OK, Guardians 2 in the books.
The good stuff:
- The visual effects, sets, and prop design. You can point to a lot of movies to demonstrate that digital effects have run amok and do more harm than good, but Guardians 2 isn't one of them. The visual palette in the movie is great, and the imaginative sci-fi tech is very Star Wars: futuristic but used. So many of the MCU movies are set in gray buildings and corridors; it's nice to savor the colors and character of the Guardians space-scape.
- The acting. Apart from a few exceptions -- notably Gillan -- all the actors shine here. Russell brings a smiling effortlessness to Ego, and Rooker (probably the MVP of the movie) is exceptionally layered as Yondu. I will say that Pratt here is weirdly ineffective. Perhaps it's because he's trapped in a tedious storyline where he's a passive onlooker. Saldana, Bautista, and others make up for it, though.
- The ending. Oh man, so good. I think that about 90% of the movie chases its tail, but, oh boy, does it stick the landing. It's emotionally-resonant and it looks absolutely gorgeous.
The bad stuff:
- Plotting/pacing. There's a scene late in the movie where Yondu, Rocket, et al. need to make 700 jumps to reach Ego's planet. There's a wide shot of their ship ping-ponging between space jumps -- that is a perfect visual metaphor for the plot structure of Guardians 2. The movie bounces back and forth between several different plots and sub-plots, resulting in a chaotic, manic, disjointed story structure. In attempting to give everyone something substantial to do, writer/director Gunn loses his narrative thread. This all makes the movie feel much longer than it is.
- The humor and tone. Man, I never thought I'd count humor among the cons in a Guardians movie, but here we are. Obviously, humor is a very personal thing, and one man's hysterical is another man's unfunny. But for me, Guardians 2 swings and misses A LOT. I think Gunn tried so hard to make Guardians funny and edgy and irreverent that it ends up feeling forced. The tone, too, is odd. Some of Guardians 2 is deathly serious (especially the Ego/Peter plot, which is, strangely, dramatically inert and a poor vehicle for Pratt's skills as an actor), some of it's aloof and ironic and indifferent, and some of it -- the uncomfortably long mass murder sequence with Yondu, in particular -- is oddly casual about its violence. But just slap a 60s pop song on it, and it's cool, right?
I was leaning toward a 5 but that ending is so damn good it bumped it up to a 6.
.
OUTSTANDING
1) Captain America: Civil War
GREAT
2) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3) Iron Man
GOOD
4) Guardians of the Galaxy
5) The Avengers
6) Iron Man 3
DECENT
7) Black Panther
8) Captain America
9) The Incredible Hulk
10) Avengers: Age of Ultron
11) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
MEDIOCRE
12) Doctor Strange
13) Ant-Man
14) Iron Man 2
POOR
15) Thor
16) Thor: The Dark World
Last edited by Veknoid_Outcast - on 16 April 2018