Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Sean Gunn, Glenn Close, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Kurt Russell
OUR RATING: ★★★½
Story: Marvel’s superhero sequel written and directed by James Gunn. The story is set two months after the first movie to the backdrop of ‘Awesome Mixtape #2’. As the Guardians travels throughout the cosmos, the team must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mysteries of Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt) true parentage.
Verdict: This is a strong sequel but it’s not as dynamic as the first entry. The unique charm of the Guardians was still there, but it relied too much on the humor which sometimes felt forced and unnecessary. The addition of Baby Groot was brilliant, he steals the scenes he’s in, but the story itself and the bland villain bring the movie down from what it could have been. The filmmakers may have tried just too hard to take all the things that worked in the first movie and amplified it so much that some of it just didn’t feel natural and spontaneous here.
REVIEWS
Best Quotes (Total Quotes: 53)
Peter Quill: Showtime, A-holes!
Peter Quill: It’ll be here any minute.
Gamora: Which will be its loss.
[Gamora cocks her weapon]
Peter Quill: Is that a rifle?
Gamora: You don’t know what a rifle looks like?
Peter Quill: I thought your thing was a sword?
Gamora: We’ve been hired to stop an interdimensional beast from feeding on those batteries, and I’m going to stop it with a sword?
Peter Quill: It’s just, swords were your thing and guns were mine. But I guess we’re both doing guns now. I just didn’t know that.
Rocket: Well, that’s intense.
[referring to the beast they are trying to kill]
Drax: The beast’s hide is too thick to be pierced from the outside. I must cut through it from the inside
Gamora: Huh? No! No, Drax, wait minute! Drax!
[Drax jumps into the beast’s mouth and he’s swallowed by the beast]
Peter Quill: What is he doing?!
Gamora: He said the skin is too thick to be pierced from the outside so he…
Peter Quill: That doesn’t make any sense!
Gamora: I tried telling him that!
Peter Quill: The skin is the same level of thickness from the inside as from the outside!
Gamora: I realize that!
[we see Drax desperately trying to stab through the beasts skin from the inside]
Peter Quill: There’s a cut on its neck. Rocket, you need to look up!
Ayesha: We thank you, Guardians, for putting your lives on the line. We could not risk the lives of our own Sovereign citizens. Every citizen is born exactly as designed by the community. Impeccable, both physically and mentally. We control the DNA of our progeny, germinating them in birthing pods.
Peter Quill: I guess I prefer to make people the old-fashioned way.
Ayesha: Perhaps someday, you could give me a history lesson in the archaic ways of our ancestors. For academic purposes.
Peter Quill: I would be honored, yes.
[referring to the Sovereign people]
Rocket: You know, they told me you people were conceited douchebags, but that isn’t true at all.
[Rocket winks at Peter]
Peter Quill: Dude!
Rocket: Oh, shit. I’m using my wrong eye again, aren’t I? I’m sorry. That was meant to be behind your back.
Drax: There are two types of beings in the universe, those who dance, and those who do not.
Peter Quill: Mmm-hmm.
Drax: I first met my beloved at a war rally.
Peter Quill: Oh, God.
Drax: Everyone in the village flailed about, dancing. Except one woman. My Ovette. I knew immediately she was the one for me. The most melodic song in the world could be playing. She wouldn’t even tap her foot, wouldn’t move a muscle. One might assume she was dead.
Peter Quill: That does sound pretty hot.
Drax: It would make my nether regions engorge.
Peter Quill: Okay. I get it, yes. I am a dancer, Gamora is not.
Drax: You just need to find a woman who is pathetic, like you.
Peter Quill: This is weird, we’ve got a Sovereign Fleet approaching from the rear.
Gamora: Why would they do that?
Drax: Probably because Rocket stole some of their batteries.
Rocket: Dude!
Drax: Right. He didn’t steal some of those, I don’t know why they’re after us. What a mystery this is.
[they ship starts getting shot at by the Sovereign Fleet]
Peter Quill: What were you thinking?!
Rocket: Dude, they were really easy to steal.
Gamora: That’s your defense?
Rocket: Come on. You saw how that High Priestess talked down to us. Now I’m teaching her a lesson!
Peter Quill: Oh, I didn’t realize your motivation was altruism. It’s really a shame the Sovereign’s mistaking your intentions and they’re trying to kill us.
Rocket: Exactly.
Peter Quill: I was being sarcastic!
Rocket: Oh, no! You’re supposed to use a sarcastic voice! Now I look foolish!
Gamora: Can we put the bickering on a hold until after we survive this massive space battle?
Peter Quill: More incoming!
Rocket: Good, I want to kill some guys!
Gamora: Can we put the bickering on hold until after we survive this massive space battle?
Rocket: Quill, later on tonight, you’re going to be laying down in your bed and there’s going to be something squishy in your pillow case. And you’re going to be like, “What’s this?” And it’s going to be because I put a turd in there!
Peter Quill: You put your turd in my bed, I shave you.
Rocket: Oh, it won’t be my turd. It will be Drax’s.
Drax: I have famously huge turds.
Peter Quill: We’re about to die, and this is what we’re discussing?
Drax: Die, spaceship!
Peter Quill: Groot, put your seatbelt on!
Ego: After all these years, I’ve found you.
Peter Quill: And who the hell are you?
Ego: I figured my rugged good looks would make that obvious. My name is Ego, and I’m your dad, Peter.
