Movie Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (2017)

Family Matters.

2014's Guardians of the Galaxy was a delightful surprise, and even though its inevitable sequel can't quite recapture that initial thrill of discovery, it still delivers plenty of the same kind of zany personality, irreverent zingers, nostalgic pop culture awareness, colorful CGI eye candy scenery, and retro soundtrack shenanigans that made the first Guardians so much fun. To be perfectly honest, I went to see this for 2 main reasons: Rocket and Baby Groot (still adorably tiny and twiggy but now out of his flowerpot and capable of locomotion), and on that front the movie delivers in spades.

The gang's all here again, along with some new characters, including an alien who looks like an Oscar statuette come to life, Chibs from Sons of Anarchy trading in his leather jacket for Ravager gear, a girl with antennae, and a figure named Ego who really, really, really lives up (or down) to his name.

The plot has its up and downs, and there is one detail arriving late in the film that is as unnecessary as it is horrifying and jarring. Still, the whole movie looks so darn pretty with bright, eye-popping fantasy CGI that its flaws are forgotten in a second. Besides, all it took was the next shot of Baby Groot to make me forget my complaints. Seriously, though, keep an eye on the film's overarching meditation on the meaning of family and loyalty.

As always, sit through all the credits.

Mad Minerva gives Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 a grade of B+.

RottenTomatoes gives the movie the bona fide Fresh rating of 81%.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 runs 136 minutes and is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action/violence and some language.

Here's the trailer: 

Movie Madness: DC Fans vs. Rotten Tomatoes

HAHAHAHA - Apparently this is for real!  DC fans have started a petition to shut down movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes because the collected reviews for Suicide Squad stink.  Isn't that like shooting the messenger?

Personally, I've about had enough of DC movies. The idiotic and grimly pretentious Batman-Superman smackdown was stupid and awful, and I said so at the time.  After that mess (how did you screw up both Superman and Batman so badly at the same time? AND Lex?) I lost all hope that Suicide Squad could be any good.  After this latest kerfuffle I think I'll just save my money ... and maybe go see the new Jason Bourne flick instead. (Here's just one review out of hundreds.  The phrase that caught my eye: "Suicide Squad amounts to an all-out attack on the whole idea of entertainment.")  The DC movie universe is a joyless, grayscale cesspool where fun goes to die be brutally murdered.  In the rain.

Besides, this little temper tantrum by fans about reviews is pretty indicative about how DC as a wider community can't get its priorities straight.  Usually I'm slamming the studio and execs, but today my target is DC fans, and my accusation is the same.  Your priorities are all screwed up, dude.  How about you take your rage out on DC for making a crappy movie that reviewers hate instead of on reviewers for hating a crappy movie?  DC bigwigs:  How about you quit making crappy movies? 

Here's something relevant that made me laugh out loud:

Anyway, the only thing the DC moviemakers are doing with any effectiveness is driving me into the arms of Marvel.  Ah, Marvel, fun, colorful, freewheeling, quippy, whose problems and peccadillos now seem like mere nitpicking trivia after the sort of total self-immolation DC keeps performing.  How's this for a conspiracy theory: DC's movie division is run by a cabal of Marvel undercover agents who have managed to infiltrate DC at the highest levels and who have been tasked with destroying DC root and branch.  Seriously, DC couldn't be doing a better job of alienating its fans and destroying itself if it were trying.

Movie Review: 3 Superhero Flicks (2016)

OK, darlings, let's do this in chronological order: Deadpool, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Captain America: Civil War.

                 

Short version for the impatient: 

• Deadpool:  Irreverent, gleefully meta-misbehaving R-rated romp. B+
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: As sleep-inducing as rhino tranquilizers and as vacuously pretentious as college freshmen. D
• Captain America: Civil War:  Imperfect but entertaining anyway!  A-  (Was there a teensy bit of grade inflation due to comparing this face-off with DC's?  You betcha.)

For those of you who want more details, read on!

Movie Review: "Ant-Man" (2015)

A Bug's Life.

Charming, cheeky, and just a little unheroic, the always-charismatic Paul Rudd metamorphoses from ex-con Scott Lang into the titular character in Marvel's better offering of the summer (sorry, Avengers: Age of Ultron).  Bigger isn't always better, and Ant-Man recaptures a good bit of the zany, lighthearted fun that seemed so often lacking in its more overstuffed, ponderous cinematic sibling.  Ant-Man, by the way, takes place after the events of Age of Ultron, but - thank goodness - you really don't have to have seen it in order for Ant-Man to make sense; Rudd's minuscule alter ego's story can stand alone and not be completely overwhelmed with Marvel mythology and bogged down with Significance.  Lang/Ant-Man is like Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream: though he be but little, he is fierce!  And funny to boot.

Friday Fun Video: "What if Werner Herzog Directed Ant-Man?"

I loved Marvel's Ant-Man and will write a review soon (update: here it is).  It's been a frantic summer of work (and, alas, far less blogging than I would like), but let's take a break right now, dear readers, and enjoy this:

Movie Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

The IT Crowd.

I'll say this for the movie poster: It really was a WYSIWYG ad for the flick itself.  Think the poster is confusing and crowded?  So's the movie.  Avengers: Age of Ultron suffers from the Spider-Man 3 syndrome of shoehorning far too many characters old and new into the story, but unlike the disgraceful Spider-Man 3, the sequel to 2012's luminous and practically perfect Avengers is still worth watching.  I don't envy director Joss "God of the Nerds" Whedon his massive task in creating and then offering this follow-up to the same audiences that had adored Avengers.  The pressure to produce a worthy sequel must have been absolutely unimaginable, and I'm not going to complain (too much) that the movie cracks a little under that pressure, especially when I know that the studio's demands must have pushed Whedon's own creative liberty into a corner.  This brings up a host of other issues of various grades of nitpickery, but the short version of my review is this: flawed but still fun, Avengers: Age of Ultron kicks off the 2015 summer movie season in fine style ... and it's almost a certainty that I'll go see it again.  The Cinema-Mad Sibling thought Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) was a better follow-up film to the first Captain America (2011) than Age of Ultron is to Avengers.  Well, he's not wrong.

