Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Guardians of the Galaxy came as a pleasant surprise amidst the summer blockbusters of 2014 as it continued Marvel Studios’ dominance in the multiplexes. It was a breath of fresh air in the comic book superhero movie genre by eschewing filmmaking by committee in favor of the singular vision of James Gunn. He took a bunch of relatively unknown characters and transformed them into a bickering yet lovable rag-tag team that saved the universe. The movie’s success demonstrated the strength of the Marvel brand and the expansion of their cinematic universe into the cosmic realm, which had been hinted at in The Avengers (2012).

The phenomenal triumph of Guardians of the Galaxy ensured that a sequel was inevitable with Gunn returning to writing and directing duties. This time out, his goal was to deliver more of the same from the first movie while going deeper into the characters and the dynamic between them with the focus on Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) learning more about his mysterious, extraterrestrial father.

Taking place only a few months after the events depicted in the first movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) starts off on a high note as the opening credits play over Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) grooving to “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra while his fellow teammates fly around trying to stop an inter-dimensional monster from destroying valuable batteries belonging to the Sovereign race, bantering and bickering in the most entertaining fashion.

Naturally, Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) pisses off the Sovereigns by stealing some of their batteries and the Guardians find themselves fugitives yet again as they barely escape a giant space battle, rescued at the last minute by Ego (Kurt Russell), the Living Planet and Peter’s father. Meanwhile, Yondu (Michael Rooker) has been exiled from the Ravagers and hired by the Sovereign to find Peter, but along the way his crewmates mutiny, leaving him defeated and in a dark place.

Vol. 2 has a lot more heart than the first movie and this is due in large part to the relationship between Peter and his father and also between Peter and Yondu, fleshing out his backstory. The scenes between Chris Pratt and Kurt Russell have genuine warmth to them as Peter has to figure out if he can trust Ego while the latter wants to bond with his son. Fortunately, there is more to their relationship than that and this complicates things, leading to an epic and emotional showdown. Michael Rooker, a favorite of Gunn’s, also gets more substantial screen-time resulting in a surprising turn of events for his character so that he is more than a perpetually pissed-off mercenary.

We also get additional insight into what motivates Drax (Dave Bautista) and delve into the strained relationship between Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and her sister Nebula (Karen Gillan). This means more screen time for all of them and this enriches these characters in a surprisingly satisfying way that several of the Marvel sequels (Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 2) failed to do but that Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) was able to thanks to having the same screenwriters as the first movie thus having stable continuity much like what Gunn has done with this franchise. It also helps that these characters have already been established and so he doesn’t have to spend time introducing them, which frees up more running time to examine them in more detail.

The cast is uniformly excellent once again, each actor getting multiple moments to build upon what they did in the first movie and so Chris Pratt starts off being the smart-ass Star Lord we all know and love and then gets to convey some genuine emotion as his personal stakes in what happens rise dramatically. Even scene-stealer Dave Bautista gets to have some playful banter with new team member Mantis (Pom Klementieff), an alien with empathic powers.

Vol. 2 features another fantastic soundtrack of classic rock, from Fleetwood Mac to George Harrison, with an even stronger collection of songs that Gunn marries so well with a given scene, like when Peter serenades Gamora to Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home to Me” or George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” playing while Peter and the others arrive on Ego’s planet. As with the first movie’s soundtrack, this one elicits a wide range of emotions, from romantic notions to melancholy to elation. Gunn, more than any other filmmaker working for Marvel Studios, knows how pick the right song for the right scene and the right moment.

If the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie introduced us to these colorful characters and the galaxy they inhabit, then Vol. 2 goes deeper, allowing us to get to know them better. The first movie was about the formation of a family of misfits, of strangers, and the sequel examines the importance of it. If the first movie had a flaw it was a rather generic villain. This one does not make the same mistake as the baddie is fully developed with a valid motivation that is personal and therefore poses a more meaningful threat to our heroes. Gunn has managed to make an exciting, action-packed space epic that has an intimate character study at its core. Vol. 2 feels even more personal of a movie than the first one and without sacrificing the splashy spectacle we’ve come to expect from these kinds of movies.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Much ado has been made about the huge risk Marvel Studios took adapting Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) for the big screen. Since The Avengers (2012), they’ve been content cranking out sequels to their mega-successful franchises of Iron Man, Thor and Captain America. Guardians would be a real test of the Marvel brand with most industry insiders forecasting a modest success and a few predicting it to be the studio’s first big flop.

Based on a fairly obscure comic book set in a galaxy far, far away featuring the misadventures of a ragtag group of aliens led by a human orphaned from Earth, Guardians of the Galaxy enjoyed a resurgence in 2008 but still lacked the name recognition of the aforementioned superheroes. Furthermore, it was to be co-written and directed by James Gunn, the B-movie maverick responsible for modern cult classics like Slither (2006) and Super (2010), starring up and comers like Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana and professional wrestler Dave Bautista. The two biggest movie stars – Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel – would not actually be appearing on-screen, instead providing voices for completely computer generated characters. Marvel’s canny and pervasive marketing blitzkrieg paid off. Guardians smashed opening weekend records for August.

