Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is here and we finally got our chance to experience it today. With all the hype and the early favorable reviews, we were worried that our expectations were too high, however, within the first five minutes we learned that these worries unfounded because Vol. 2 does not disappoint. As with the first movie, the sequel is filled with eye-candy imagery everywhere, great sound design, and humor peppered throughout. I can say that the research James Gunn did to avoid the pitfalls that plague most sequels paid off. Vol. 2 gives us a well thought out plot with lots of fun along the way.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, there will be major spoilers below so please go see it and come back to read our notes later.
The movie starts with our heroes completing a job for a gold-skinned race called the Sovereign. They have been hired to protect the Sovereigns’ valuable batteries from a large creature that is heading their way. It is a great opening scene that focuses on a dancing Baby Groot who is oblivious to the battle going on around him. Of course the Guardians prevail, and their reward is a prisoner who turns out to be Nebula. Their success is short-lived though because Rocket sneaks a few of the batteries in his pocket, which causes the Sovereign to launch a full scale attack on them as they leave the planet. By the way, the Sovereign have the coolest drone program ever invented where the operators hear classic video game sound effects as they fire their weapons. The Guardians narrowly escape with the help of a soon to be known tiny man, but they crash land on a planet after their ship takes heavy damage. The tiny man soon arrives on the planet and we learn that, apart from not being tiny, he is actually Ego, who is Peter’s dad. Peter, Gamora, and Drax agree to go with Ego to his planet so that he and Peter can get to know each other.
The Sovereign have not given up their search for the stolen batteries though. They locate Yondu and hire him to locate the Guardians. He locates the crashed ship in short order and after Rocket single-handedly takes out most of his men, it seems that his mission is accomplished. However, Yondu is overtaken by a mutiny (lead by Taser Face) with a little help from Nebula shooting off the piece in his head that controls his arrow. Yondu and Rocket are imprisoned together and eventually find an opportunity to enlist Baby Groot to find a replacement control unit for Yondu’s arrow that is hidden on the ship. Groot eventually finds it after several wrong attempts, including bringing them a severed big toe. Yondu then takes out the entire crew in spectacular fashion with his arrow leaving a neon red trail wherever it goes. He blows up most of his ship save one conveniently detachable smaller ship, which they escape in. Before the ship is destroyed though, Taser Face sells him out to the Sovereign.
Meanwhile, on Ego’s planet, Ego has been showing Peter how to use his powers as a celestial being. He tries to convince Peter that he needs his help to expand his realm beyond his own planet so that he is a part of all planets. Peter is sympathetic at first, but eventually changes his mind when he learns his friends will die as part of it. More importantly, Ego smashes his Walkman so… you know, its go time. To stop Ego, they must get to the core of the planet where his brain resides and destroy it. As they approach the core, the Sovereign show up to complicate things (damn that Taser Face!). This results in an all out battle in the planet’s core, which includes an epic battle between Peter and Ego where Peter transforms into a giant Pac-Man. The Guardians eventually prevail thanks to Baby Groot setting a bomb on Ego’s brain. Everyone survives except for Yondu who saves Peter at the last moment and confesses that he always felt Peter was his real son. Yondu gets the Ravager funeral he always wanted, and Peter gets a replacement for his Walkman, a Zune. When it was all said and done, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 lived up to the hype and left us looking forward to Vol. 3 (and their appearance in The Avengers: Infinity Wars!).
Here are a few other notes and things we learned along the way:
- Drax has very sensitive nipples and the size of his turds are legendary.
- Nebula only wanted to kill Gamora because she could never best her a child.
- Yondu was kicked out of the official Ravager group because he broke the code by delivering children to Ego.
- Drax likes a woman with meat on her bones.
- Ayesha of the Sovereign has created a new being called Adam.
- Groot becomes a moody teenager.
We plan on adding additional reviews from other members of our group so stay tuned for more!
