Before writing this review, I looked at the Rotten Tomatoes score for this film: 85% for critics and 87% for audience. This has been done by my movie watching colleagues and me a few times during our trek through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, I had to know what other people thought. To be blunt, I think this is the worst Marvel Cinematic Universe film. It is worse than Thor: The Dark World and worse than Iron Man 3. This film is tricky because the opening sequence with Baby Groot dancing to Electric Light Orchestra is fantastic, and all of the joy in that scene almost convinced me to adjust my mind. However, the rest of this film is, as my friend Trevor and I like to say when we do really involved and complicated analyses of various entertainment, a dumpster fire.
The plot, where Peter Quill’s father is revealed to be a “celestial” (a god in Marvel verbiage) named Ego (Kurt Russell), is found wanting. It is difficult to dish out criticism of a film where one of the key themes are family and the coming to terms with emotions, but just because the themes are powerful does not mean it is not an eye rolling roller coaster of overindulgent special effects, a cliché soundtrack, and a ridiculous climactic action sequence.
My identity crisis with this film is really a byproduct of something I have discussed with my moviegoing colleague Gian. Maybe it is my age or maybe it is my self-imposed overexposure to superhero and action films through the years, but I just don’t care. Much of the magic I have felt with these films has dissipated over time, and in trying to be analytical about this, I cannot pinpoint the reason. While watching the movie, I couldn’t help myself from saying things aloud: “How is he still alive?” “This planet has been blowing up for 45 minutes.” “She just dropped out of a spaceship from over 300 feet, landed on her knees, and wasn’t hurt.” Like the proverbial old man yelling at those darn kids to get out of his yard, I couldn’t help myself.
The unfortunate part of this whole reflection is that I am not old. And since that is the case, why was I so annoyed with this film? I think I am jaded by many aspects of the Guardians Vol. 2 including the special effects, the incessant hammer-like reminder of the themes throughout film, and the classic rock FM soundtrack that makes me think of guys playing loud music on a boom box at a construction site.
Yes, Baby Groot is cute. Yes, Rocket Raccoon is funny. But this film was a movie that was made to be made: it exists because it exists. Like Ant-Man, if you skip this film, you will not have missed anything in the totality of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Hi Alex. I'm not a big fan of this movie, either. There are some good parts of it, but I agree that it exists to exist. But comments on the movie aside, it's interesting to me that you say the "magic" you felt with these films is "dissipating over time." While I'm still a big MCU fan, I've noticed the same thing happening with me with some of these movies, not all of them. I don't even know how much I want to be invested in the next phase of Marvel movies. I'm not old, either, but there's something that's no longer there. I guess the movies were there for me when I needed to explore certain aspects of the world and growth in myself, but I'm starting to outgrow them. I'm feeling the same way about some of the television shows that I would always go back to for re-runs. It's not that I'm getting tired of them because it's like Grey's Anatomy right now and the plots are completely overdone and super over-dramatic, but it's that they just don't make me feel the same way they did before. For lack of a better term, it feels like I'm outgrowing the part of my life where I needed those things.
ReplyDelete