Lost that Loving Feeling

I am saddened to say that I’m no longer Hooked on the Feeling that is the Guardians of the Galaxy hype train. The new movie is entertaining and helps to further flesh out the character Peter Quill aka Star Lord but fails to deliver on much else.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 had to have been the most anticipated sequel in recent memory, after the huge success that was Vol. 1. The whole gang is back Star Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, Groot, as well as some returning antagonists turned “good” Nebula and Yondu. A couple brand new faces join the insanity in questionable roles as Ego the Living Planet and his caretaker the ever-doubtful Mantis. The film also added two new villains: the laughable new Captain of the Ravengers- Taserface, and the leader of the nearly perfect gold skinned alien race The Sovereign- Ayesha.

The movie opens on The Guardians protecting these cosmic batteries for the gold alien Sovereign. They have to fight a giant pink tentacle monster with a thousand or so teeth. All during the fight the focus is on a dancing baby Groot. An interesting concept to have the main action in the background and to focus on such a weird character but it worked. The Guardians are successful and they go back to the Sovereign to get paid, except Rocket has stolen some of the batteries and once they leave the Sovereign realizes it. Chasing after the Guardians in their ship The Milano and blowing it to hell, until a weird space ship helps them out and lands with them on a dense tree planet.

Then the main story for this film starts as they were saved by Peter’s father Ego the Living Planet played by Kurt Russel. Ego takes Peter, Drax, and Gamora to his home planet and they meet his caretaker Mantis. For some reason, most likely comic relief, the group leaves Rocket and Groot to look after an imprisoned Nebula and repair the damaged Milano ship. Sidenote: The repair ship gun thing he uses is amazing! I wish I could find a picture of it on the web.

Rocket and Groot are ambushed by Yondu and the Ravengers, he claims he is going to find Quill for double crossing him, and NOT kill him. This leads to a revolt among the men and half side with the Captain and the other half call for new leadership. Yondu’s magic-whistle arrow is about to take everyone out when a freed Nebula blasts Yondu in the weird head fin he has, knocking him out and making him lose control of the arrow. Rocket and Groot are also captured and taken to The Ravengers ship.

Back on Ego, Peter and his father go through the history of Ego himself, a celestial that started as a giant brain and pretty much just started to pull things into himself and created a whole planet. He then went on adventures to find more people, went from planet to planet and planted seeds of himself. Ego explains that Peter has this cosmic power inside of him, and with some practice he is able to conjure a ball of this cosmic energy and father and son play catch. So touching. I wish I had a father!

Gamora is very suspicious of Ego and Mantis is very skittish around her but she seems to take to Drax very well despite the fact that all Drax does is tell her how ugly and terrible she is. Eventually it is shown that Ego has created hundreds of children with different species and that he brings each one to his planet to try and share his power with them. FOR GALAXY CONQUEST! He believes that he alone can reshape this universe in his image, blah, blah.

Meanwhile Rocket and Yondu team up to escape the Ravengers and with the help of a new experimental head-fin they lay waste to all of Taserface’s men. Make it to planet Ego just in time for the show down between Peter and his father.

Given that Peter has god like powers he is able to fight Ego while his teammates are pretty much distractions. Also the Sovereign shows up and starts to attack but they are quickly dispatched. Then Groot goes down into a cavern and places an explosive on Egos brain. It explodes, good has won! Although Ego is dying and the crew have to escape, Yondu saves quill by putting a space breathing shield around him and flying him up to his ship. Dying in the process. It’s a touching moment since Yondu has been Peter’s only father figure since he picked him up in the first movie. Turned out that the father Peter wanted turned out to be the jerk and the jerk father that he had turned out to be the one he wanted.

This movie had a lot going for it, and going into it I had very high hopes. After looking back the movie the whole movie didn’t actually need to happen. If Peter never went with Ego there would have been no need to save the Galaxy. So the movie was kind of a dud in that regard. Still, great acting, amazing characters (Mantis aside), beautiful CGI and practical effects, the music is always top notch and hits you in the feels. The story just felt a little forced and ultimately unnecessary.

I give this movie a 7/10.

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Catch ya next song.

Rich the Bard