Talking raccoon with an attitude problem? Check. Talking baby tree with a vocabulary of three words? Check. Dashing human hero with daddy issues and a penchant for retro music? Check. Green-skinned female warrior who is also the most dangerous woman in the galaxy? Check. Grey-skinned muscle-bound warrior who takes things way too literally? Check.
Put your spaceship seatbelts on again folks, and welcome to the Guardians of the freaking Galaxy.
Marvel Studios’ slate of superheroes movies have always been fun, but none more so than 2014’s Guardians Of The Galaxy. The movie took the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) off-planet and into space, where we were treated to a wild ride of colourful aliens, talking raccoons and trees, and, er, 1970s pop music.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (GOTG2) continues pretty much in that vein, and though the novelty factor is gone, there is still whole lot of fun and laughs to be had with this one, enough to get you hooked on a feeling once more.
Set four months after saving the galaxy with a dance-off in the first movie, GOTG Vol. 2 sees the team – Peter “Star-Lord” Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana) a.k.a. The Most Dangerous Woman In The Galaxy, Drax The Destroyer (Dave Bausista), Rocket “Not A” Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) who had to re-grow himself from a twig after the first movie, remember? – working as a team of mercenaries for hire.
I am Groot (Translation: Look how cute Baby Groot is).
During a job, they run afoul of The Sovereign, a race of golden-faced aliens, and have to make a run for it. Along the way, they crash-land and meet Ego (Kurt Russell), who claims to be Peter’s father, and the team splits up for a while so Peter can sort out his daddy issues while Rocket repairs their ship.
Meanwhile, Yondu (Michael Rooker) is hired by the Sovereign to bring the Guardians in, but he soon discovers that he has some problems of his own.
We dont care if the Avengers did it first, we make this team gets together for a cool pose thing look GOOD.
To be honest, GOTG2’s story isn’t really much to shout about. The whole thing just seems to sort of lurch from one situation to another, with things just happening without any real purpose to it until the Big Bad Plot is revealed and the team has to save the galaxy (again).
The addition of Yondu, Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) does add an interesting dynamic to proceedings, but other than that, the plot does seem a bit pointless at times.
Then again, the first movie’s story wasn’t that great either, and look how much fun we had with THAT. What GOTG2 lacks in terms of freshness and novelty factor, it makes up for with a movie that is arguably the funniest Marvel Studios have released so far.
The jokes come almost unrelentlessly – ranging from Baby Groot’s cute antics and rad retro references to Marvel in-jokes, and all the way down to toilet turd humour.
Seriously, it’s hard to pick at all the plotholes in the story when you’re too busy laughing to care. And have I mentioned how cute Baby Groot is?
The cameos
Oh, and there are a whole lot of cameos too – watch out for the compulsory Stan Lee one, some ravaging ones by Sylvester Stallone, Ving Rhames, our very own Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh, and a certain Zandu Hasselbrau, who will take you on a ride on his magic ship (don’t ask). And don’t forget to stay back for the three, yes THREE, post-credit scenes.
If you like your superheroes dark and moddy, go watch a DC movie. Marvel movies are all about the fun, and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 dials that up all the way to 11. And if you can’t handle that, then I only have one thing to say to you: I. AM. GROOT.
