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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Lazy Kind of Movie Review

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Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite Marvel movie. I didn’t even watch the sequel for years, because I knew it couldn’t live up, but I finally broke down and watched it a few months ago.

Generally speaking, I was disappointed. Way too crude for my taste, and the dialogue was lazy and made no attempt at subtlety. However, it had a very decent plot for a sequel, and some truly golden moments with this found family, so I made a list of all the things I liked, because I need some positivity after Infinity War and Endgame treated most of these characters like dirt.

Spoilers included. Fair warning.

Please note: I don’t say much about Starlord (although I love him), because his arc in this movie felt very clumsy to me, and I’m focusing on what I liked.

  • Rocket secretly loving Peter’s music.
  • Peter and Gamora bonding over how stupid their children are.
  • Rocket stopping mid-fight to keep Baby Groot from eating something.
  • Just, everyone parenting Baby Groot was so wholesome?
  • Especially Rocket being a Dad.
  • Baby Groot pounding on Drax for accidentally stopping the music–I love it when children in movies are nuanced, instead of being perfect angels, okay?
  • Rocket and Drax being chaotic best friends instead of fighting.
  • Gamora and Nebula’s enemies-to-allies storyline. We never see this with female characters, guys! I found the action scenes a little over the top, but the dialogue was beautiful: “You were the one who wanted to win; I only wanted a sister!” and Gamora being able to express I’m sorry you got hurt even though I’m not the one that hurt you, I was also just trying to survive. (On this note, let’s bring Thanos back to life and kill him again. I hate him.)
  • Peter, Drax, and Rocket all basically think of themselves as the Dad Friend of the group, and it’s hilarious.
  • Gamora dancing with Peter? Adorable. I’m going to cry.
  • Baby Groot reeeeally wanting to push the wrong button. . .
  • Mantis’ empathy magic was awesome–she feels someone else’s emotions if she touches them. As an empathetic person, I appreciated this (and I’m kinda’ jealous she can just stop touching them and quit feeling all the things. . .)
  • Drax and Mantis both repeatedly calling each other ugly and disgusting while also bonding and making eyes at each other? I ship these idiots so hard. They’re both equally freaky and incomprehensible.
  • That scene where Drax tells Mantis about his family and his face and tone are without any emotion whatsoever, but Mantis touches his shoulder and immediately breaks down in tears. Such a good depiction of silent/invisible grief.
  • Just everything about Mantis honestly. I love weird girl characters. 🙂
  • When Yondu just gave up and said he deserved to be betrayed, and Rocket, completely unfazed and optimistic, just saying “well, I don’t” and making an escape plan.
  • Baby Groot hating hats because he always mistakes them for part of someone’s head. Understandable in a universe with so many aliens, but also hilarious.
  • The fact that Rocket the Dad already knew Groot hated hats but didn’t know why, and got distracted from the escape plan because oh, that’s why you hate hats??
  • Gamora admitting there’s an unspoken thing between her and Peter. Which isn’t unspoken anymore. . . I guess. . .
  • “And he stole batteries he didn’t need.” (Peter needed a better line after this, but it was a moment of the subtlety and self-awareness I was missing in this movie.)
  • Yondu’s magic arrow getting snapped in half and Rocket just casually fixing it? Homeboy is a genius and I love him. (He should have kept the arrow too, but Marvel was afraid to make him that powerful. I said what I said.)

And I suppose that’s that. I’ll probably think of more things tomorrow that I should have added, but I’ll never post this if I keep up like that. I’m going back to pretending that the Guardians of the Galaxy are still running chaotically around the galaxy following Starlord’s lead into shenanigans. . . I hope this post made someone smile.

Family, Stories

“I Am Groot” (and High School Biology)

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Confession time: I have never seen an Avengers movie.

But if it can redeem me, I have seen one Marvel movie (which I am very grateful to have seen!) and that was Guardians of the Galaxy.  Which I loved.  Since I don’t have space, in one post, to analyze all five beautifully crafted lead characters, I want to talk about one: Groot.

Almost everyone can appreciate a good humanoid tree.  I have yet to talk to anyone who doesn’t love Groot, but really now, what’s not to like?  He is a walking, talking tree who can regenerate from one twig, whose vocabulary consists of I and am and Groot (in that order).

But my favorite thing about Groot is the way he grows.  From his habit of shooting up twice his original height to reach things for people, to the flower he spontaneously grows out of his palm for the beggar girl on Knowhere–I love the way he is simply bursting with life.  There’s a special place in my heart for the glowing firefly-like things he generates at the end.

What I did not realize until just recently was how appropriate this attribute was for a (sort-of) talking tree.

~*~

I’ve spent this school year finishing my high school biology course (“Exploring Creation with Biology” by Dr. Jay L. Wile), and I’m really enjoying it.  The latest chapter I finished was all about plants, including (of course) trees.

One thing Dr. Wile discussed was stems.  He pointed out that the stem you would typically think of as a plant stem (herbaceous stems) cannot grow any larger after they mature.  This is because they will crack the skin of the stem, and expose the inside of the plant to the elements.

Tree trunks (or woody stems), however, are another story.

Underneath the outer bark of a tree trunk is a layer called the cork cambium.  Its job is to produce new bark, underneath the old layer of bark.  This allows the tree to continue growing as long as it can and simply break through the bark, since there is always a new layer underneath.

~*~

Whether the makers of Guardians of the Galaxy were aware of this or not, I love how accurate their depiction of a “human tree” is; trees are literally cracking their own skin with the pressure of the life inside them!

Groot’s unquenchable, thriving growth is actually quite congruent with his real-world counterparts.

~*~

‘When that happens to a tree, you find that some have bad hearts.  Nothing to do with their wood: I do not mean that.  Why, I knew some good old willows down the Entwash, gone long ago, alas!  They were quite hollow, indeed they were falling all to pieces, but as quiet and sweet-spoken as a young leaf.’ (457)
The Tower Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

Alright, we storytellers just love trees.