Review: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

Rating

Director

James Gunn

Screenplay

James Gunn

Length

136 min.

Starring

Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Sean Gunn

MPAA Rating

G-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language, and brief suggestive content

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Soundtrack

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Review

When taking a film franchise in a new, unexpected direction, success is a challenge. Finding a way to engage the same excitement and expectations for a sequel is downright daunting. For Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, director James Gunn has managed to succeed where many others have failed.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has grown dramatically since it was first announced that Marvel Comics, through its partnership with Disney, would create a series of movies featuring four of its major characters in a lead-up to a team movie called The Avengers. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) kicked things off in 2008 with Iron Man and the world of comic book adventures on the big screen hasn’t been the same since.

As the original avengers, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger have been fighting together and against each other for almost a decade now, the series has become a bit long in the tooth. Each attempt to inject the MCU with vim and vigor has met with equal parts excitement and disappointment. The cast of The Avengers has grown tremendously, but it wasn’t until a ragtag team of intergalactic adventurers arrived on the scene in 2014 that the franchise got the shot in the arm it desperately needed.

Based on a long-running series of comics called Guardians of the Galaxy, modern members of the Guardians were introduced to the cinematic world thanks to able performances by Chris Pratt as the half-human, half-alien Casanova Star Lord; Zoe Saldana as fierce green-skinned fighter Gamora; Dave Bautista as the brutally honest Drax; Vin Diesel as the voice of tree-man Groot; and Bradley Cooper as the violent, practical joking raccoon Rocket. Two others who acted as foils in the original film, Karen Gillan as Gamora’s blue-skinned sister Nebula and Michael Rooker as the also-blue Yondu and his whistle-controlled death dart, have joined this latest film’s cast as have a Pom Klementieff as the empath Mantis and Kurt Russell as Star Lord Peter Quill’s biological father Ego.

While the original film was a fun-infused, 80s nostalgic space opera, Vol. 2 takes the operatic elements in a new direction, developing numerous inter-character relationships that were underdeveloped in the 2014 original. That first movie was also an attempt to introduce one of the Infinity Stones that will be a major part of the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War storyline, thus less detail was put into these characters with whom audiences fell in love.

The cast returns to form admirably, renewing the viewer’s interests in the character while bringing many of the loose story elements together in a satisfying, emotion-heavy finale that additionally redefines how MCU films are handled. With the exception of Iron Man 3, and segments of Captain America: Civil War, most of the franchise has devoted its time to introducing characters and putting them in predominantly heroic situations while ignoring some of the weightier emotional aspects and fleeting fame of being a superhero. This is one of the reasons why Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 works so well.

Those who admire or even love the original film will find their interests improved and grounded in this latest film, which is to the success of James Gunn’s adept screenwriting. There are three major familial storylines that intersect here and while developing them in separate films might have lifted some of the heaviness of the theme off of the film, they don’t feel so brazenly tacked on so as to feel inconsequential.

All of the great artistic and visual pizzazz of Guardians of the Galaxy has been improved upon. This is a space opera akin to Star Wars. Both films build massive worlds to surround their heroic characters, giving them every opportunity to grow and expand as well as to reveal the truths behind each member of the team. While incredibly similar, Guardians doesn’t take itself too seriously. Poking fun at itself just as frequently as it does its characters, the new film is a genuinely fun romp through the galaxy with improved visual flair and style.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 showcases how the increasingly leaden Avengers-associated films need to explore new territory and gives us something fresh and different. As similar as this version is to its predecessor, the film still feels vivid and crisp, something that cannot be said for most of what has come out of the MCU recently.