Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (a movie review post)

 

MCU #15

Interesting... It appears that I didn't review this movie when it first came out. If I did, I can't find it. I find that kind of weird. Not reviewing it, I mean.

Guardians 2 is... Let's just say it's an interesting movie. As far as being fun, it's nearly as fun as the first one. Not quite, but close. It has some great moments, most of which involve Groot in some way. That's probably not quite true, but the best moments I can think of right now all involve Groot. Or Rocket, I suppose. The quantum asteroid field is a pretty great moment. Why are the asteroids quantum? I don't know, but it's funny because they are.

But the movie does have some flaws. Or, rather, one main flaw which is bothering me as I think about it: the deus ex machina entrance of Ego and saving the Guardians. Actually, the whole Ego thing causes some problems, because, if Peter really is immortal, as Ego tells him, being out in space in the first Guardians shouldn't really have bothered him. I mean, being half Celestial made him nearly impervious to an infinity stone, so a little bit of deep cold should have been... not much.

However, maybe Ego isn't a Celestial? All we know is that's what he told Quill. He's certainly not remotely like any of the other Celestials we've seen so far in the MCU and, for a little bit of knowledge from outside the MCU, he's not a Celestial in the comics. He's just a planet... that's alive.

Maybe we'll get some more info about all of this in the next Guardians movie, though I'm thinking that one is going to go in a more Gamorra direction.

Mostly, here, I'm just rambling thoughts. Ego was destroyed, so no matter what he was, the power source that should have made Quill immortal is gone, so, theoretically, he's "back" to be merely human.

I liked Mantis. I thought she was a good addition.

The relationship between Gamorra and Nova developed. That was good to see, even considering what's coming up.

Gunn took the opening fight with the... the... tentacle thing... and made it into a whole movie for that other universe. A much much lesser movie. The tentacle monster fight in Guardians is better than the whole of that other movie.

Groot is still a hoot.

It's a good movie. Not as good as the first, but a good movie.

So let's rank it!

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: The First Avenger
4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
5. Iron Man

6. Doctor Strange

7. Ant-Man
8. Thor: The Dark World
9. Thor

10. Guardians of the Galaxy

11. Avengers: Age of Ultron

12. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
13. Iron Man 3
14. Iron Man 2
15. Incredible Hulk (Ego is what you get when you let Norton's ego loose.)

Guardians of the Galaxy (a movie review post)

 

MCU #10

If you want to look back at my original Guardians review, you can do that here.

It's interesting to watch this movie again, now, post-Eternals. I'd forgotten how much stuff there is in it about the Celestials, including a whole mining colony in the head of a dead one! Marvel knows how to play the long game better than anyone. Or, maybe, they just like leaving Easter Eggs that are a little more real.

The thing I was struck most by on this viewing is how broken all of the Guardians are. A lot of the MCU movies deal with brokenness in some way or another, actually, overcoming your worst tendencies to become a hero. That's certainly true of Iron Man, and it's true of Captain American in a very physical way, and it's true here:
Peter Quill -- Still struggling with his guilt over not taking his mother's hand when she was dying.
Rocket -- The scene where Rocket explains his brokenness is so touching and heart-wrenching, I'm going to say that you should just go watch it.
Gamora -- Thanos raised her; what more needs to be said?

Drax -- Stuck in the moment when Ronan murdered his family.
Groot -- Weeelll... he's the most adjusted one of them all, and all he can say is "I am Groot."

And the movie addresses this, to an extent, with Peter's "we're all losers" speech. They know they've had losses, whether they see themselves as broken or not, but they come together despite those losses, even despite some betrayals caused by those losses, to work together to beat Ronan.

This is what makes the movie so endearing and what is missing from Gunn's work for DC, not that the characters in DC are not obviously broken, but they are wallowing in it rather than trying to overcome it. There's nothing touching about it, no matter how much humor and giant starfish you put into it. Guardians works because it touches your heart. You want to give Rocket a hug and tell him it will be okay. And he's a racoon!

That's the only thing I really have to add to my previous review. The movie is still excellent. And it has what is probably the best post-credit scene ever. Well, except for the one in Ferris Bueller. Nothing will ever beat that one/ Probably.

Here come the new rankings. That Guardians is so far down the list just shows how great the Marvel movies have been overall.