Stakar Ogord: [to Yondu] If you think I take pleasure in exiling you, you’re wrong. You broke all our hearts.
Ego: I hired Yondu to pick you up after your mother passed away. But instead of returning you, Yondu kept you. I have no clue as to why.
Peter Quill: Well, I’ll tell you why. Because I was a skinny little kid who could squeeze into places adults couldn’t. It made it easier for thieving.
Ego: Well, I’ve been trying to track you down ever since.
Drax: I thought Yondu was your father.
Peter Quill: What? We’ve been together this whole time and you thought Yondu was my actual blood relative?
Drax: You look exactly alike.
Rocket: One’s blue!
Peter Quill: No, he’s not my father! Yondu was the guy who abducted me, kicked the crap out of me so I could learn to fight, and kept me in terror by threatening to eat me.
Ego: Eat you?
Peter Quill: Yeah.
Ego: Oh, that son of a bitch.
Ego: [to Peter] I promise you, it’s unlike any other place you’ve ever seen. And there I can explain your very special heritage. Finally get to be the father I’ve always wanted to be. Excuse me. I’ve gotta take a whiz.
Gamora: What was that story you told me about Zardu Hasselfrau?
Peter Quill: Who?
Gamora: He owned a magic boat?
Peter Quill: David Hasselhoff?
Gamora: Right.
Peter Quill: Not a magic boat. A talking car.
Gamora: Why did he talk again?
Peter Quill: To help him fight crime, and to be supportive.
Gamora: As a child, you would carry his picture in your pocket and you would tell all the other children that he was your father, but that he was out of town shooting Knight Rider or touring with his band in Germany.
Peter Quill: I told you that when I was drunk. Why are you bringing that up now?
Gamora: I love that story.
Peter Quill: I hate that story.
Gamora: It’s so sad!
Peter Quill: As a kid, I used to see all the other kids off playing catch with their dad. And I wanted that, more than anything in the world!
[referring to Ego]
Gamora: That’s my point, Peter. What if this man is your Hasselhoff?
Rocket: I hope Daddy isn’t as big of a dick as you, orphan boy.
Peter Quill: What is your goal here? To get everybody to hate you? Because it’s working.
Mantis: If I touch someone, I can feel their feelings.
Peter Quill: You read minds?
Mantis: No. Telepaths know thoughts. Empaths feel feelings. Emotions.
[to Peter]
Mantis: May I?
Peter Quill: Alright.
[she touches Peter’s hand]
Mantis: You feel love.
Peter Quill: Yeah, I guess, yeah, I feel a general unselfish love for just about everybo…
Mantis: No. Romantic, sexual love.
Peter Quill: No. No, I don’t.
Mantis: For her!
[she points to Gamora]
Peter Quill: No! That is not…
[Drax bursts out laughing]
Peter Quill: Okay… That’s…
Drax: She just told everyone your deepest, darkest secret!
Peter Quill: Dude, come on! I think you’re overreacting a little bit.
Drax: You must be so embarrassed!
[he continues to laugh; to Mantis]
Drax: Do me! Do me! Do me!
[Mantis touches Drax and she starts laughing hysterically]
Mantis: I’ve never felt such humor!
Peter Quill: So unbelievably uncool.
Drax: Oh, Quill…
[Mantis goes over to Gamora to touch her]
Gamora: Touch me, and the only thing you’re going to feel is a broken jaw.
Rocket: Woh! Woh! There must be some kind of peaceful resolution to this, fellas.
[all the groups point their weapons at each other]
Rocket: Or even a violent one, where I’m standing over there.
Gamora: You own a planet and can destroy two dozen spaceships without a suit. What are you exactly?
Ego: I’m what’s called a Celestial, sweetheart.
Peter Quill: A Celestial, like a god?
Ego: Mm, small G, son.
Ego: I created what I imagined biological life to be like down to the most minute detail.
Drax: Did you make a penis?
Peter Quill: Dude!
Gamora: What is wrong with you?
Drax: If he is a planet, how could he make a baby with your mother? He would smush her!
Peter Quill: I don’t need to hear how my parents…
Drax: Why? My father would tell the story of impregnating my mother every winter solstice.
Peter Quill: That’s disgusting.
Drax: It was beautiful. You Earthers have hang-ups.
Ego: Yes, Drax, I got a penis.
Drax: Ha! Thank you!
Ego: It’s not half bad.
Rocket: I’m sorry. I am so sorry! I just keep imagining you waking up in the morning, sir, looking in the mirror and then in all seriousness saying to yourself, “You know what would be a really kick-ass name? Taserface! That’s how I hear you in my head! What was your second choice? Scrotum Hat?
Drax: How did you get to this weird dumb planet?
Mantis: Ego found me in my larva state. Orphaned on my home world. He raised me by hand, and kept me as his own.
Drax: So you’re a pet?
Mantis: I suppose.
Drax: People usually want cute pets. Why would Ego want such a hideous one?
Mantis: I am hideous?
Drax: You are horrifying to look at. Yes. But that’s a good thing.
Mantis: Oh?
Drax: When you’re ugly, and someone loves you, you know they love you for who you are. Beautiful people never know who to trust.
Mantis: Well, then I’m certainly grateful to be ugly.
Drax: Those pools, they remind me of a time when I took my daughter to the forgotten lakes of my home world. She was like you.
Mantis: Disgusting?
Drax: Innocent.
[Mantis touches Drax, she senses his sadness and begins to cry]
Total Quotes: 53
Trailers:
