Review – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Our favorite group of a-holes are back in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which marks the fifteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  This sequel to the surprise 2014 smash is sure to be another hit for Marvel as Vol. 2 is once again a funny, exciting, eye-popping crowd pleaser.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 brings the whole gang of Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) together once again for a whirlwind space adventure.  This time, the gang does a job for the golden Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) and her gang of gold minions.  When Rocket steals a bunch of important batteries from them, Ayesha sends here gang out to get the batteries back and punish the Guardians.  While being hunted, the Guardians are helped by Ego (Kurt Russell), a planet who takes the shape of a human and is really the father of Star-Lord.  With the rest of the group questioning Ego’s motives as Star-Lord gushes over seeing his father and still being hunted by Ayesha, the Guardians are forced to team with former enemies in Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) in order to keep the team together and once again, save the universe.

When watching a movie, I generally take notes about the movie.  I take notes about the acting, scenes I liked, quotes, shots, things like that.  When going through my notes, there is one name I wrote down multiple times in terms of a great performance.  One of my exact notes was, “Rooker, Rooker, Rooker.”  That’s right, Michael Rooker is incredible as Yondu, giving one of the best performances not only of 2017, but one of the best performances in any MCU movie.  In the first film, Yondu was a side character and a partial villain, but here, in Vol. 2, Yondu is fleshed out into a full sympathetic character who becomes one of the most important characters in the movie.  He mixes badass scenes of action (particularly his wand escape scene, which may be the best in the whole movie), emotion, and slight comedy together to make Yondu a great character.

The rest of the performances in the movie are good as well.  Pratt adds another sly, charismatic performance to his filmography, Saldana is fierece as Gamora, Bautista doesn’t flashes more comedy and sympathy than muscle, Baby Groot is adorable, and Bradley Cooper rocks it once again as Rocket, making us care more for a raccoon than most people in this movie.  And we get some really good new performances from new additions in Russell, who delivers monologs as brilliant as ever, and Debicki is ice cold as Ayesha.  The cast is terrific, but Rooker steals the show.

This is a visually stunning movie, ranking with Doctor Strange (2016) as one of Marvel’s greatest visual achievements.  This is a brightly colored, explosive movie filled with spectacular action sequences, epic new planets, and crazy visual effects.  Seeing Ego go from human form to becoming his planet is unreal, even more impressive than Galactus from Doctor Strange.  The final action sequence of the film will have your jaw on the floor Director James Gunn balances this action and techno-colored visuals with slick comedy and heightened character development.  Family drama, galaxy drama, egos, and love are all thrown into the mix in this film and none of them are glossed over.  This adds deeper levels to our characters, which is one thing that makes Marvel movies as good as they are.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 isn’t perfect however.  For starters, it drags a little longer than it needs too, which is rare for a Marvel movie.  Also, Drax, though amusing at the beginning, gets a little annoying at some parts.  But the film’s biggest problem is one they have faced with all their sequels and that is the freshness.  Most of the success of the first Guardians film came from the viewers not really knowing this team and going in blind.  We weren’t expecting the dry humor of Star-Lord, the dynamic duo of Rocket and Groot, and the naive stupidity of Drax, and were surprised with what we saw.  But here, we know exactly what we are going to get and that takes away some of the fun.  They are great characters and wonderfully written, but some of the one-liners and shenanigans didn’t land as well in this one as in the first.  The MCU has hit this problem with all of their sequels, and none of them are bad movies and the same goes for Vol. 2; it is far from a bad movie, just isn’t as fresh as the first one.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the perfect start to the 2017 summer movie season.  It is a brightly colored spectacle with thrilling action, excellent performances, particularly by Michael Rooker, deep themes, and of course, an awesome soundtrack.  This is the definition of a summer movie and another solid entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

MY RATING – 3/4

Oh, and there are four, that’s right, FOUR, post-credit sequences.  Two are funny, two matter in terms of story, so make sure to stay through all the credits.

Did you see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook by searching Kevflix.