1. The Avengers
2. Captain America: The First Avenger
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Iron Man
5. Thor: The Dark World
6. Thor

7. Guardians of the Galaxy
8. Iron Man 3
9. Iron Man 2
10. Incredible Hulk (Look! Hulk is the first to hit the double digits. It's too bad the Collector didn't collect Norton before he was Hulk.)

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (a movie review post)

I'm just going to get it out of the way that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are not some of my favorite movie people, as I talked about in this post. That doesn't mean they're not good at what they're good at, though, and, evidently, what they're good at is writing comedies. [Come on, Disney, what made you think these guys were capable of helming a Star Wars movie? Maybe a Lego Star Wars movie (why aren't you doing that?), but not a franchise film.] All of which is to say that The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is almost as good as the first one.
Almost.

There may be some spoilers in here. Okay, I lied. There will be some spoilers in here.
You've been warned.

The first issue with the movie is that it jumps ahead five years. On the surface, this isn't an issue; however, when you look at the movie in the context of the outside world it's set in -- and you have to, because this one breaks that barrier much more heavily than the first -- you have to reconcile the idea that the brother and sister have been having this conflict over Lego and sharing and playing together for the entire five years and the mother is only just now at her breaking point? Do Lord and Miller even have kids? [No, I don't care enough to look that up.] This idea is dumb.

So is the idea that Finn (the boy) has being playing at Apocalypseberg for five years. And maybe he hasn't been, but it's certainly implied.

And, again, do Lord and Miller even have kids? Because when Finn goes to Bianca's room and smashes her Lego construction [Her personal Lego in her room! Because let's get this straight, the Lego that Finn plays with are his dad's! It was his dad's stuff that he was allowed to play with but, evidently, despite the message that Bianca was going to get to share in that endeavor, she's been isolated to only playing with her personal stuff in her own room for the past five years AND NO ONE HAS DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THE FACT THAT FINN IS A DICK!], she is punished right along with Finn. As a parent, I'm appalled by this, the fact that Finn got off Scott-free for smashing her stuff.

The other story issue with the film is the increasing frequency that the Minifigures are able to see into the human world. I believe that happens once in the first movie? During the climax, Emmet sees into the real world briefly and sees the father/son conflict. Something like that. I haven't seen it again since it seeing it in the theater and don't quite remember. However, in this one, any time the story is at a sticking point, there's a glimpse into the real world to push it along. And not just from Emmet, which I find problematic since that was supposed to be his special ability. Now it's just a plot device.

All of that said, when they stick to what's going on in the Lego world, everything works fine. The humor is good, and it's an enjoyable film. Probably, these things that bother me aren't going to bother anyone else. Or even be noticed by most other people.

The voice acting was fine. I suppose Chris Pratt deserves a special shout out for doing two characters and having the non-Emmet character not sound totally like Chris Pratt. Of course, I don't actually know if that was due to voice acting or if it was due to sound engineering. But, if it was him, he did a good job.

And I didn't even realize that Unikitty had an actual voice actor but, then, I wasn't really aware of Alison Brie five years ago. Okay, that's not true, because we watched Mad Men, but she didn't impress me in that. Since then, though, I've been very impressed, and her Unikitty voice skillz are pretty mad.

So, yeah, if you want a fun movie that won't require a lot of thought and will deliver on the laughs, Lego Movie 2 is a good choice.
Damn you, Lord and Miller!

Jurassic World (a movie review post)

The first thing I want to say about Jurassic World is that it was much better than I expected it to be. Much. I liked Jurassic Park well enough but the sequels were... well, they were less than good. None of it inspired high expectations from a movie that has the appearance of being nothing more than a car on the Chris Pratt star train. Which is nothing against Chris Pratt, because I've been a fan of his since season one of Parks and Recreation.

Since we're already talking about Pratt, let's just continue to do that. Pratt was fine. Good, even. But it wasn't a part that called for Pratt, and he didn't do anything to make it his, not like with Guardians of the Galaxy. Peter Quill is inseparable from Chris Pratt, because Pratt made that part his. The most that the part of Owen Grady called for was for Pratt to be "a badass," or at least to look like one. He pulled that off, but it didn't take any particular acting skill.

Bryce Dallas Howard, on the other hand, does show considerable skill as the aloof Claire. It's not a role I've seen her play before; though, to be fair, I haven't seen her in a lot. Still, I think she did a good job as the woman trying to be in total control. Of everything.

The one I was really impressed with was Vincent D'Onofrio. I kept looking at him and wondering where I'd seen him before and just couldn't put my finger on it. I had to look up that he's the Kingpin in the current Daredevil series from Netflix. The two roles are widely divergent and, while I think he is the weak link in Daredevil, I now think it's because of some combination of the writing and directing rather than him just being a poor actor.

For Jurassic World, the kids prove to be the weakest element. Neither of them are completely convincing, though I think it's due at least in part to weak writing. Like the scene where Gray unexpectedly breaks down comes out of nowhere and is included just to make explicit something the writers had failed to be previously explicit about. Also, Zach's interest in girls. Which isn't odd except that they firmly establish that he has a girlfriend then repeatedly show him checking out other girls but that doesn't go anywhere have any impact on anything. It adds nothing to the story other than to muddle his personality.

Beyond that, the issues are only details, though there were two that bothered me more than the others. The first was the eggs hatching during the opening credits, which was completely wrong. Things that hatch from eggs hatch with their beaks and, if they don't have beaks, they generally have an egg tooth. Sometimes, they have both. The other thing was the kids getting one of the abandoned cars started, a 20 year abandoned car. I don't know much about cars, but I know enough to know that 1. car batteries don't hold a charge for that long and 2. even if they did, gasoline actually goes "bad." The idea that the boys, who had only ever helped work on a car once, could get one of those jeeps working was pretty much ludicrous.

BUT! Overall, it was a pretty decent movie and certainly worth seeing on the big screen. Despite Pratt not really being in a role that called for him, he was good, and his character was certainly the most interesting. Besides, the scene where he rides his motorcycle along with the velociraptors is almost worth the cost of the movie.

Guardians of the Galaxy (a movie review post)

Guardians of the Galaxy is the first of the Marvel movies that I'm coming into with, basically, no background knowledge of. Which is not to say that I don't know the general layout of what's going on, but the Guardians that I used to read back in the 90s

is not the same Guardians that exists today. And the characters that I am familiar with, like Drax, are not quite the same (since Drax is not functioning as a herald of Galactus in this Marvel Universe (because, you know, Galactus is being held captive over at Fox Studios (which is actually pretty scary when you think about it))).

That said, stemming from what Marvel has done with their previous movies, this one picks up the thread and weaves it in seamlessly. But in a completely different way. [And I just want to point out that this is the kind of movie that DC's Green Lantern should have been but failed utterly to be.]  So, yes, this is a departure from the previous super hero Marvel films, but it's not a departure in quality. Though, to be fair, there will be people that won't be able to accept characters like Rocket and Groot even though they were brilliant. [My kids loved Rocket even more than Groot, which is saying a lot.]

What the movie does:

1. Introduces the idea of the Celestials.

2. Gives us a clear view of the wider Marvel Universe

3. Applies the term "Infinity Stone" to the infinity stones for the first time.

4. Gives us a better idea of who and what Thanos is.

Guardians does a good job of sprinkling in humor without ever going over the top with it. It doesn't over balance the action or the seriousness of the situation. And it's spread evenly across the characters so that it's not just a bunch of one liners from Rocket or anything like that. Drax has some great, humorous moments even though he is nothing but serious throughout the film. It's very well done.

The acting is spectacular. Chris Pratt, whom I've been a fan of for quite a while, was amazing and the right pick for Peter Quill. Bradley Cooper was surprisingly good as the voice of Rocket. Surprising in that I couldn't even tell it was Cooper doing the voice. Neither could my wife, which is saying a lot, because she always knows the voices; it's a talent of hers. Cooper gave authenticity to completely realistic looking CGI raccoon. Karen Gillan also stood out as Nebula. It was a complete departure from her role as Amy in Doctor Who.

The short of it is that, really, I was ready to see it again as soon as we walked out of the theater. My kids would agree with that. It was a lot of fun. Most similar to Iron Man in tone because of the humor but handled in a way that kept it from becoming campy. I think I'd say it's like an awesome roller coaster ride, the kind where, as soon as you get off, you want to go back around and get back in line.