Guardians of The Galaxy – Vol. 2 Review

Pass The Popcorn and The Milk Duds for A Fun 

Ride

When a film comes out, the studio rolls the dice and sometimes it’s 

snake eyes and sometimes it’s a seven. The Marvel Film Universe 

and Disney have managed to roll out a hit with the first Guardians 

of The Galaxy starring an unproven leading man, Chris Pratt and 

the more proven Zoe Saldana. The first film was an unqualified 

success with a domestic box office take of over $333 million 

dollars. With this type of domestic haul, it was a given that number 

two would be in the works. Sequels are a tricky business. We have 

sat through countless sequels, sometimes based of studio greed 

with movies that stray away from the original content and intent 

and sometimes they get it right as with The Godfather and 

Godfather II. We’re not going to discuss Godfather III.

So here we have Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2. A science fiction 

fun ride destined to be an amusement theme park attraction 

somewhere in the future. The film starts off with our illustrious rag 

tag team of crusaders assisting in helping out a somewhat overly 

sensitive culture with getting some type of unique batteries. The 

only problem is that Rocket does his five finger discount and 

walks away with a few of them and that is before he sort of insults 

the inhabitants with a crude comment. And before you know it, 

they come under attack by the habitats and the ride begins.

Your time sitting in the seats isn’t long when the action begins. We 

get to know some of the old characters a little better with a few 

back stories to flesh out their characters even more so. We still do 

not know a lot about some of them, one would suggest that this 

will be coming in the next incarnation of Guardians. We also get to 

see some new characters as well. Kurt Russell’s Ego, the space 

absence father of Star Lord makes his appearance known upfront. 

He gives this character the right amount of edge that doesn’t 

involve chewing up the scenery given that his name in the film is 

Ego. We also have a new character named Mantis played by 

relatively unknown actress, Pom Klementieff. Her character is 

interesting as is the real person behind her. Pom Klementieff’s real 

story is one beset with unfortunate tragedies, her father died when 

she was five, her brother committed suicide when she was 22, her 

mother is schizophrenic, her aunt and uncle raised her, her uncle 

died when she was 18. That is a lot for one person to go through 

and come out ahead in a film like this. The character is an added 

form of comic relief that punches up the dialogue between her and 

Drax played by Dave Bautista.

And with the addition of her, we say goodbye to a fan favorite. I 

won’t say who so as not to spoil the fun but the sendoff is 

memorable with a key role played by Sylvester Stallone. How they 

got him must have been a fun shot. And does what it looks like, a 

fun shoot. You get that sense as you watched it. It shows up on the 

faces of everyone, including the CGI creatures.

It has a PG-13 rating. Some death scenes were a little more intense 

and may have rode close to the edge with that intensity. You are 

going to have to judge that for yourself. Otherwise, go make some 

movie history and turn it into another box office juggernaut. The 

Milk Duds are waiting.