Bigger and badder the second time around.

Rating: 8/10 (6 May 2017)

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 brings back the wonderful rag tag group we fell in love with in the first movie and builds on their first adventure in a film that is bigger and badder in a good way. GOTG 2 is real space opera, filled with alien worlds and creatures, some of them coming and going so fast the audience can hardly keep up, while giving us one great set piece action scene after another. At more than two hours, the pace might get winded at times, but the story never gets ponderous or self important; there is plenty of humor, great dialog from characters who clearly get a kick out of being who they are, these GUARDIANS are the complete opposite of the grim and gritty minimalism of LOGAN (not that there is anything wrong with the latter).
Peter Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and the baby Groot are all back in the thick of the action in the title sequence where they take down a giant space ugly on behalf of a haughty genetically enhanced race called The Sovereign, a golden hued people who appear as if they were created by Auric Goldfinger. The heroes have to flee for their lives when Rocket is caught stealing from their employers; they are saved at the last minute by Peter's long lost father, Ego, the Living Planet, played the always welcome Kurt Russell. Soon, Peter, Gamora and Drax are journeying to Ego's home world where Peter will get to know his father better, while the remaining three stay behind and soon find themselves at the mercy of Yondu and his Ravagers, who have be retained by The Sovereign to track the Guardians down.
If there is a theme to this second GUARDIANS movie, it is family, and what constitutes one. Peter yields to the call of blood, thinking he has found a father, not understanding that he already had one in the person of Yondu; Gamora and her sister, Nebula, are at each other's throats, having been raised to do so by Thanos; Drax's slain family is never far from his thoughts, and all of the Gurardians have become parents to the baby Groot. This is a common trope in the Marvel universe, where various empowered individuals come together a form a family unit, be it a real family like the Fantastic Four or mutant kind in the X-Men. It takes awhile, but in the end, the Guardians learn that they are all the family each of them need. In the end, Ego lives up to his name and Peter learns who is his true family, while Gamora and Nebula find a way to settle their differences as Drax takes an interest in Mantis, Ego's empathic pet of convenience.
Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana and Dave Baustista are back in fine form, so too is the great voice work of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel as Rocket and Groot. If anyone gets a real star turn, it is Michael Rooker's blue faced Yondu, a bad ass with a heart of gold. He nearly steals the film right out from under the rest of the cast. Pom Klementiff makes for a good addition as Mantis. I really wanted to see more of Sylvester Stallone as the head Ravager, and sadly, for us TANGO AND CASH fans, there is no on screen reunion with Kurt Russell, but Sly does have a scene with his old CLIFFHANGER buddy, Rooker.
There is some clunky exposition in the dialog and not all the humor and one-liners will be to everyone's liking. The villain's motivation may seem a little thin, but Marvel has always been notorious for their underdeveloped bad guys.
If I have any bone to pick with GUARDIANS 2, it is that there is no attempt to link up this piece of the MCU with any of the other ongoing Marvel series; though Thanos is mentioned, there is nary an appearance of Josh Brolin's uber villain from the first film, nor any sign of the Infinity Gems, all of which figure into the upcoming Avengers film where the Guardians are set to appear. But this is a minor quibble as this film goes a long way toward fleshing out the MCU with appearances by The Watchers, Charlie-27 (a cameo by Ving Rhames), Martinex, Aleta Ogord and the upcoming birth of Adam Warlock.
Where Tim Burton clearly loved style, and Zach Synder loved his big themes, GUARDIANS director, James Gunn, really loves his characters, and it comes through in a film filled with heart and soul, and a great soundtrack filled with 70's gold.