By GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2
The Guardians of the Galaxy are back, with new members and a new soundtrack!
Synopsis
The Guardians struggle to keep together as a team while dealing with their personal family issues, notably Star-Lord’s encounter with his father the ambitious celestial being Ego.
Review
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 released in 2017 once again written and directed by James Gunn. The film follows the continued adventures of the Guardians of the Galaxy with all the previous characters in the group coming back to reprise their roles, along with the Ravagers. This time though they are joined by a couple new members of the cast such as Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Chris Sullivan as Taserface, and Kurt Russell as Ego. The film still keeps itself separate from the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, telling its own story in the deep reaches of space.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 takes place shortly after the events of Guardians of the Galaxy. They take a job from a group of people known as the Sovereign that see themselves as perfect beings. After the job is, complete the Sovereign pay the Guardians of the Galaxy by giving them Nebula who they captured previously. After the group leaves the Sovereign find that, some of their precious batteries were stolen by Rocket Raccoon, and attack the Guardians. They find themselves unable to fight back, but a mysterious ship destroys the sovereign army attacking them and they crash land on a planet due to the damage their ship sustained during the attack. On the planet, the person that saved them reveals himself to be Peter Quills father Ego, who has been looking for him since Yondu took him from Earth. The team split up with Rocket and Groot staying behind on the ship to watch over the prisoner Nebula, and everyone else going with Ego back to his planet. Meanwhile Yondu is approached by the Sovereign to capture the Guardians of the Galaxy and to bring them back to the Sovereign for judgement.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 has the brightness set to max, as this is easily the most colorful Marvel Cinematic Universe film to date. The bright colors and usage of different lights creates a world of happiness and perfection in an otherwise film with a dark tone. It is a refreshing change from the normal almost colorless Marvel films. The best thing about Guardians of the Galaxy also follows into this sequel, the characters are fantastic to watch and see interact with each other and their environment. The only problem is their personalities have become flanderizations of themselves in the last movie. Peter Quills masculinity complex is brought up to 100% while Rocket is now more of a jerk than he was in the first film. Every single character seems to have been written into a corner, and while they end up benefitting from this such as Drax getting some development as a much deeper character, for the most part the characters suffer a bit. The film addresses this when it comes to Rocket, and it leads to some good screen time between him and Yondu as a result, but the rest of the characters it is not explained why they fell so far into these personality traits, which used to be one of many aspects of their character in the first film. Even though it is present in most of the movie, Peter Quills masculinity complex sometimes completely disappears, though this could be so his character could be focused on more because of meeting his Dad for the first time.
Which brings us to the villain, typically the weakest link in Marvel films. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 the villain is Ego, and he is a pretty good villain. As Peters father, he first comes off as a person with many secrets, as he is a god capable of living forever. As such though he has been bored with life and vowed to create his own perfect world by taking over everything in the galaxy with his light, in order to do this though he needed someone else who could help him. This is when his personality turns dark and the secrets of Ego come out in full effect, making him one of the most interesting villains in terms of what he has done to reach his goal. Most villains will make sacrifices, or do something that can be seen as selfish to obtain what they desire, but Ego went a step further and what he did is nonredeemable. Even to the point that when the thieving, killing, and overall renegade group of people known as the Ravagers refused to help him with his dirty work even though it paid well. Yondu who helped Ego for some time was even kicked out of the Ravagers when he decided to keep Peter Quill as a fellow Ravager instead of giving him to Ego. Which dealing with kids was one of the only codes the Ravagers required every group to rely on.
Closing Thoughts
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 follows up the story from the first film exactly how it is expected. The film has a better story and a better villain than the first, but character development ends up taking a step back. With the sudden flanderization of the team, the only character to really survive this sudden change is Yondu who gets a lot of good development as a result. The sudden change in Rocket can also be excused as he gets some development to explain it, but no one else really has an explanation to his or her drastically changed personalities in this film. This does not ruin the film, but it does leave a slight scar on it when watching it again, especially nearly back to back with the original. Like the first film I suggest watching this film again, but it doesn’t have any real bearing on the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole so for those doing a necessities only marathon, this movie can be left alone.
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