Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 Review
Star-Lord, Gamora, and the gang are back, but can director James Gunn recapture the magic in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2?
When we catch up with the Guardians at the beginning of the film, they’re as cantankerous as usual but have got their groove down: hired by an artificially created race called the Sovereign khổng lồ get rid of some pesky extra-dimensional monsters, they work as well together as the Avengers but with sillier (I mean that in a nice way) one-liners. Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) barely holds it together as team leader, while an exasperated Gamora (Zoe Saldana) tries to keep the boys in line. Drax (Dave Bautista) & Rocket (voiced again by Bradley Cooper) march to lớn their own drums in battle while Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) successfully walks the thin line between overly cutesy và hilariously naïve.
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The Sovereign, led by their high priestess Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), have captured Guardians nemesis (and Gamora’s adopted sister) Nebula (Karen Gillan), and the Guardians are interested in taking her back with them as payment for the job. But of course the team can’t vì chưng anything without getting in trouble, và they soon find themselves pursued by an entire space armada (amusingly controlled from what looks lượt thích a massive game arcade on the Sovereign planet).
Things look grim until a new figure injects himself into the situation: Ego (Kurt Russell), who saves the Guardians & makes a shocking revelation — he is Peter’s long-lost father, who impregnated Peter’s mother back on Earth & later sent Yondu (Michael Rooker) và his Ravagers to lớn retrieve his son. But Yondu adopted Peter as a potential Ravager along the way, and Ego has been searching for his progeny ever since.
Meanwhile, Yondu is also searching for Peter at the behest of Ayesha but finds himself dealing with his own personal crises as well. What happens after that is best left for viewers lớn discover themselves, but several conflicts are set up that revolve around the central idea of family. Alliances shift và more is revealed until the expected big finish, which is capped by a genuinely moving conclusion.
With the exception of one laugh-out-loud jailbreak, the middle section of the movie is where it runs into trouble. Gunn dishes out a lot of exposition here, but he’s lucky enough that he’s got Russell to lớn deliver it. With a twinkle in his eye & an enigmatic yet regal chất lượng to his manner, the veteran actor is eminently watchable even if other characters are basically standing around during Ego & Peter’s scenes together. Also helping things along is Pom Klementieff as the empathetic Mantis, Ego’s servant who brings a sweet-natured innocence khổng lồ the proceedings.
Gunn eventually makes sure to lớn not leave anyone behind; although she doesn’t get much to vì chưng for the first two-thirds of the movie, Nebula has a searing, powerful speech which Gillan — who’s excellent — delivers with a piercing undercurrent of hurt and anguish. Saldana almost matches her, giving Gamora a vulnerability we didn’t quite see in the first film. Another utility player, Rooker’s Yondu, is shown lớn have more depth và emotional complexity than the first film let on as well; his storyline may be the most poignant of all, & the vastly underrated Rooker — one of our best character actors — gives it everything he’s got.
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The film’s final third turns into a somewhat more predictable onslaught of CG và pyrotechnics, but at least Gunn is smart và talented enough lớn mostly keep the focus on his characters và integrate their own personal stories into the raging battles và explosions. Without his eye for that, as well as his skill at filling the screen with all kinds of interesting visuals and his unerring instincts with musical cues, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 could have easily gone too big for its own good or simply rehashed the tricks of the first film without adding anything to them.
Instead, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 answers questions posed by the first movie by exploring its cast of colorful miscreants in a way that almost makes it an anti-blockbuster. The strange pacing and stop-and-start plotting may feel awkward compared to the headlong rush of the previous film, but spending a little over two hours with these folks is still a hell of a lot of fun. It will be intriguing khổng lồ see how the Guardians emerge from the coming apocalypse of Avengers: Infinity War, và even more fascinating to see what lies ahead for them in their own third adventure. If the biggest challenge facing Gunn, his cast & Marvel is keeping us interested in this weird little gang, they’ve met it handily.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is out in theaters May 5.
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Rating:
4 out of 5
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Don Kaye is an entertainment journalist by trade and geek by natural design. Born in thành phố new york City, currently ensconced in Los Angeles, his earliest childhood memory is…
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