Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

In the spirt of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, here’s a lit­tle playlist to slap on for when you’re slouched on the sofa and align­ing your thoughts on the film:

1. ​‘Bril­liant Trees’ by David Syl­vian
2. ​‘It’s the Same Old Song’ by The Four Tops
3. ​‘Raz­zle Daz­zle’ by Bill Haley & His Comets
4. ​‘Too Long’ by Daft Punk
5. ​‘What’s the Point’ by Bill Wyman
6. ​‘God & Guns’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd
7. ​‘Brain Dam­age’ by Pink Floyd
8. ​‘No Action’ by Elvis Costel­lo
9. ​‘Paint­ed Face’ by Bad Com­pa­ny
10. ​‘Sweary Rac­coon with a Shot­gun’ by Stig Bjørnebye’s Eight Gal­lon Blues Band

There is a lot of music in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. Any small moment where it’s pos­si­ble to slide some AM radio rock under­neath the action, it damn well is. Yet it would be a stretch to call this Marvel’s first hon­est-to-good­ness musi­cal, as it’s rare that the tunes and the visu­als sync up in any mean­ing­ful way.

The songs which make up the ​‘Awe­some Mix Tape Vol 2’ sound­track work as back­ground toe-tap­pers that are often employed with irony – ​‘Oh gee, they’re land­ing their giant white sperm-craft on that par­adise plan­et with George Harrison’s ​‘My Sweet Lord’ play­ing on the stereo…’ Lat­er, the Big Final Fight occurs to the strains of a ​’70s coke-rock clas­sic. It forces you to ques­tion whether you’re enjoy­ing the film, or just the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lis­ten to a mem­o­rable melod­ic song with an added visu­al accom­pa­ni­ment. It’s a hard call to make.

Beyond that, there is noth­ing musi­cal about the film in terms of its pac­ing and edit­ing. There’s no rhythm to the sto­ry. It’s a bunch of short episodes – sketch­es – which cul­mi­nate in the galaxy being placed in per­il, and a bunch of slick-ass bick­er­ing guardians swoop­ing in to save the day once more.

We join Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord) and his team as they set about defend­ing some bat­ter­ies(!) from a bat­tery-eat­ing killer space squid(!). Yes, that’s just about the extent of the ideas this time around – lot’s of wacky hap­pen­stance, lit­er­al visu­al sym­bol­ism and P‑L-O‑T. As the team gath­er their mar­bles and con­tin­ue to bick­er, Quill is con­front­ed by a mys­te­ri­ous good-ol’-boy-with-a-beard named Ego (Kurt Rus­sell), who has been cir­cum­nav­i­gat­ing the uni­verse in search of the fruit of his loins.

And so the film’s theme of father­hood is intro­duced. What we learn: some fathers seem good, but are in fact bad. Some fathers seem bad, but are in fact good. Some fathers seem bad, and actu­al­ly are extreme­ly bad, to the point where you should attempt to mur­der them at the clos­est oppor­tu­ni­ty. But there are unfor­tu­nate­ly no fathers who seem good, and are just straight-up good peo­ple. It’s always more com­pli­cat­ed than that.

Pratt him­self is, by some mar­gin, the film’s weak link. The ultra-endear­ing scamp we first met in TV’s Parks and Rec is back in a ver­sion of the char­ac­ter that’s so watered down as to almost be unrecog­nis­able. Gunn’s script avoids turn­ing Star-Lord into a com­plex, frag­ile human being, instead just run­ning with the idea that he’s the boy who nev­er grew up. His sense of moral right and wrong is bor­ing­ly on point, and you can always rely on him to see through any nefar­i­ous bull­shit that comes his way (even if the audi­ence can see it a long time before him).

Poor Zoe Sal­dana as Gamo­ra. She has a sub­plot involv­ing a galaxy-span­ning death match with her wrath­ful, semi-robot­ic sis­ter, Neb­u­la (Karen Gillan). This is by far the film’s most inter­est­ing and fresh idea. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it’s all kept in the small print while the men get to have their chest-bump­ing fun with the guns, lasers and the clank­ing space­ships. More time is spent look­ing into the emo­tion­al tribu­la­tions of a talk­ing racoon than Gamora’s fas­ci­nat­ing Freudi­an squab­ble. Maybe next time, she’ll be shuf­fled to the fore now that Star-Lord’s dad­dy issues are all wrapped up.

Yes, the film is a florid mess, but one thing that Gunn does have going for him is that he knows how to time a gag. Dave Bautista as Drax is a high­light, his bel­low­ing laugh is much more of an aur­al delight than all the soft rock stom­pers on the sound­track. And yes, you can expect a Min­ions-style Baby Groot spin-off imminently.

Though it just about favours char­ac­ter com­e­dy over the usu­al eye-abus­ing set pieces, there’s a bit of a fan dance going on with regard to the film’s intend­ed street cred. There’s some very light swear­ing, but noth­ing that would actu­al­ly make you flinch. There are a few ran­dom gore effects which, again, trans­late as super­flu­ous film ref­er­ences rather than visu­als that are care­ful­ly knit­ted into the Guardians world.

This is the film equiv­a­lent of when your uncle walks into the room with a Son­ic Youth t‑shirt on, and then under bemused inter­ro­ga­tion, he admits to hav­ing no idea they were even a band – he just likes the design.