WARNING: Spoilers of varying sizes will be found in this review. DO NOT read until you’ve seen the film (unless you don’t care if some epic plot twists are spoiled, in which case, carry on).

It’s been a long three years since I saw Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and for a while it felt like the sequel would NEVER get here. But finally the great day arrived and it was totally worth the wait!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was everything I dreamed it would be, an epic return to the zany world of blue space pirates, trigger-happy raccoons and talking baby trees. And speaking of….HOW ADORABLE IS BABY GROOT???? Seriously, that little guy practically stole the film! He was almost too cute for his own good (even the minor villains were commenting on his cuteness at one point), but it added some levity to some pretty dark moments (like when half of Yondu’s crew was ejected into the vacuum of space, yeah, you read that right). And the post-credits scene featuring Teenage Groot was just hilarious. It literally consists of Groot sitting in his messy room (messy with tree vines) playing video games while Star-Lord admonishes him to clean up his room.

It was great to see Yondu back, even if I was slightly confused about his situation at first. When we first see the space pirate again (after he was tricked out of an Infinity Stone by Quill), he has (apparently) been exiled from the Ravagers for breaking their code, something involving the trafficking of children. I assumed they were referring to Yondu kidnapping Peter all those years ago, but it turns out that was only the tip of the iceberg (more on that later). Yondu has a pretty up and down time in this film: he starts off being an exiled captain, is taken prisoner by mutineers, and then retakes his ship with the help of Baby Groot, Rocket and one loyal crewmember in one of the most epic montage scenes I’ve seen in YEARS (lets just say his telekinetic arrow has a starring role).

Star-Lord’s team is as hilarious as ever (though I do feel like Drax burst into laughter one time too many, but that’s nitpicking). The tension between Gamora and Peter is beginning to grow palpable (she totally digs him even if she won’t quite admit it, but he definitely knows he loves her, or at least has very strong feelings for her). I wouldn’t be surprised if those two are together by the end of Vol. 3.

Now let’s move on to Ego, The Living Planet, aka Star-Lord’s long-lost father. When I first heard that this character would be in the film, I was totally confused (I’ve never read the comics), and could not visualize what a living planet would look like. Actually, at first I thought Peter would just be talking to a giant planet for most of the time. But I have to say, the film did a great job of explaining how Ego is able to appear and travel as he does. And Kurt Russell was totally the best choice to play Star-Lord’s father, they totally act just the same way!! It explains so much about Peter, it really does. And the surface of Ego was so beautiful, perfect and so Eden-like…that I really should have figured out that much sooner that something was terribly wrong (like, before Mantis dropped the hint by nearly spilling the beans to Drax the first time).

There’s an old saying, that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. And while it IS true that Ego is Peter’s father (the opening scene set in 1980 establishes that), he is hardly an ideal parent. The way Ego presents his story, he’s spent the last 30 years or so searching for his son, his ONLY son, so they can finally be together as father and son. It sounds nice, but considering he’s lived for millions of years I should’ve considered there was more to it than that. One of the first things they do together is see if Peter can connect to Ego’s essence, referred to as “The Light”, which resides at the core of the planet. Peter can do it, which makes Ego really happy, but not because it proves beyond a doubt that Peter is his son, but because it now gives him a means to an end.

(WARNING, I’m about to spoil the big plot twist of the film): See, Ego isn’t this benevolent immortal looking to play catch-up with his son. He’s actually a little (lot) crazy and has come to the belief that his purpose in life is to fill the universe (or at least the galaxy) with replicas of himself. To this end, he’s spent the last million years or so planting essences of himself on every planet he’s ever come across (we see Earth’s at the beginning of the film, though we don’t know exactly what it is then). And on each of those planets, he made sure to sire a child, because, though he has the ability to plant these essences, he can’t activate them without the help of a second Celestial. But until Peter, none of this children, none of his MILLIONS of children, have possessed the right genes. So what did Ego do? He KILLED them!! Gamora and Nebula discover a series of caves below the surface that are filled to the brim with bones, millions of bones. And every last one belongs to Ego’s children, many of whom were brought to the planet by Yondu and his pirates (this is why the Ravagers exiled him). Yondu was paid handsomely to turn a blind eye to what was happening, but when he was sent to fetch Peter, he couldn’t bring himself to take the boy, because he figured he would die like the others. Now, all of this is bad enough, but then Ego admits one of the most shocking statements I’ve ever heard. In describing the glories of being a Celestial, Ego tells him (Peter) that they are “above mortals.” But then, what about Peter’s mother? “You said you loved my mother” Peter reminds him, and Ego admits that he really did love Meredith Quill, so much so that had he visited her on Earth a 4th time, he would have stayed on the planet and never left.

“It really broke my heart…” he says “When I had to put that tumor in her head.”

WHAT?? (I swear you could’ve heard the gasp all throughout the theater). Crazy Ego god-planet guy say WHAT???

As the opening of the first film established, Peter’s mother died of brain cancer, a long and tortuous way to die. NOW we learn that Ego PUT the cancer there in the first place!!!!! This knowledge pushes Peter over the edge (he loved his mother more than anyone) and leads into the climactic battle between father and son.

Of course the big lesson of this film is that family isn’t defined just by blood, it’s also who raised you, who forms actual bonds with you. The Guardians are more Peter’s family than Ego ever could have been. And as for Peter’s father…well, it was Yondu who really raised him, a fact that neither really admits to themselves until nearly the end of the film when….*gulps* when Yondu sacrifices his life to save Peter’s. Oh, that moment about broke my heart. Yondu tells Peter that “He (Ego) may have been your father, but he wasn’t your daddy!” And then he put the last spacesuit capsule-thing on Peter so he would be safe when they entered the vacuum on space, and all Peter can do is cry and scream in denial as Yondu dies right in front of him (that has to be one of the saddest moments ever in the MCU).

I’m so excited to see where the Guardians go from here, as we’ll next see them in Avengers: Infinity War (I sincerely hope Peter and Iron Man bump heads figuratively, I just know those two won’t get along at first). I also hope that Nebula gets the chance to exact vengeance on Thanos for everything he did to her as a child. I knew Thanos was cruel, but to do all of THAT to his own child…

I could probably keep going for another 1000 words, but these are the bulk of my thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2. Final verdict: it is definitely a film worth seeing and it totally lives up to the hype.

What did YOU think of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2? Did you like it, not like it, prefer the original instead? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear about it 🙂

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See also: Film/TV Reviews

My thoughts on: Black Panther (2018)

Avengers: Infinity War-Review (no spoilers)

My (spoiler-free) Thoughts on: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

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