Talkie Tuesday: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

"So, we're saving the galaxy again?"

Hello everyone!

I debated which movie to review tonight as yesterday evening I bawled my eyes out over Armageddon for the upteenth time, but then eventually decided I might as well go back to the movies still waiting to be posted up here which I watched at the seaside while I was chilling out. 

Yes, I STILL have some that haven't made it to this place.

I know, I'm terrible.

In my defense though, there's always something interesting to watch and I occasionally review something a bit more current, for lack of better words. However, that being said, I was also in a discussion about superheroes last night which means I remembered this blog post's topic, and voila.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, is probably one of those movies you just love sitting down to and laughing about whenever you get the chance.

So let's review it, shall we?

After the events of the first movie in which our unlikely team of misfits somehow manage to become heroes AND survive (well, mostly ... here's looking at you, Groot), which is a bit of a spectacular feat all things considered, they are, by year 2014, widely acknowledged as the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The leader of the Sovereign race (who are basically incredibly creepy humanoid things that do most things from the safety of a long distance, genetical manipulation and a technical interface) asks the Guardians to protect valuable batteries from some sort of monster. Why would they want this particular task, you ask? Well, if they succeed, they'll get Nebula, Gamora's estranged sister, who got caught trying to steal said batteries.

While viewers laugh at a montage of Baby Groot listening to music as his team whoops ass behind him, the Guardians do in fact manage to protect the batteries - only for Rocket to steal some teeny tiny ones.

This kind of pissess off the Sovereigns and they launch attack pods after our team, but if that's not enough, Quill and Rocket keep on arguing about the best way to pilot away, which leads them through an asteroid field and to a crash landing on an unknown planet.

Meanwhile, another unidentified spacecraft pops up, destroys the Sovereign pods (where we definitely see how it's like a video game for these things, sitting safely behind their screens at home), and opens up to reveal one Ego.

Ego (played by Kurt Russel in this movie) introduces himself as Quill's biological father, who'd been searching for his boy for a long time. See, Ravager Yondu (the weird blue face that looks so much like a Kree warrior) was supposed to bring Quill to Ego, but he never did. Now though, father and son are finally together again! Yay!

Er, sort of.

Ego takes Quill, Gamora and Drax over to his home, leaving Rocket and Groot to repair the ship and watch over Nebula. Unfortunately, happy ending is a long way away: the Sovereigns have hired none other than Yondu to recapture the Guardians, and he comes to grab Rocket and Groot. He's got enough problems of his own in any event, since the Ravagers (how did Stallone end up with a role in this movie? I've no clue) kicked him out of their community for child trafficking, and now he's hesitant about handing Quill over to the Sovereign nation. Why?

Well, he raised the boy, that's why.

Taserface (seriously, the names y'all) and Nebula lead an uprising against Yondu, but with the help of Groot and Kraglin (the only Yondu loyalist left) they all manage to escape and hightail it to Quill and the rest.

Meanwhile, Quill is being taught to manipulate celestial matter by Ego, who explains that the entire planet is actually said matter, forming a physical shape by his own power, and that he planted seedlings of the thing across the universe, planning to one day control it all. To do so, however, he would need another Celestial to help him control the power, and he impregnated women all over the galaxies, but no child ever had that power until Quill (where are the others? Well, funny thing, Gamora kind of stumbles over skeletal remains with Nebula after the sisters come to an uneasy truce).

Quill is kind of okay with this (especially as he'll be immortal as long as the Ego home planet survives), activating the matter so that it starts consuming the universe, but then Ego makes the mistake of telling his son HE was the one who killed Quill's mother - she was a distraction, so he made sure she got the tumor that would eventually put her under.

Hello, pissed-off mama's boy.

Just as Gamora finds Drax and they all plan to somehow grab Quill and leave, all hell breaks loose with the arrival of Yondu and Rocket, but also the Sovereign's pods (again) because Taserface managed to warn them before he did everyone a favour and tasered out.

The Guardians now have to work together to escape, so Quill battles Ego to distract him while everyone else goes to find Ego's brain; Rocket builds a bomb from those snazzy batteries he stole at the beginning and has Groot, being the smallest, take it down to the core (here we have some additional hilarious material of Baby Groot being taught which button to push and which definitely NOT to push; also, how come no one has tape?).

The bomb successfully detonates and the Guardians manage to escape, but Yondu goes back for Quill to get him out. Unfortunately, there's only one space-suit, and Yondu sacrifices himself for the other man, telling him he's proud to have raised him. Why DID he raise him? Because he wanted to spare Quill the end result that all other of Ego's children (which he'd previously successfully delivered) unfortunately played a part in, thus saving his life.

Quill, devastated because he realizes too late just who his dad was (the person who raised him, not conceived him), sends a message to the Ravagers as the Guardians prepare to send Yondu on his last voyage. 

NOW.

Mid and post-credit scenes!

We see Kraglin take Yondu's control-fin and Ravager arrow and start to learn how to use them - with various success (aka he has a long way to go before he becomes the Green Arrow here), we see the Ravager leader band up with his old team-mates again, and we see the Sovereign leader come up with a different, artificial being to take down the Guardians, calling him 'Adam'.

There's also this one guy explaining about his experiences on Earth but his audience leaves him.

And then we have Teenage Groot, giving Quill (and the others) grey hair, like every other teenager in existence.

The end!

With a third movie already in the works and set for a 2020 release, as well as a mash-up of Avengers and Guardians that's on the schedule, Marvel just keeps on pushing out the best of the best. Did I enjoy this movie? I did, though not perhaps as much as the first. Some things just didn't mesh so well for me in this one, but that being said it WAS hilarious and it brought some really interesting themes to the fore-front that you wouldn't normally expect in a comic adaptation. And since Nebula is now off to kill Thanos, there's bound to be more trouble on the horizon.

So why not put in some old school music and just enjoy the ride until then?

xx

*images and video not mine