Written by: James Gunn
Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista
The Marvel machine churns out another one.. It isn't fresh or original, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 manages to re-use all of what made the first film work while dealing with a few issues of its own.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
The best part of Guardians 2 is the opening sequence. We're treated to a hilarious action sequence involving the Guardians (Pratt, Saldana, Bautista, and Bradley Cooper all returning for their roles) fighting an inter-dimensional alien that burps rainbow dust. However, instead of following the action, we as the audience get to watch the adorable Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) do a little dance number as the action happens in the background. All of the other Guardians behave like parents to Groot during this little sequence, Cooper's Rocket stopping Groot from eating a bug, Pratt's Star-Lord keeping him out of harm's way, etc, while dazzling colours and explosions streak across the screen. It's a charming and silly scene that highlights exactly what works about these films: endearing characters with an uneven sense of camaraderie, saving planets like it's just another Monday and not taking itself seriously. It also sets the tone for the movie in much the same way that the opening for the first film did.
The film that follows is never quite as good as its opening, but it's still worthwhile. The Guardians are visited by a being called Ego; a Celestial, a god, so to speak, who appears in human form as Kurt Russell (and let's be honest, if a god had to choose a human to appear as, who better than Kurt Russell?) and reveals himself as Star-Lord's dad. Ego offers to show Star-Lord his heritage, and takes Star-Lord, Gamora (Saldana), and Drax (Bautista) to the planet where the rest of Ego's being resides, joined by Ego's servant Mantis (Pom Klementieff). There are also subplots involving the return of Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), which slowly turn their respective ways in the direction of the main plot.
This plot structure leads to a considerable amount of pacing problems for the movie; while it's not uncommon for films to follow a "meanwhile, back at the ranch" style of storytelling, Guardians 2 is weighed down by having multiple "ranches" to go back to, while also needing the subplots to thread together with the main plot before really kicking off the conflict of the main plot. The Ego story has to wait for the others to catch up, so there's a lot of time spent watching Kurt Russell delivering expository dialogue while somewhat hinting at the true conflict of the movie. It doesn't help that the main plot is extremely predictable (surprise, surprise, Ego's purpose for finding Star-Lord was much more nefarious than he initially gave on); of all things this film reminded me of, the plot is actually extremely similar to Dragonball Z: Broly the Legendary Super Saiyan (1993), which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but simply notable for how close the main plots of these two movies are.
Aside from the problems with the story, the endearing characters and cheeky humour are back, as well as the excellent music and more inspired visuals than what are usually shown in Marvel movies. Dialogue between characters seems mostly natural and builds the idea of chemistry between the characters (with the obvious exception of Drax, who continues to entertain with his purposefully forced demeanour); there's only a few choice moments that I found to be odd, and they're not enough to diminish what I mostly find to be a success in the film. In particular I loved the relationshi of Star-Lord and Gamora; there was genuine romantic tension between them in every one of their scenes, and while there wasn't as much growth between them as I had hoped, it's still satisfying to watch the two of them on-screen. The humour is silly and childish, and works as well as it did in the first one, working with the playful, carefree way that the Guardians movies treat most of their conflicts. As for the music and visuals, there's the same use of 80s classics to help theme the movie, and a blinding use of bright colours and textures that create a campy, cartoonish look which separates the Guardians movies from other MCU films.
Of course, one more thing that didn't always work for me as I was watching the film were its tonal shifts towards more serious moments. Some moments worked because they clearly affected a particular character's view of their own life, a moment that is easy to get invested in because I was endeared to that character. Other moments failed to work, such as the death of a particular character, which wasn't nearly as effective as I think James Gunn had hoped it would be because that character's significance had only been played up specifically for this film's story. It's not a worthless moment, but at least in my case it seemed like a cop out to try and get a few cheap tears by disposing of a character that had only really mattered in the last hour.
The Verdict: Guardians 2 is bright, boisterous and quite a bit cheeky, offering up much the same of what people loved about the original. At the same time, it has trouble with pacing as it tries to juggle a few side stories while spending a lot of time meandering through its main plot in an attempt to build tension through mystery while using a plot that isn't what you'd call original. It's never dull, but it's occasionally slow, and while it still offers the best of what we saw in the first film, there's nothing here that's new. All things considered, it succeeds in doing what all Marvel movies seek to do, which is to entertain its audience, so while it suffers, at least to this viewer, from the growing 'superhero movie fatigue', I still recommend it if you enjoyed the first.
Rating: 7/10
Published April 24th, 2017. at 11:59pm
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