Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 movie review (2017)

In keeping with the simplicity of its title, “Vol. 2” picks up relatively shortly after the end of the first film. Groot is still a baby, and the other four members of the Guardians are on a job for the Sovereign race, led by a golden woman named Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki). Peter Quill aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot have to defend a valuable group of batteries from a monster called the Abilisk. They do so in exchange for a prisoner being held by the Sovereigns, Gamora’s evil sister Nebula (Karen Gillan). The mission goes off without a hitch, but Rocket steals the batteries on the way out, leading a whole race of people to come after the Guardians.

To seek vengeance, Ayesha ends up hiring someone who knows the Guardians well, Yondu (Michael Rooker), the blue-skinned Ravager who raised Peter, but there’s dissent among the Ravagers. For reasons that will become clear later, Yondu has essentially been exiled from his own people and his crew are starting to consider mutiny, especially when he’s reluctant to track Quill. At the same time, Quill finally meets his father, a Celestial named Ego, played with smooth style by Kurt Russell. In ways I won’t spoil, Star-Lord is eventually torn between his biological family and his makeshift one with the Guardians.

Of course, like Dom Toretto on a confessional bender, family comes up over and over again in “Vol. 2.” It’s most prominent in the arc between Star-Lord and Ego, but the competitive sibling dynamic between Gamora and Nebula is explored in this volume, and the adoptive father relationship between Yondu and Peter plays a major role as well. And, of course, as with so many superhero group films, it’s the Guardians themselves who are the ultimate “family.” As a writer, Gunn beats this drum a few too many times, but he mostly handles the issue of family being more than pure biology in a way that provides these films with an emotional spine other superhero flicks lack.

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