Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (no spoilers)

[alias_sqbr]

Mush up Pirates of the Carribean with the original Guardians of the Galaxy in a blender with some cheese, and give it a flouro 80s candy coating, and you get this movie. If you can turn your brain off and enjoy the silliness and explosions it's pretty fun. Not very deep and mostly about A Man And His Father Issues but gives the female characters more to do than the last movie. The perfunctory attempts at a Peter/Gamora romance are ineffective but also pretty easy to ignore (I usually like that kind of pairing but this one doesn't work for me) and the Gamora and Nebula sister relationship gets the exploration that was missing from the original. I feel like they sanded off the unhealthiness of Peter and Yondu's relationship for convenience, but otherwise enjoyed the story, which is all about family. Mantis's character felt like a bit of an Asian stereotype but her arc was ok. None of the female characters get sexualised very much and Chris Pratt is super pretty.

Comments

[lizbee]

That was roughly my take, too. I went in with no expectations at all, except that there would almost certainly be White Dude Nonsense. Which there was, but there were ALSO Sister Feels, and I'm a sucker for that. *points to icon*

The important thing is that Karen Gillan had a bigger role, and (possibly related) her American accent is much better, and basically why isn't there a whole movie about Gamora and Nebula saivng girls and killing their abusive dad?

[bunny_m]

why isn't there a whole movie about Gamora and Nebula saivng girls and killing their abusive dad?

Much as I'd love to see Gamora and Nebula kill the shit out of Thanos, and would gleefully go see that on opening night on the big screen, it's not going to happen.

Thanos has long been one of the major threats* in the Marvel Universe, and generally requires a huge pile of heroes to merely foil his plans. Even if they hadn't spent several movies setting him up as The Big Bad for Infinity War they wouldn't let this happen, sadly.

(Unless you are Squirrel Girl, but she has special plot immunity to that sort of thing.)

(*) He's also long been my least favourite of the major threats, because he's pretty much a one-trick-pony *and* an unlikeable dickhead on top of that, IMO. Far too much telling us over&over&over again about how epic and scary he is, and almost no time spent showing it, or giving any reason to sympathise with him at all. Galactus, Magneto, Doom, all have something more than just 'really powerful villain', Thanos does not, and AFAIK never has.

[alias_sqbr]

I think Mantis would want to help too, after all Gamora and Nebula helped her defeat her own Terrible Alien Adoptive Dad.

[bunny_m]

Yeah, that's a pretty good non-spoiler review, I think, and I have to agree with it.

I enjoyed GotGv2 much more than the first one, no doubt in part due to having lower expectations going in, but also because Peter was much less of an unlikable sexist dickhead than the first one, and everyone else got more time and character development this time 'round, (including Nebula) *and* it didn't pointlessly trash one of my favoured parts of the Marvel Universe for no good reason this time.

Could have done without the Howard The Duck return cameo, especially if they had slotted in Cosmo instead, but that's a pretty minor quibble.

Plus they unexpectedly introduced (most of) the original Guardians of the Galaxy in this one! And Stallone's apparently signed a multi-movie deal, so we should get to see a lot more of them too! \o/

I'm still surprised at the number of people that walk out of Marvel movies as soon as the credits start running. O.O

[alias_sqbr]

Ah, is that who they were? I don't know anything about the original Guardians of the Galaxy but they felt like A Reference To Something. It'll be interesting to see how they all interact in future!

[moonvoice]

I'm still surprised at the number of people that walk out of Marvel movies as soon as the credits start running. O.O

SO MANY!!!

[moonvoice]

Yep, how I felt sort of, though I was still hooked in by the Man and His Father Issues storyline/s. I liked that they did actually devote some time to Gamora and Nebula, because I thought that'd be heavily glossed over, and by Marvel movie standards (i.e. 'good but not great character involvement when they decide to') I felt it was pretty solid for them, and perhaps something to build on in the future.

(Also I so agree with your assessment of Thanos re: always talking about how scary he is but never really actually doing...anything scary, except for torturing people, which I hate to say it - but anyone can kind of do that. Everyone is always talking about how terrifying Thanos is, but it's like...the movies don't especially deliver).

[alias_sqbr]

And he has a REALLY silly looking chin.