Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - Aggressively Groot

David Leaman-Miller
May 30, 2017
2 min read

There is a lot to enjoy about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The movie gets off on the right foot with an opening credit sequence that features Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) running around dancing while the rest of the crew does battle with a giant beast in the background. It's a confident opening to the film that not only shows off visual wizardry that we have come to expect from Marvel, but also sets the tone that in this movie comedy will come first, and the story and the action will quite literally be in the background. Unfortunately, that promise isn't kept.

After a hugely entertaining opening quarter of the film that features plenty of bickering, jokes, and a strange new alien specie, the film's momentum pretty abruptly stops. A strange man claiming to be Peter Quill's (Chris Pratt) dad shows up and takes Peter, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and Drax (Dave Bautista) with him to his planet. Rocket and Baby Groot are left behind and with them, much of the fun.

To make matters worse, the film starts spending time with Yondu (leader of a Ravager crew played by Michael Rooker), the other Ravagers, and a whole new alien specie who are chasing the Guardians because Rocket stole one of their batteries. Too little time is left for Peter Quill, and when we do see him he is just walking around with his new dad and giving us very few of the Chris Pratt charm moments that we all paid to see. I admire that Marvel was trying to offer up a heartfelt character driven story, but it didn't do it very well and the middle chunk of this film really drags. One of the major story problems is that Peter and the rest of the Guardians don't have any goal for most of the film. They travel with Peter's dad to his planet, but nothing is driving them beyond that, and so they, like the audience, kind of sit around waiting for something to happen.

To break of the monotony, the film cuts back to Rocket, Baby Groot, and the Ravagers. These parts of the film are a nice change of pace, but they are also disturbingly violent. This is a movie with a high body count that places brutal violence amidst much lighter material, making me wonder if the filmmakers want us to laugh at the gruesome deaths we see.

In the film's third act, things pick up. There are some creative action set-pieces and a lot of good jokes. It was also refreshing to see a superhero movie where the threat feels much more personal than the nameless alien invaders like we see in so many.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a fun movie to watch, but its not as sharp as the characters its created or the original film.