It’s mostly because this is something Rocket would do too. Rocket would go to the end of the Earth before admitting something “soft” like he stole Quill to save or protect him. Because of this, they start to form this unlikely bond to take back Yondu’s ship, giving us one awesome action sequence. Once things calm down, the two argue again, resulting in Yondu’s moment of clarity. He talks of Rocket’s rough exterior and how overtly tough he acts but deep down, he’s more scared than anyone. He pushes everyone away because he’s afraid of being hurt. It digs deep into Rocket, but Yondu clears the air by saying Rocket is essentially him. THAT’S why he knows he’s right. The bond is solidified, and Yondu’s full turn into reluctant hero is one hell of a moment, giving us the badass line of “Let’s go fight a planet!”. When you couple this with what we uncover as the real reason Yondu saved Quill, you can’t help but respect this son of a bitch. What Yondu has become over the course of these couple of movies has been nothing short of impressive. The writing has been impeccable. His evolution through two films has completely changed my opinion of him, and Michael Rooker’s hardened pseudo father figure portrayal is partially the reason. By the end of Vol. 2, he not only makes the Ravagers proud, but the audience as well.

Keeping Groot a child was a good decision. It could’ve easily backfired, but they gave him enough to do to keep things fresh, funny, and cute. Two scenes absolutely make this movie as a whole, and they both involve baby Groot. The first is the scene in which Rocket tries to explain to him how to blow up the bomb and the other is when Yondu and Rocket try to get Groot to steal the prototype fin to get them out of the brig. These two scenes were worth the viewing alone. The frustration they face is hysterical, but you can’t stay mad at Groot. He’s like a little puppy. It also gave Rocket something different to do. It’s almost as if he had to play “single father” to baby Groot, rather than Groot being the muscle of Rocket, and it was a nice role reversal to change things up for the sequel. The slow burn of the romance between Quill and Gamora continues to be a huge part of the franchise too. At this point, we’re begging them to kiss, and its exactly what James Gunn wants. That “unspoken thing” is getting closer and closer to being “spoken” by the minute. Of course, the imagination and creativity were on full display too regarding the Sovereign, the Yondu/Rocket jump sequence, and Ego’s planet. Ego’s planet in particular, and all of the action involved on it, gave us some of the best CGI-created landscapes I’ve probably ever seen up until this point. What they came up with was nothing short of extraordinary. I was entranced. Whether it was the Eden the planet started out as, or the colorful, volcanic Chernobyl it turns into by the end (as well as Ego turning back into human form in the crazy climax), you will be amazed at what this post-production team pulled off.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is an incredible follow up to its “out of left field” predecessor. It’s still ridiculously funny, has a better villain and bigger stakes for everyone involved, a very interesting backstory, fantastic character development, another good soundtrack of classic songs that are carefully placed into every scene or moment (though admittedly not as great as the first movie’s), and it re-creates the magic that made the first film so much damn fun without feeling like a retread. Though the first film was a “Classic” because it was something we’ve never seen before, Vol. 2 is still a near perfect sequel, honoring these characters to the utmost degree while taking them on another vital adventure just as fresh and unpredictable as the first one.

Yes, I’ll die on that hill.

Also, a big shout out to the ending. What a beautiful epilogue.

Fun Fact: Matthew McConaughey was the original choice for Ego, but he turned it down. Man, that would’ve been something, right? Additionally, there were discussions about having David Bowie be a part of Yondu’s original crew before his death.