Pom Klementieff

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the first verse of “La vie grise” (The Grey Life) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the sixth verse of “Aux enfants de la chance” (To the Children of Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg and finished revising my translation. I might have the whole song nailed down tomorrow.

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second session of two. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before breakfast and it’s been a long time since I’ve been that heavy in the morning. 

            I worked on updating my journal. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before lunch and I’m not going to bother scrolling back far enough to find out when I last weighed that much. 

            I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back passed that preacher who sometimes busks and sings like Springsteen. He was talking about having been in a psyche ward with herpes before he found Jesus. He claimed Jesus cured his herpes. I assume the symptoms went away but that he still has herpes. 

            On the way back I stopped at Freshco where I bought five bags of grapes, a pack of blueberries, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a pack of five year old cheddar, three bags of 1% milk because they were out of skim, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, and I bought hair gel for the first time in years. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos at 18:00, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening in over five months. 

            I didn’t finish updating my journal until just before dinner. 

            I had a potato with the rest of my gravy and the last porkchop while watching Guardians of the Galaxy 3. 

            Peter is depressed because the Gamora he saved from the time before her death has no experience of being in love with him and so he’s drinking a lot. 

            Kraglin tries win a game with his yaka arrow manipulated by whistling like his late mentor Yondu as it runs an obstacle course to hit various targets but he fails. His talking dog Cosmo levitates a pebble and wins easily. Kraglin calls Cosmo a bad dog and for the rest of the movie Cosmo is obsessed with getting Kraglin to take it back. 

            Adam Warlock attacks their headquarters to retrieve Rocket for the High Evolutionary. He defeats Nebula and beheads Groot. He breaks Mantis’s arm. Peter is shooting at him when he learns that Rocket has been mortally wounded and so all of his attention goes to saving him. Warlock is beating the crap out of Drax when Nebula recovers and runs him through with her arm-sword, knocking him unconscious. All focus goes to saving Rocket but normal methods won’t save him. He was built with an internal kill switch by the High Evolutionary. They have to go to his company Orgocorp to find the code to override it. 

            Meanwhile Rocket’s life is flashing before him as he relives his origin from being a baby raccoon until his DNA was manipulated by the High Evolutionary. Rocket develops into a highly intelligent creature who solves the Evolutionary’s main problem. He has a chamber that in a matter of seconds can evolve any animal into a humanoid but each one turns out violent. Rocket fixes the problem but the Evolutionary resents him for it and still considers him to be imperfect. He plans on removing and studying Rocket’s brain and killing the rest of the animals that have become his friends. Rocket uses his mechanical aptitude to construct a swipe card to get out and he tries to free his friends. But they are attacked and only he survives and escapes in a rocket. 

            In the present, Peter, Nebula, Drax and Mantis break through the shields that surround the organic satellite that houses Orgcorp but are boarded by Ravagers. Peter is surprised that Nebula arranged this with Gamora who is now with the Ravagers. Nebula has promised to pay for Gamora’s help and so they don Orgcorp uniforms in order to infiltrate the facility. Gamora forces an employee to find Rocket’s file. Meanwhile Drax and Mantis are discovered and have to fight. Mantis has martial arts skills but when she gets close to whoever she’s fighting she can control their minds to defeat them. She makes one person think he’s a kitty cat and another start dancing. The others are also discovered and Gamora holds the employee at gunpoint. They try to shoot their way out but Drax is badly wounded. Peter charms the employee into letting him into the computer system and then he removes gravity so everyone is floating. Then Groot smashes through with the ship and rescues the team. But when they access Rocket’s file they find the override code was removed that very day by Recorder E2H6. A picture is shown of his profile and Peter remembers bumping into him at Orgcorp. He has a computer implanted on his head and so they have to find him to save Rocket. They are given the Evolutionary’s coordinates and Gamora wants nothing to do with it because she knows it’s a trap. Gamora stays behind with Rocket but she sends a message for the Ravagers to pick her up that is intercepted by the leader of the Sovereign, which is an aesthetically perfect race created by the Evolutionary. The leader of the Sovereign is Warlock’s mother. The Evolutionary’s War Pig is sent to grab Rocket. Gamora fights him or her. Warlock arrives and says he needs the credit for delivering Rocket and so he kills War Pig. While he is doing so Gamora escapes with Rocket. Peter, Drax, Groot and Nebula land on Counter Earth which is a replica of Earth but populated by the Evolutionary’s people that he made from animals and they all have human bodies but the heads of various beasts. They commandeer an 80s Dodge Diplomat and drive to the Evolutionary’s headquarters. The Evolutionary reveals that he is about to destroy Counter Earth and his headquarters begins to take off. Parts of Counter Earth begin to detonate. Gamora carries Rocket back to the ship while Warlock flies to save his mother but the place where she is explodes. Warlock returns and collapses at the Guardian’s ship. Peter and Groot begin shooting up the Evolutionary’s headquarters. Groot grows multiple arms, each one wielding a gun. Nebula, Drax and Mantis run to escape the exploding planet and jump onto the outside of the Evolutionary’s slowly rising ship. Peter grabs Recorder E2H6 and jumps from the ship which is now high above the ground. Groot follows and when he reaches Peter he grows glider wings. When they land Peter kills the Recorder and cuts the computer off his head. Gamora flies the ship to where Peter and Groot are. Nebula, Drax and Mantis are still on a platform outside the Evolutionary’s ship as it is leaving Counter Earth’s atmosphere. The air is getting thin and the temperature low. Drax breaks through the door where they find hundreds of children in cages. Peter applies the code but Rocket flatlines. Peter starts using CPR and eventually Rocket comes back. The Evolutionary captures Nebula, Mantis and Drax and tells Peter to bring him Rocket. 

