Friday, May 12, 2017

Film Friday: Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Warning: Spoilers Throughout Article
Last weekend I saw, "Guardians of the Galaxy 2," and found it quite enjoyable if at the same time a little low-key. I know that sounds odd to say a movie full of space-battles and otherworldly planets is modest, but despite its theoretically grand-scale of outer-space much of GOTG2 was focused on smaller character-moments and developing the Guardians. At times it almost felt like much of the movie was an exercise in chilling-out and waiting for when the crew pops-up in the Infinity-themed Avengers movies. After all, we only have a few planets explored, and the biggest new plot development is Peter Quill (again played fantastically by Chris Pratt) finally meeting his father, Ego, the Celestial living planet.

Kurt Russel does a stellar job as Ego--Hell, everyone turns in an amazing performance, but the big reveal of how Ego is actually evil seems to come pretty suddenly with its epic-sized battling after a relative amount of quieter moments. There's just a lot of water-treading seeming to be going on during the flick, I would say.
It sounds like I'm being really critical of, GOTG2, but it actually is a great movie and one of the funniest Marvel flicks I have seen along with the original. Even many of the dramatic moments often are undercut with some humor, as if writer and director James Gunn wants to say, "Yeah, this moment of mutiny on Yondu's ship is really sad, but this Taserface guy has a hilariously bad name!" Many times during the movie I and everyone else in the theater cracked-up at the amazing jokes, and there are some tear-jerker moments at the conclusion too (you will be missed, Yondu), much as with the original GOTG film. Plus there is plenty of Baby Groot, so that brings me immense joy.

"Guardians of the Galaxy 2," is not the best Marvel movie ever, but it is still really, really good. I had a great time watching it and without a doubt find its quirky and off-kilter humor makes it a delightfully weird corner of the Marvel Movie Universe. I just hope when it eventually has to meet-up and interact with all the other parts more (e.g. the Avengers) that it still retains a decent amount of its unique charm.
4 out of 5 stars.

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