By: Justin Pomerville
I just got out of seeing "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and I have things to tell you. I overall enjoyed the film, but I did have some small issues. Nothing that really ruined the film, but just felt off or out of place.
But before I get into it, I need to put up the big "SPOILER ALERT". I'm not going to go in depth about a lot of stuff, but I will be relieving some surprises that are in this film.
My favorite thing about this film was that is had a lot of depth when it came to character development. The majority of this cast goes through so much to come to startling revelations about their feelings towards each other, but also really does well with developing the new cast members.
Nebula gets captured by a race of beings called The Sovereign, led by their Queen Ayesha, and is handed over to the Guardians after they killed a inter-dimensional monster that has been terrorizing their power supply. After dealing with the monster and taking Nebula, Rocket decides to steal from Ayesha, thus leading to a space battle that causes the Guardians to crash land on a nearby planet.
And on this planet is where they meet Ego (played by Kurt Russel) and Mantis (played by Pom Klementieff). This is when we learn that Ego is Peter Quill's father and they are taken to Ego's planet to learn about who he is. We find out that Ego is a Celestial and is actually a living planet himself that made a human version of himself to go visit other planets.
While this is going on, Yondu has lost control of his crew and is over taken by fellow Ravager named Taserface. This causes him to realize just how horrible he has been and you get to learn the real reason he kept Peter all these years instead of bringing him to Ego, who hired him to fetch him.
Although there are two main villains through out this film (Ravagers and the Sovereign), you learn that the real threat is Ego. He was off from planet to planet, putting pieces of his essence into their surfaces, in hopes that one day, he will destroy and rebuild a better universe that fits his needs.
The overall film is really good. We see Nebula and Gamora work out their emotions towards each other, Rocket and Yondu start a friendship, and Drax seems to be on the verge of possibly finding a new love interest in the form of Mantis.
This movie is much more character development then action, which I enjoyed a lot. Not to say there wasn't action, but it focused more on getting to know them and see how they some times struggle as a team, especially Rocket and Peter.
I do have a couple of complaints though:
1) The comedy. Yes, this is suppose to be a comedic action film, but that also was it's downfall. This movie had some great moments, but it felt like it couldn't go 5 minutes without making a joke. I felt it sort of hindered some really great ground work this film was making.
2) Baby Groot. Go ahead you guys, send me the hate mail. It was funny in spots, but I felt it as just a fuel for many "hilarious" scenes. Don't get me wrong, I was excited when he first showed up the trailers, but there were moments that they used him and it felt so dragged on. Yeah, I said it.
But overall, this movie still really good and I felt it opened a couple of doors for Guardians 3 as well as a reason they end up on Earth for "Avengers Infinity War". And by the way, only two of the five post credit scenes were actually important to the future of Marvel films:
1) Introduction of Adam Warlock. When The Sovereigns' forces fail to stop the Guardians, Ayesha shows us a pod with a "special" project that is being made specifically to destroy and she calls it "Adam". Obviously, he is coming, but probably not until Guardians 3 or if they somehow get him into "Avengers Infinity War".
2) The original Guardians of the Galaxy are introduced. Sylvester Stallone plays Stakar, leader of the Ravagers, who exiles Yondu from the other officers if the group. Stakar in the comic is better known was Starhawk, who is one of the original members of the Guardians. The end of the movie, Yondu dies saving Peter from Ego, and all the Ravager factions come to give him a Ravager burial, this causes Stakar to reunite with members of the other factions who are in fact, the other members of the old Guardians. They look to be Charlie-27, Aleta Ogord or Moondragon (it's one of them), Martinex, Krugarr, and Mainframe. They will more than likely be playing a bigger role somewhere down the line in the MCU.
Overal, I give this movie a B+