After taking itself rather too seriously Doctor Strange audiences were ready for some good old fashioned fun and in the MCU FUN is spelled Guardians of the Galaxy.
This time the Guardians manage to upset a race of gold skinned people who call themselves the Sovereigns. They probably would have been taken out by the Sovereigns remote controlled navy, except for the intervention of a highly powered individual. He referred to himself as a Celestial and his name was Ego (that there is a clue), he also claimed to be Peter’s long lost father. While Peter comes to terms with this information and learns to deal with his godlike father, the other members of the crew concern themselves with other things.
Drax inexplicably seems to fall for Ego’s servant, an antennaed empath called Mantis. Gamora denies her depth of feeling for Peter and he tries to do the same with her. Meanwhile Rocket and the baby Groot hang out trying to fix the broken ship and ensure that Gamora’s sister Nebula doesn’t kill everyone.
Yondu gets involved when the Sovereigns hire him to kill the Guardians and return their property that Rocket stole, because he’s Rocket.
Ultimately everyone learns about themselves and not everyone gets out alive, although all the important people do.
It is a fun romp, which is what everyone expects from a Guardians film. It has absolutely no connection to the rest of the MCU films, no destiny stones and no appearances from other heroes or villains.
At times it’s a little too much fun and not enough story, but the cast are good enough to keep it on track and some of them provide the more serious moments that every film requires.
The cast from the first film all came back to reprise their roles, including Michael Rooker as Yondu and his performance is the standout, he makes the change in a formerly irredeemable character make total sense and it also explains a lot about Peter’s past. As with the first film, the Vin Diesel voiced Groot stole the show, he’s unbelievably cute as a toddler tree, and often reminded me of my own toddler nephew with his behaviour.
Newcomers for this film were Pom Klementieff as Mantis. The French actress provides the right sort of childlike wonder required of a sheltered creature like Mantis. Kurt Russell as Ego was great casting and an excellent performance, no one ever gets anything, but the best from Russell. Australian actress Elizabeth Debiecki is unrecognisable under the make up as the Sovereign’s high priestess, but she has the appearance and manner to carry off the role believably. Her height, sometimes a disadvantage when she towers over leading men, works for this role. The other role with substance is Sean Gunn (the director’s brother) as Yondu’s minion and he does a good job with it, playing it with suitable whackiness.
The cameos abound and clearly Hollywood want to get in on the Marvel phenomenon. Sylvester Stallone, Ving Rhames and Michelle Yeoh all appear briefly as members of the Ravagers the group of space pirates of which Yondu is one. Miley Cyrus also briefly voices a computer. David Hasselhoff appears as himself for a very small role. Stan Lee’s cameo was a bit larger and he effective plays himself, boring the Watchers (godlike cosmic beings who observe) on an unnamed and desolate satellite.
James Gunn showed that he really understood what the Guardians were about in his first run as director and he deserved a second go.
In many ways the second film was even more fun that the first one, but it needed to find more of a balance and maybe go for a few less laughs. It answered plenty of questions about Peter’s background, but did leave one large one out there, which was What do they have to do with the Avengers and how is it going to fit in with the larger story out there?
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