- I walked into the theater in the middle of a trailer for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and, glancing at the screen as I climbed up to my seat thought, this looks pretty cool. If the leads weren't cast to look like a couple of teenagers, I'd definitely think it looks cool. I'll probably check it out if I don't have anything better to do when it comes out.
- A Spider-Man Homecoming trailer. Michael Keaton looks interesting as Vulture. The "protect my family" line is intriguing character set up for a villain, but still not enough to sell the movie to me. Will there ever be a Spider-man movie where Peter doesn't have to hold on to two separate things with his web and use his inhuman strength to overcome an impossible situation?
- Damn it, Guardians of the Galaxy! You made me watch a The Last Jedi trailer. When The Force Awakens was coming out and I was all about watching the trailers, I didn't see a single one in theaters. Now, when I'm trying to avoid everything I can leading up to Episode VIII, you show me one today. That said, here's what I thought of it I guess: Meh. Meh. Ooh, that space battle looks like it could be cool. . . if it's anything like the space battle from Rogue One but also without pandering to be cool like the space battle from Rogue One. Meh. "[Luke's line about the Jedi must end]" -- Huh, I know I should be excited for that line. In fact, it's a really interesting concept in the Star Wars universe, one that's explored really well (and by "well" I mean "half-heartedly") in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. It's actually one of the most interesting ideas you can explore in the Star Wars universe. So why do I have such a feeling that it will be extremely half-assed in its development and my assumed disappointment is tempering my excitement?
- Why do I have this weird feeling I'll be less let down by Thor Ragnarok than by The Last Jedi?
- Oh God, another awful Transformers: The Last Knight trail-- Wait. . . wait a minute. . . If I'm piecing this together right. . . is it possible that when Prime is the bad guy, Megatron (Or is he Galvatron now? I still haven't seen Age of Extinction) will join forces with the humans/Autobots to defend the Earth? Damn it, Michael Bay, if that's the case you might have gotten some of my money. I'm conflicted.
- Holy shit that new Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales trailer looks awesome! I am so excited for this.
Now for the movie itself: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Marvel. Marvel, Marvel, Marvel. Please stop masturbating in our faces with your God damn logos.
- Wow that's Kurt Russel and an actress I assume is Sky Lord's mom driving down the road singing along with the radio. Excitement! Oh, they're still driving and singing. This is still going. Excitement. Oh well, I'm sure the movie will have better pacing once it gets going. . .
- God, none of the Guardians are endearing in this scene. Look, I'm biased, I'll admit, when it comes to heroes in-fighting. It is one of the least attractive and most boring, manufactured drama a movie can have, especially when it starts from the very beginning of the movie. These characters are a bunch of mean, un-funny assholes, and you expect me to root for them just because we liked them in the previous film? For a movie that spends so much of it's dialogue talking about things that happened off-screen, it spends zero time telling us what's happened to make the Guardians all pissy at each other...
- ... Except for Drax who really comes away as the hero of the film, or at least the most consistently likable person on the team. The guy who is shown, through Mantis the Empath, to carry heavy sorrow and suffering with him is the most uplifting and never dark/brooding character in the film. He steals the show.
- What the hell is up with this introduction of Yondu and Stalone? Was there a bunch of Yondu/Ravager exposition and that happened in the 1st Guardians I'm supposed to remember? Because, again, for a movie that loves to tell us what happened off-screen, I have no idea who Stalone or the Ravagers are or why I'm supposed to feel anything for what's going on on this snow-whore planet. Was I supposed to come away from Guardians one loving Yondu for some reason? Is there any reason for him to be a beloved character if I'm not a comic book reader?
- I'm booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooored..................
- Nebula. Now, I'm usually a sucker for the pervious movie's villain is forced to team up with our heroes to fight a common enemy in the sequel. Hence why I kind of like Thor: The Dark World. But I don't remember having enough emotional connection to Nebula to care. I didn't feel strong enough to hate her in the first one or find her scary. Hey, maybe it's shame on me for not remembering if there was much development given to her relationship with Gamora in the first film, but I certainly didn't feel anything for her or her manufactured sisterly drama here in Vol 2. In fact, thanks, Marvel for giving the women in your movie nothing to do, except for Mantis who was all right.
- So now Nebula is chasing down Gamora with intent to kill. Am I supposed to think you'll actually have the balls to kill anyone, movie? Am I supposed to think Gamora is in any real peril? This is the problem with most action movies, especially super-hero ones. They attempt to create suspense by making you think the hero is in danger. That's not going to work, because we all know the hero can't die. But others can. People the hero cares about can. Put them in danger, and the suspense becomes "will the hero save them in time?" Stop wasting time trying to make me think Marvel super heroes can die. And don't come around smirking when you inevitably kill off Captain America in Infinity War Part I, because we all called that one years ago; it won't count. Suspense requires stakes.
- Remember when Star Lord was funny?
- Let's take a second to talk about how shitty the action is in this movie. Space battles: a lot of CGI shit flying around randomly. People are shooting at people. I don't feel any sense of anything going on. I don't feel any connection to anyone being shot at or doing the shooting (Because, again, the Guardians themselves are immune to danger). There's no suspense to this action. Also, it's kind of confusing as shit. Yondu and Rocket's escape: Rocket is just shooting and Yondu is arrowing. There's just people dying left and right. With a couple exceptions, the film pretends to revel in its violence without showing anything interesting happening. Yeah, Yondu's killing a bunch of folks with his magic arrow, but it's not that visually interesting; at least, I don't think so. A lot of the action is just really, really boring.
- Even when Drax is carrying Mantis and has to keep turning around to dodge the ship and its engines near the end: this should be really funny. I wanted it to be funny so bad. It is really funny on paper, but something about the editing paced it too slow to be funny. It falls flat.
- I liked Rocket stun-gunning Gamora. That was an okay moment. Really the only moment Rocket was likable though, which was disappointing.
- Now, the character of Ego is a very interesting Sci-Fi character. He'd be a great episode of Star Trek.
- However, the conflict. The plot. The Ego vs Quill Vs Yondu relationship. If that is the heart of the movie, I wish more had been devoted to Quill and Yondu. Vol 2 does not sufficiently setup/earn the Yondu-Quill familial relationship. If more had been done at the beginning to set that on its way, Ego's interest in Quill might have offered more conflict and intrigue, pulling him away from Yondu. Comparing and contrasting Ego and Yondu. There is a half-way decent father-father-son story in Guardians Vol 2, but it's buried...
- ...Buried under something I've referenced already: the movie's obsession with expositional dialogue about things that happened off screen. Maybe instead of telling us about how Yondu was hired by Ego, you show it to us. Maybe instead of telling us about how Yondu saved Quill from Ego, you show it to us. Maybe show us those things instead of Ego driving down the road, taking Quill's mom to Dairy Queen. It's extremely easy to pick up that Ego is a bad guy. I don't really need that as a reveal. Maybe it would create more tension to show this Yondu backstory stuff early on, you know, to develop his character and his relationship with Quill and make it a bigger deal when Quill is being seduced by Ego. Instead Yondu is bonded with Rocket during Act II, because. . . well Rocket has to be in the movie, so. . .
- The movie is so in love with this that it even does it within the world of the movie. Rocket passes Yondu's exposition on to the Ravagers who, like the movie, decide that just being told about something someone supposedly did once is enough to forgive their flaws and celebrate.
