The Funny End Of The MCU Spectrum
While everyone seems to be caught up in all of the wonder that is the upcoming Wonder Woman film (I can’t wait to see it myself!), I’m still over here in Louisiana trying to play catch up with everything from Netflix to the MCU. Marvel’s latest entry on the big screen, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, was highly anticipated and rightfully so.
Marvel has released a seemingly unstoppable string of successful films that range from great (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) to middling (Thor) to downright terrible (Iron Man 3). Phase Two of the MCU introduced stand alone films for characters that aren’t as familiar outside of comic book pages with names like Ant-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
The first Guardians film was a hit. It was full of humor, action, and featured a likeable cast. As with almost every other MCU film, though, it featured a rather dull villain (Ronan) and despite being extremely cool and fun to watch, it didn’t have much depth to it in the long run.
GOTG, Vol. 2 makes up for the villain this time around, but comes across as being even more shallow than its predecessor.
!!!!!STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN GOTG, VOL. 2. THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!
The film reunites Chris Pratt (Star Lord) and company for another galaxy saving adventure. The Guardians are hired by the Sovereign race and their leader, Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), to stop a creature that is trying to take batteries (the very powerful, very valuable variety of batteries) from their supply. After successfully taking out the creature, they receive payment in the form of Nebula (Karen Gillan). Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) liberates some of the batteries for himself as well, and when the Sovereign find out, they send out an attack force of drones to stop the Guardians.
Luckily for the Guardians, Ego (Kurt Russell) shows up and wipes out all of the drones (but not before the Sovereign do some heavy damage to the Milano). He then takes Star Lord, Drax (Dave Bautista), and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to his home planet (which happens to be HIM) in order to show his son what he’s been missing over the years. Along for the ride is Mantis (Pom Klementieff), an empath who helps Ego sleep at night because of the difficulties of being a powerful Celestial. Rocket and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) stay with the ship to repair it and keep an eye on Nebula.
Rocket and Groot run into problems with a group of ravagers lead by Yondu (Michael Rooker), who has been hired by Ayesha to capture the Guardians. After successfully capturing Rocket and Groot, Yondu’s men turn on him when he decides to look the other way when Star Lord is brought up. This leads to mutiny, and Yondu finds himself imprisoned with Groot.
Nebula sets out to find Gamora and have her revenge, but they find the bodies of Ego’s other children that he hoped to combine powers with in order to trigger his “seedlings” that he planted in his travels that would literally take over other worlds and spread his singularity across the galaxy. None of these children had the power of the Celestials like Star Lord and were terminated by Ego.
This is where Yondu really comes into play in the story. Michael Rooker chewed up the scenery in the first GOTG film, and does even more of that this time around. It’s revealed during the movie that Ego hired Yondu to collect and bring the children to Ego’s planet. When Yondu finds out that Ego murders the children whenever they don’t stack up to his expectations, he takes the child he currently has in tow, Peter Quill, and protects him from the slaughtering Ego. When other Ravagers find out that Yondu has been trafficking children (a big no-no), he and his men are shunned.
Mantis, who has become fast friends with Drax, reveals Ego’s plan to him. They join up with Gamora, Nebula, Yondu, Rocket, and Groot in order to convince Star Lord that what Ego is doing is evil and they prevent the duo from joining forces to completely take over the galaxy. This angers Ego, and he attacks the group as a planet and Star Lord as the human Ego.
An epic battle ensues that includes multiple 80’s references, Baby Groot detonating a bomb that destroys a planet, and Star Lord realizes that while Ego might be his father, Yondu is truly his daddy.
Of course, no epic battle occurs without sacrifices, and Yondu gives his own life in order to save Star Lord. I have a major problem with this moment in the film, but I’ll address that later. Once Ego is destroyed and balance is restored to the galaxy, a funeral is held for Yondu. During the funeral, the Ravagers that shunned him and his men earlier show up and give him a proper send off. They realize that Yondu is much more honorable than they ever believed him to be.
Then the credits roll. We see a teen-aged Groot doing teen-aged things, there’s dancing in the credits, Sly Stallone (who portrays Ravager Stakar in the film) joins up with some old pals, and we see a cocoon holding Ayesha’s newest weapon against the Guardians. She calls it “Adam,” which is an obvious reference to Adam Warlock. Hopefully we’ll see him in the already announced Volume 3.
Issues
Sure, the film was fun to watch, but it seemed like director/writer James Gunn didn’t really know what to do with most of the characters this time around. Drax, while still a powerful warrior, was basically reduced to comic relief. Everything that he did in the film was used for laughs. The same could be said for Rocket and Groot. Gamora was still fighting her sister (and Karen Gillan definitely improved her performance this time around), but other than the pair deciding to join up together to help fight Ego, there was no real character development. Heck, even Star Lord remained basically the same.
The only character that had any real development was Yondu, and he was killed off in the final minutes of the movie, which brings me to my biggest gripe about this film:
Why did Yondu have to die?????
Peter Quill was fresh from a fight with his Celestial father who just showed him how to use his powers. Quill literally created a giant Pac-Man out of nothing to battle Ego, yet he couldn’t scrounge up enough juice to make a space suit for his “daddy” to slip on until the rest of the Guardians caught up to them???? You could argue that he was tired from the battle, but he could have at least whipped up a breathing mask for Yondu.
In Summary
Like I said, the film was very enjoyable to watch, but it’s basically more of the same from the first film but with a better villain (Kurt Russell was born to play a character named Ego). It’s definitely not one of my favorite MCU flicks, but it’s still better than Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Age of Ultron. The special effects were excellent and the fight sequences were pretty cool overall.
I’ll buy it on Blu-ray when it hits the shelves like I always do and watch it for the laughs, but this film could have been much better.
As always, thanks for reading. I know that a few people probably disagree with me about this film, so let me know why you disagree with me in the comments.
Ken's Alternate Universe! 