Guardians of the Galaxy 2: the MCU on Steroids

A More Nerdy than Read-y Movie Review by Michael Isenberg

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 was the most fun movie I’ve seen in a long time. Possibly ever. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its faults. Like plot.

Indeed, big fun and small plot seem to be endemic to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In my review of last year's Captain America, for example, I wrote, “The challenge for the writers of Civil War is to put Cap and Tony at loggerheads without it being a downer for the audience. They succeed by making it fun.” But...“The plot is overcomplicated….Zemo’s plan is a house of cards.” If these are the hallmarks of the MCU, then Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is the MCU on steroids.

The fun part starts in the opening credits sequence. It’s an epic space battle in which the Guardians we know and love from Vol 1—Quill, Drax, Rocket, and Gamora—must push their combat skills to the limit. Except that it all goes on in the background. The foreground is Baby Groot, dancing. He’s adorable. He’s the Butters of the Guardians of the Galaxy galaxy. Just sort of in his own…galaxy.

But lest you think the fun depends entirely on cuteness, let me say that it's Drax, rather than Baby Groot, who steals the show. For me, Drax was the least interesting member of the team in the first movie. I remember him as kind of a stiff. Maybe my memory is faulty, but it seems to me that since then he’s had a personality makeover. His insults for the other guardians, often at inappropriate times, are hilarious. I loved when he called Rocket a "trash panda." And yet, he manages to serve up some wisdom with his insults. For example:

Drax: There are two types of beings in the universe: those who dance, and those who do not.
Quill: I get it, yes. I am a dancer, Gamora is not.
Drax: You need to find a woman who's pathetic, like you.

By the time the movie reaches the halfway point, I’ve been laughing my ass off for an hour. There’s a nice technology upgrade of the biplane scene in North by Northwest, and I like the newcomer Mantis whose humorous ineptness at social interaction includes telling people, Sheldon Cooper-like, that she’s inept at social interaction. And she’s a lot cuter than Sheldon.

But I’m starting to wonder, where’s the plot? Sure Gamora is having some sibling rivalry with her cyborg sister, and Rocket and Groot have to escape from some pirates. Quill has met his long-lost father, and there are some genuinely touching moments there. But so far there's nothing that resembles a main conflict.

There are hints that it’s coming, however, and that it will ultimately involve dear old dad, who might not be the good guy he seems. Granted, given that his name is Ego, that’s as much as a surprise as the moment in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, when the hero finds out that even though he'd been led to believe that the Queen of the Night was an innocent victim of an evil wizard, it turned out he had it backwards and the Queen of the Night was the real villain. Like the name "Queen of the Night" wasn't a clue. I’m shocked—SHOCKED.

Indeed, the plot to Guardians 2 does get underway in the second hour, and it’s all stolen from Star Trek. There are elements of the Genesis planet from The Search for Spock, but it’s basically a cross between The Wrath of Khan and The Final Frontier. Remember the The Final Frontier? Star Trek V? The worst Star Trek that ever star trekked? Well, that’s the second hour of Guardians 2. All of a sudden the jokes start falling flat and the touching moments no longer touch. It was almost as if the second half was written by a different writer (although apparently there was only one, director James Gunn. The other eight writing credits went to the creators of the characters). And even the Star Trek II elements can’t save it. Imagine what the ending of Wrath of Khan would have been like if the character who sacrificed himself to save his friends wasn’t Spock, but rather someone who we didn’t care about all that much. Say, Fred the Transporter Operator. Kirk’s speech at the funeral (“Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was most…[lip quiver] human.”), just wouldn't have been the same. Instead of poignant and heartwarming, it would have been downright embarrassing. And that spectacular sight of the coffin shooting out the torpedo tube in a blaze of light just wouldn’t have had the same emotional resonance. Meh.

On the plus side, since the dead man in Guardians 2 is someone we don’t care about all that much, at least he’ll probably stay dead. Hollywood has way overdone the character-who-died-saving-everybody-comes-back-to-life cliché.

The visual effects in Guardians 2 are stunning—especially the depiction of Ego’s home planet. I recommend seeing the film in IMAX 3D to fully appreciate the Edenesque landscapes and the amazingly life-like closeups of Rocket. (One nit—if you’re going to have your characters walking in CGI snow, take the trouble to draw in CGI footprints.)

Of course, spectacular CGI isn’t enough to carry a movie. All too often these days, Hollywood attempts to substitute awesome visual effects for good dialog, characterization, and plot, with lackluster results. Dialog, characterization, and plot are the pillars of great storytelling. But at least in Guardians 2, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks, they still have two out of three pillars of storytelling working for them, AND THAT AIN’T BAAAAAD!

P.S. Here are my predictions for the first two sins in “Everything Wrong with Guardians of the Galaxy 2” when it comes out:

1. New Marvel logo is even longer and more boring than old Marvel logo.
2. As opposed to Missouri, Jupiter

Michael Isenberg is editor-in-chief of Nerds who Read and author of Full Asylum, a James Bond parody with top-notch dialog, characterization, and plot. Available at Amazon.com.