We first meet Peter Quill as an eight-year-old boy losing his mother to cancer only to be subsequently abducted by a group of notorious space pirates led by a blue-skinned bandit known as Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker). They raise the young boy to be a smuggler and an outlaw a la Han Solo complete with the self-applied moniker Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). He steals a mysterious orb and plans to sell it on the Nova Corps homeworld Xandar, ripping off Yondu in the process, which results in a hefty bounty being placed on his head.

Little does Quill know that this theft has caught the attention of several interested parties: Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) and Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a mercenary duo, and Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), a powerful Kree alien who wants the orb so that it can be handed over to Thanos (Josh Brolin), an even more powerful being last seen at the end credits of The Avengers, in exchange for destroying Xandar, his sworn enemies. To this end, Ronan sends Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a deadly assassin, to retrieve the orb.

However, Quill when crosses paths with Groot, Rocket and Gamora, the resulting chaos has them arrested by the Nova Corps and thrown into an outer space prison known as Kyln. It is here that they meet Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), a warrior with a thirst for revenge on Ronan for killing his family. They form an uneasy alliance and break out of prison to sell the orb with Yondu, the Nova Corps, and Ronan and his trusted lieutenant Nebula (Karen Gillan) in hot pursuit.

With this film, Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt becomes a bonafide action star, deftly blending amusing quips with heroic feats. He does a nice job of also portraying Peter Quill as a man haunted by his past, like many of his cohorts. All of the Guardians have lost deeply personal things in their lives and this is what unites them – that, and saving their own lives and, by default, the galaxy. Zoe Saldana gets to portray yet another alien, but instead of being buried under CGI as she was in Avatar (2009), the actress sports a striking green look and a fierce attitude to match. A pleasant surprise comes from the casting of WWE wrestler Dave Bautista who is excellent as Drax, the gruff warrior that tags along with the rest of these ne’er-do-wells. It is a lot of fun to see this athlete bounce off of the other actors and who more than holds his own.

If Quill provides the film its heart, then Rocket provides the bulk of its humor, stealing almost every scene he’s in by not just getting to spout the bulk of the film’s funniest lines, but also the impressive CGI that brings him vividly to life so that he actually emotes convincingly. Special effects technology has finally caught up to Groot and Rocket, creating expressive, fully realized characters. Early on, you stop thinking of them as CGI characters and look at them as part of the team thanks to the voice work of Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper who give Groot and Rocket distinctive personalities.

The banter between Quill, Rocket, Gamora, Drax, and even Groot is a large part of the film’s charm. Quill is the wisecracking smartass while Gamora is all business, Rocket has anger management issues, Drax doesn’t understand metaphors (making for some pretty funny exchanges between him and Quill), and Groot just says, “I am Groot” at key moments. Credit should go to the witty screenplay by Gunn and Nicole Perlman that plants the seeds of jokes early in the film only for them to successfully pay off later on.

There is a fantastic mix of character moments and visual eye candy in Guardians of the Galaxy as Gunn immerses us in this strange galaxy and the colorful characters that populate it. His production team has crafted a textured, lived-in universe that is rich in detail and drenched in atmosphere. The film’s vibrant color scheme is complimented by a stellar soundtrack featuring songs from the 1970s and 1980s via a mixtape in Quill’s vintage Walkman that also acts a touchstone to his childhood on Earth and memories of his departed mother. As a result, the songs run the gamut from commenting humorously on the action (“Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede) to also adding poignancy to more reflective moments (“I’m Not in Love” by 10cc) as well.

The only problem I have with Guardians of the Galaxy is that its villainous trio isn’t all that interesting. Ronan and Nebula look cool, but the former is yet another power-mad baddie that Marvel likes trotting out in all of its films with only a few notable exceptions, and the latter suffers from Darth Maul syndrome – a character with a badass reputation but with very little actual proof of such. It’s no surprise that Loki and the Winter Soldier are the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s strongest villains – they both have deeply personal and compelling motivations for what they are doing, which is something that is lacking with Ronan. As for Thanos, he only gets a cameo this time out with hints that he might figure more prominently in either Guardians 2 or The Avengers 3, but that’s a long way off. Fortunately, our heroes are so interesting and so much fun to watch that the lack of substantial villains is a minor quibble at best.

Gunn has pulled off a real coup with this film. He maintains a tricky balancing act of creating a gonzo space opera full of weird characters and loaded with a dense plot while somehow making it palatable for mainstream consumption without compromise. After the debacle that was the Star Wars prequels, cinema needed a good space opera to expunge the bad vibes of George Lucas’ movies. Only Joss Whedon’s Serenity (2005) bravely stepped up and showed everyone how do it right, but now Guardians of the Galaxy joins it by providing an alternative for those hungry for an entertaining science fiction film, fulfilling a need that Lucas was unable to with his prequels.

Guardians of the Galaxy is an unabashed science fiction film full of exotic aliens, power-hungry villains, and exciting spaceship battles with the fate of the entire galaxy at stake. It is also a funny film – as close as Marvel has come to making a full-on comedy. Their other films have had humor, but were largely dramatic in nature. Guardians inverts this formula so that it is largely comedic with dramatic moments and the result is another entertaining and engaging film from Marvel who continue their impressive winning streak. More importantly, this film opens up the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a big way by introducing an entire galaxy for its increasing number of characters to inhabit.