movie review: Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

How the heck did I manage to not find out Sylvester Stallone was in this movie?

Anyway ...

It says something about Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 that the opening fight scene is incredibly fun--and yet largely unseen by the audience.

Which has been done before, but in this case the focus is on a tiny little shrub that's just trying to get his groove on.



Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel, apparently after inhaling helium) is one of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a motley crew that, at the end of the last movie, decided to hang around together mostly because they didn't have anything else to do. Now they're working as a team, and they're also family--which means they fight and often don't like each other (that they'll admit), but stick around anyway.

They're busy making enemies of just about everyone when a guy shows up who calls himself Ego (Kurt Russell, and he's perfect). He announces he's the father of the Guardians' leader and only human, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt, who gets to show some beyond-the-wisecracking layers). Ego's also a god. ("Small 'g'.")

Poor Peter's pretty puzzled.

Things move quickly after that, as some of the team accompany Ego to Ego's planet, which apparently is Ego. It's entire population consists of Ego and an innocent alien named Mantis, an empath who Ego apparently keeps around just to help him sleep.

Meanwhile Groot and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper's voice, and a character that would also be cute if he wasn't busy killing people) stay behind to repair their damaged ship along with a wanted captive, Nebula (Karen Gillan, in an epic sibling rivalry with Zoe Saldana's Gamora). They manage to get into quite a bit of trouble of their own when an army or two of bounty hunters show up.

Along the way old enemies and friends arrive, including Yondu, played by Michael Rooker as a blue-skinned version of his Merle character from The Walking Dead (that's a compliment). We find out Stan Lee is a Watcher (from the comics, not from Buffy), and--hey, is that Sylvester Stallone playing the leader of the bad guy guild, which kicked Peter's adoptive daddy out of the group for trafficking in child slaves--including Peter?

Now that I think of it, it says something about the quality of the writing that I didn't have trouble keeping track of the zig-zagging story line, or of the Galaxy-spanning cast.



Part of the fun of Guardians, if you're any kind of a nerd, is keeping track of actor connections to other shows and movies. Yep, there's The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, Star Trek,  Jurassic World, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stargate, and even the DC Comics universe. Is that Castle's Molly Quinn in a cameo with the worst intergalactic date ever? I hope at least he paid the bill.

And Stan Lee, of course. I don't care what anyone says: Stan's cameos are awesome.

Among the other major stars Dave Bautista is still solid and hilarious as Drax, and Pom Klementieff--I suspect that's not her stage name--makes a great entrance as the winsome Mantis. Rocket and especially Groot tend to steal any scene they're in, which says something about the quality of digital effects, that a raccoon and a tree shoot give worthy performances. Oh, and stay for the during and post credit scenes ... all of them.

Okay, so it has a fun story, great cast, and amazing special effects ... but is it a good movie?

Well, yeah. And if you say otherwise, Rocket might come for you.





My score:
Entertainment value: 4 out of 4 M&M's. The good green ones.
Oscar Potential: 2 1/2 out of 4 M&M's. Just because movies like this don't get major Oscar nods.