Got Dragged Home Again

Conditions: Biblical

Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy 2

After the last breakout film, all eyes were on the unlikely crew of misfits and what they'd do for a sequel.  No more origin stories to tell, with the team all assembled, what is it that they actually do.  The answer is: tell a different kind of origin story.  Peter's, to be exact.  You likely remember Peter was abducted as a child by Yondu from outside the hospital his mother was dying in, and it seems it was his father who was behind it.  The sequel starts off firmly in the 70's, as none other than a de-aged Kurt Russell himself is on Earth putting the moves on Peter's mother.  She's cool with the whole space alien thing, and he is infatuated with her.  He shows her some secret spot in the woods where he's planted some kind of space-plant, and then he's gone.

Peter and the gang however, are right in the middle of things.  They open with some kind of crazy battle against a giant alien, but all of that takes place in the background as baby groot mugs for the camera for about ten minutes.  This, is not a good sign.  Once the alien is defeated the team are congratulated by a race of walking Oscar statues, before Rocket pisses them off and starts a giant extended chase sequence.  This ends with the ship crashed on some forest moon.  Enter Kurt Russell.  He's Peter's father, and wants to take Peter off to his home planet, so the team splits.  Peter, Gamora and Drax go with Kurt, Rocket and Groot stay to fix the ship.

Which is where the messy B plot comes in.  Basically Yondu is after the Guardians as well, but gets mutinied by his crew, led by Nebula.  It's all engineered for everyone to meet up for the big finale on planet Kurt.  Because it turns out Kurt's a planet.  It's pretty weird.  And also, he visited many planets, and wooed many women, and had many kids, and planted many plants.  Each kid was transported to him by Yondu so he could check if he was the chosen one, and if not they were dumped.  So in quick succession Peter finds out his father is an immortal monstrous planet, and that he killed his mother.

This brings us to the final battle, where the biggest thing of note is Yondu playing the part of the true daddy to Peter he always was.  Again, the actual action is set in the background so we can focus on various gags.  And that kinda undermines what's actually happening.  I get that they were trying to do something a little different here, but sometimes the old cliches are cliches for a reason.  This just kind of goes off on several tangents and maroons a few characters in the background.  Two magic arrows out of five.