Coalition of chaos
Marvel’s ragtag team of dysfunctional space heroes reunite in this zingy sequel that adds some emotional heft to the ironic wit GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2 Cert 12A, 135 mins
EVEN those who have devoutly followed the riotous expansion of the Marvel superhero cast may not have anticipated this — the latest recruit to its cinematic universe is Sigmund Freud.
It’s true that the good doctor doesn’t actually appear in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, but director/co-writer James Gunn’s feverishly awaited sequel is so defined by the struggles of appallingly parented children to lay their childhood ghosts that it didn’t strictly need an absentee father called Ego to summon the daddy of psychoanalysis to mind.
After his first Guardians film (the freshest take on sci-fi adventure since Star Wars) Gunn faced the usual conundrum of how to avoid stinking up the sequel with the musty retread scent. His solution was to add emotional heft by lobbing in psychological conflicts.
That was the easy part. The hard bit was doing so without weighing down the film by sacrificing the ironic wit that made the 2014 original such a treasure. The even harder bit was resolving them without dribbling into mawkishness.
Be not afeard, for there is no hint of soppy seconds here. Vol 2 isn’t as spectacularly zingy as its predecessor — the law of diminishing returns applies in spades to the shock power of genre-subverting cinema — but that inevitabilit y apart, the sequel is every inch an equal.
In the opening flashback to Missouri 34 years ago Ego (a typically a s s u re d Ku r t Ru s s e l l , initially restored to youth by the elixir of digital wizardry) is romancing Meredith, the now long deceased mother of Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord.
Having laid the paternity issue to rest, Gunn returns to the present and succinctly re-establishes his irreverence towards everything (other than 1970s music — once again the mixtape soundtrack on S t a r- L o rd’s Sony Walkman is a joy for old-timers) that turbocharged Vol 1 into an off-the-radar box office and critical smash.
Quill and his ragtag coalition of space mercenaries-turned-heroes — green alien orphan Gamora (Zoe Saldana); hulkish Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) who cannot grasp metaphors; snarky Rocket the Raccoon (impeccably voiced by Bradley Cooper) — are in a ferocious space battle with a giant octopus.
The one minor twist on the original line up is that sentient tree Groot, a casualty last time, is replaced by another orphan in the tiny, twiggy form of his offspring, or offshoot, Baby Groot.
The major twist on convention is that the fire-fight illuminating the sky in luridly electric shades of every colour — imagine a mescaline-tripping a r t i s t ’s impression of a Dulux warehouse explosion — is in the background. Grabbing the eye in the foreground is the indescribably cute Baby Groot boogeying to ELO’s Mr Blue Sky.
Emphasising the adorable rather than the destructive is an early indication that human feeling will trump the CGI pyrotechnics (not that there is a shortage of those). So it proves after the Guardians visit the planet of the Sovereign race, whose leader Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) appears to have survived a close encounter with Auric Goldfinger’s paintbrush.
The Guardians relieve her not only of the priceless “batteries” they were hired to safeguard. They also take imprisoned semi-cyborg Nebula (Karen Gillan, with a deservedly chunkier part than last time), the super-criminal sister with whom Gamora has a vicious sibling rivalry stemming from their father Thanos’s favouritism.
The Sovereign, who pilot their battleships remotely in a nice satirical swipe at the video game mentality of drone warfare, are about to defeat the Guardians when Ego pitches up as a deus ex machina and saves them.
The fact that psychodynamics take centre-stage is not to suggest too heavy a tone or too lightweight a plot. The b i c ke r i n g gags flow f re e l y. T h e macabre tale that unravels when Quill and half the team go to Ego’s dazzlingly picturesque home planet has the flavour of a vintage Star Trek creation myth.
But ever more plainly the movie is (g)rooted in how the Guardians find the belonging they crave — and a corrective to the wounds inflicted by their biological fathers — in their adoptive f a m i l y. Freud would approve: “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection,” he said — even if the therapy on offer here is more muscular and amusing than anything available from his Viennese couch.
Gunn’s particular cleverness is that amid all the fight scenes, the knowing retro references (David Hasselhoff is Quill’s hero) and droll pastiching, he manages to make the emotional stuff feel natural and touching without straying into cheap sentimentality.
No one plays demigod-as-everyman like Pratt, who cements his transformation from sitcom schlub to A-list beefcake. A Sylvester Stallone cameo confirms that, however distant the galaxy, he still don’t talk so good. And Michael Rooker almost takes Baby Groot’s hear t warming crown as Yondu, a space pirate who stole the boy Peter from Earth after his mother’s death and became the only father figure he ever knew.
The film isn’t flawless (the pace slackens for a while after a breakneck first hour), but on the blockbuster sequel spectrum it is infinitely closer to The Empire Strikes Back than the turgid Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Speaking of Marvel’s other bitching superheroes, the Guardians’ next outing pairs them with the Avengers in Infinity War. The scheduled release for this enticing mash-up is May 4 next year (Star Wars Day), which is a mightily aggressive statement of intent, if not a hostage to fortune. But judging by the nascent franchise’s second run out, the force will be strong with this one for a good few volumes yet.