            Meanwhile Kraglin, Cosmo, Howard the Duck and some others are playing cards. Cosmo tells her origin as a Russian cosmonaut dog they put into orbit in a capsule in 1966. He says the Russians never called him a bad dog. Peter calls for Kraglin to help save the others. 

            Mantis understands multiple languages but she doesn’t understand the children. Somehow Drax speaks their language and shows himself to have a way with kids. 

            Kraglin fires on the Evolutionary’s ship. 

            Nebula, Drax, and Mantis are surrounded by giant menacing monsters but Mantis makes friends with them. 

            Peter and Gamora are on a shuttle and Warlock smashes into their ship but he seems to be on their side now. They make it into the Evolutionary’s ship. Then so do Rocket and Groot. 

            Kraglin’s ship is under attack by the Evolutionary’s mutant army. He is finally able to successfully use the yaka arrow to fight. But the arrow gets stuck in a wall and one of the mutants is closing in. Cosmo uses her levitation powers to cause two stone walls to smash together on the creature. Kraglin calls her a good dog. 

            The Evolutionary’s people mutiny against him as he is irrationally obsessed with getting Rocket back. The Evolutionary kills them all. 

            The team is reunited and Peter says they are leaving but Mantis says they have save the children. All but Gamora agree, but she helps anyway. There’s a big battle with the Evolutionary’s forces. The children are rescued. Groot saves Warlock too. Nebula takes control of the ship by connecting her body directly to it because the regular controls have been destroyed. Rocket gets the last of the children out of the cages but then sees the animals that have yet to be transformed and rescues several baby raccoons. Suddenly he is attacked by the Evolutionary and his gravity manipulation powers. Rocket shoots him and then the rest of the Guardians arrive to fight him as well. Gamora mortally stabs him and then peels off his mask to show the grotesque face of a being obsessed with perfection. Peter says they have to leave but Rocket says they need to save all the animals too and so they do. 

            They all escape but Peter is last and he drops his Walkman and goes back for it. He jumps through space to the Guardian’s ship but is held back by debris. He begins to freeze while his friends can only watch. But at the last minute Warlock saves him. 

            Gamora goes back to the Ravagers. Peter decides to go back to Earth. Nebula and Drax are going to take care of the children. Mantis is going off to find herself with her new pet monsters. Rocket will be the new leader. Groot says “I love you guys” and it’s the first time he says it without saying , “I am Groot”. 

            Later we see the new Guardians: Rocket, Groot, Kraglin, Cosmo, Warlock, Warlock’s pet Blurp, and Phyla (one of the rescued children) discussing the best music. Warlock says he has to go with Adrian Belew both solo and with King Crimson. Rocket plays Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” and they all start fighting a stampede of beasts that are threatening a planet. 

            This was a great movie with a pretty satisfying combination of action, humour and sadness. My favourite character is Mantis, because she is so innocent, caring, and naïve and yet powerful. She is played by Pom Klementieff, who was born in Quebec but does not have Canadian citizenship because her father was a French diplomat serving his own government in Canada. She started acting at 19 while attending the Cours Florent drama school in Paris. She won a theatre competition with the prize of two years of free classes with the top drama teachers. Her first acting job was in the movie Après Lui in 2007. Her first starring role was in Loup in 2009. Her first Hollywood film was a supporting role in Spike Lee’s Oldboy in 2013. In 2017 she co-starred in Ingrid Goes West. She played Martel in the HBO series Westworld. She played Paris in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning and will appear in the sequel.