Mini Review - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

So, we’re concluding Marvel Month with Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2. Given the success of the original, a sequel was inevitable, what might surprise you is the budget wasn’t raised. It still had a £200m budget, and again it was successful, earning $860m at the box office, and was well received critically, with an 82% rotten tomatoes rating.

In a really really cool opening credits sequence, the Guardians fight to protect a series of batteries from an inter-dimensional monster on bequest of the Sovereign in return for them releasing Nebula from their captivity. Rocket steals some of their batteries anyway and they’re now enemies of the Sovereign. They’re shot down but salvation arrives in the form of Ego, played by Kurt Russell, Living Planet and father to Star Lord.

Star Lord, Gamora and Drax, along with Ego’s empathic compatriot Mantis go to explore a new world and discover some dark secrets that lie beneath. Meanwhile, Yondu’s crew revolt against him, led by the evil Taserface, sick of his constant forgiveness of Star Lord. They capture Rocket and Baby Groot and set Nebula free to seek revenge on her sister.

Whilst the first one had an epic story with high stakes but was a little lacking when it came to character arcs. Here, it’s a very different story, as there a number of character arcs that form the backbone of the narrative. The first off is Peter getting to know his father, and for the first time in ages I can say that Marvel has done the villain very well. The show don’t tell rule is played perfectly here, we see Ego and Star Lord’s mother in love, we see the bond grow between Ego and Star Lord themselves and his motivations feel organic to the core of his being. Rather than the sh*t about darkness from Malekith.

Secondly, we have the relationship between Gamora and Nebula. Both daughters of Thanos but whilst Gamora was always the champion of the two, Nebula suffered the most at Thanos’ hands. There is plenty to get out of this relationship and how they feel about each other. Nebula’s motivations for hating Gamora are solid ones but then so is Gamora’s response to them, it was never about her, it was about survival. Seeing the two bond over the course of the movie and leading both into war against Thanos was satisfying and natural for their characters. Neither of them are fans of Thanos and that’ll be interesting going into Infinity War

Thirdly we have the banter between Rocket and Yondu. This is not a pairing I expected to work half as well as it did. But it provided a lot of laughs especially with Baby Groot coming along for the ride. I actually got a few laughs about how ridiculous the name Taserface is and Rocket’s reaction to it, and even when the Sovereign repeated the joke. The immediate similarities between Rocket and Yondu help allow us to further understand their characters. And with Yondu this was much needed as I felt he lacked a lot in the first one. They really pulled it off making his ultimate sacrifice at the end of the episode feel deserved and actually quite tragic.

On a more minor note, whilst Mantis did bond with some of the other cast, her main interactions are with Drax. They’re both survivors of their own worlds, but have a very different outlook, with Mantis being more the optimistic and open of the two. That said, I think they may have given Drax a few too many silly moments, or not enough serious ones to counter-balance it properly.

Beyond that you may notice another slight problem with this. They intentionally split everyone up into their own subplot but as a result we don’t see a lot of team building, just people shaking off a lot of external baggage in order to help them become a team, which we kinda saw in the first one too, although I will say it’s done better here.

The visuals are stunning, arguably even more so than the previous one. There is a little less scope with fewer planets than the last movie but that allowed more of the budget to be spent on the making the visuals even more beautiful than last time, Planet Ego looks fantastic. Oh, and they hired Stallone for a role, not even sure why, Marvel has enough brand push these days not to need big names like him.

Overall, it’s a very good movie, with a larger focus on character than its predecessor but there is a trade-off that we don’t see much of the Guardians as a singular unit. The humour is great throughout and there is enough drama to keep in interesting. Also, Ego is definitely one of Marvel's better villains, shame he's a one-and-done.

Rating 90/100