Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Thoughts

THERE ARE GOING TO BE SOME SPOILERS FOR THIS MOVIE IN THE POST, SO IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE OR ARE PLANNING TO, SKIP THIS ARTICLE.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

• The Last Jedi preview was great

This has nothing to do with the movie.  I skipped seeing this preview online and waited till the May 4th holiday (For those that don’t know, its a Star Wars day which May the fourth is a play on words of the phrase “may the force be with you”) and it was worth it.  I saw Guardians of the Galaxy in RPX and seeing The Last Jedi trailer playing in this format was incredible.  I can’t wait to see this movie in December.

• There was no Sophomore slump I feel

As much as I liked The Avengers: Age of Ultron, it seemed to have had the bar set high. This, due to the first Avengers Movie before it being one of the most successful comic book movies of all time.  While I did like Age of Ultron more than most people did, I can see why most didn’t.  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 had a lot to live up to due to the first film being such a surprise and loved by most audiences.  This was a great movie and kept up with the original in terms of pacing, action, and fun.  Plenty of humor as I was laughing throughout a lot of the film.  As well as…

• A lot of character stories

Age of Ultron seemed to focus on one story stoping Ultron I felt.  In Guardians Vol 2, it seemed every character had a story.  Peter “Starlord” Quill (Chris Pratt) was reconnecting with his long lost father Ego (Kurt Russell).  Gamora (Zoe Saldana) was in another fight with her sister Nebula (Karen Gillian) while her and Starlord were trying to convince each other they were/were not in love with Each other.  Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley cooper) was protecting and raising Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) when it the first movie the roles were reversed.  Even Yondo (Michael Rooker) was trying to find Starlord and the Guardians again.  All because Rocket stole batteries from the Sovereign Race and placed a bounty on them. He had an important and unfortunate story arc   Not unfortunate in being bad but sad. A lot of plot can hurt a film and it’s focus but this story did fit into it’s arc.  They all weren’t the best stories told in film, but good for comic book movie standards and for me.

• Drax takes a huge backseat in this movie

I felt Drax (Dave Bautisa) was the biggest change that I didn’t like.  He played a role in last film as the straight lace warrior seeing revenge of the deaths of his wife and Daughter of the group.  The humor that he had was very great and had the best joke in the Original Guadians of the galaxy of “Nothing goes over my head…! My reflexes are too fast, I would catch it.”  Now he seems to understands humor, making a penis joke, and saying that he wasn’t interested in Mantis (Pom Klementieff), trying to let her down  even tricking her into petting Rocket as a joke, and being an overall goof?  This was not the Drax of the first movie, did I miss something?

• Not one mention of the Avengers or any other Characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)

As far as I was able to tell, I couldn’t find any references to the Avengers story or other MCU characters.  Even in all five of the Post Credits Scene.  I look forward to the ever approaching Infinity War.  But it’s good to only focus on the story of the Guardians and keep the separate from the Avengers right now.  It can be distracting and might have hurt the movie to see Iron Man show up for example.

• Dynamic colors, beautiful visuals

The visuals of Ego, both planet and person and coloring in this movie was great.  Yondo’s telekinetic arrow zooming around the screen was a ballet of red.  Even the Ravenger finale boasted a wonderful pallete of color.  The contrast the colors had against the blackness of space screen as well as some drab area’s like Yondo’s ship was wonderful.  It sounds dumb since any color against black will contrast it.  But it hit me in a way that Captain America: Civil War did when you see them do visual effects in daylight and in the open for the climax battle.  Compared to Batman Vs Superman where most of the effects are green screen and look dark.  If you can get to watch this movie in a 4K format do it because it looks spectacular.  However, the young Kurt Russell Motion Capture or making him look younger was a bit creepy for me.  I hope Disney stops this.

• I’m sick of the Stan Lee Cameos

OK, he made Marvel and all of these Characters.  I get it, he can stop cameoing in these movies.  It distracts from the movie and I’m tired of hearing the crowd say “ohh look it’s Stan Lee”.  Enough Marvel.  Also, I’m aware of him as “The Watcher Theory” where he is that Universes “The Watcher”  A race of people who observe but not interfere with what is happening in the Universe.  It doesn’t work for me.

This are my impressions in the movie.  Got anything I missed, please comment below and thanks for reading.