OK, I'm going to try to talk about the movie without spoiling it for everyone who hasn't it yet. (Once you have seen it, you can take a look at this and join the debate. All I'm going to say now is that Marvel should be careful.  Really, really careful.)  Three complaints, and then a few observations and one unqualified hoorah.

One: The crowding issue.  Yes, I get that Marvel wants to bring all the Avengers back together and give them a new adversary to fight.  I get that.  I also get that Marvel wants to introduce a few new characters.  The problem is that we end up with not enough time with any of the characters old OR new for character development.  This is compounded by the cameo appearances of a zillion other characters who have no real role in this movie but who show up anyway because they point you to other Marvel projects.  UGH.

Two: Joss apparently did not have the narrative room to BE JOSS.  The movie is so stuffed with characters and occurrences that it doesn't have nearly enough time for it, and by that I mean time for him to give us the witty banter and bickering that he's so good at ... and that is so good at character development.  Joss is really good at people standing around and talking ... arguing ... flirting ... hassling ... The witty retort, the sly verbal jab, the underplayed humor.  For a lot of Avengers: Age of Ultron, I couldn't even tell that it was a Joss Whedon movie.  That's not to say that the movie itself as spectacle wasn't entertaining.  I was entertained ... but it felt a little hollow because it didn't feel like Joss's project.

Three: Ultron was a missed opportunity for a couple of reasons.  One is that we really could have done more with Tony Stark and, to a lesser degree, Bruce Banner.  They were the ones who gave rise to Ultron, and I didn't think the movie did nearly enough with the emotional fallout of it.  There should have been.  There should have been TONS OF IT.  That would have been character development and a real meditation on how even the best-laid plans of well-meaning superhero science bros gang aft agley ... because that has some serious real world resonances in terms of tech and artificial intelligence getting out of hand and of protective measures that become themselves perils.  Road to hell, good intentions, anyone?  While we're at it, Ultron is voiced by none other than James Spader himself, an actor who has elevated smug superiority to a veritable art form, and we could have done so much more with that.

A few observations:

•  Give us a Black Widow movie, and the fans will stampede to see it!  Shoot, even give us a backstory movie called Budapest based on one throwaway line from Avengers, and we will rush to get in line!
• There's a lot going on in the movie, but if I'm going to be honest, I'll tell you that the party scene at Tony's is probably my favorite scene because it wasn't jammed full of CGI and special effects and whatever else: it's mostly about people being people.
• Let me save you some time: There's a bonus scene in the middle of the credits but not one at the very end.  
• If we hadn't already in previous movies grown to like and care about the individual Avengers as people, we wouldn't give a hoot about any of them in this movie.  That's not a compliment.  Losing sight of characters' humanity is a mortal sin that no amount of mammoth special effects wizardry can undo.  If we the audience don't care about the people, then we'll have no emotional stake in what happens to them. 

The unqualified hoorah: Paul Bettany is back on screen!   Here's the story behind that.  To be honest, I've had a soft spot for Bettany ever since he played Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knight's Tale (and he's terrific opposite Russell Crowe in Master and Commander).  As much as I love him being the elegantly starchy voice of JARVIS, I'm frankly delighted to see him on screen again.  Yes, I know he's been in some stinkers (*cough* Da Vinci Code! *cough*), but, hey, who hasn't?

Mad Minerva gives Avengers: Age of Ultron a grade of B+. 

Avengers: Age of Ultron runs 141 minutes and is rated PG-13 for various action sequences, a bit of language, and some suggestive comments.

Rotten Tomatoes gives Avengers: Age of Ultron the Fresh rating of 74%.

Next up: I'm seeing the much-ballyhooed Mad Max: Fury Road. (Updated: Now online!)

Friday Fun Video: Ultron Funk

I owe La Parisienne a big movie review for Avengers: Age of Ultron, but while I'm working on that, enjoy this as a placeholder:

Friday Fun Video: Honest Trailer for "Guardians of the Galaxy"

Guardians of the Galaxy, the best movie of Summer 2014, has just come out on Blu-ray and DVD this week, so here's a brand-new Honest Trailer to mark the occasion:

Friday Fun: Honest Trailers vs. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Art, Life, and Cosplay

Hanging out with the people whom you're cosplaying is pretty darn awesome. Nathan Fillion meeting mini-Captain Reynolds is too cute.

Friday Fun Video: Dancing Baby Groot

It's the Guardians of the Galaxy video clip that's sweeping the nation!  OK, time to see this hilarious space adventure again.

Movie Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy"

Everything is Awesome!

It's only fair to quote Chris Pratt's first triumphant movie of 2014 to describe his second.  Besides being a bit of meta-review, it has the benefit of being absolutely true.  I have run out of superlatives to describe Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel's thrilling confection of a comic book space opera that seems completely improbable on paper but blooms into a giddy display of unmistakable movie magic on screen (plus $94 million on opening weekend ain't bad!).  

Guardians is not just two hours of action-comedy with a ragtag band of lovable misfits, an engaging retro-pop soundtrack, stunningly beautiful special effect spacescapes, and two of the best scene-stealing CGI characters ever created.  It's also a movie that recaptures the childlike, heart-pounding delight of seeing flicks like Star Wars or the even-numbered Star Treks or Raiders of the Lost Ark - movies that set your imagination on fire, filled your head with landscapes you'd never dreamed of before, and had you strutting out of the theatre thinking you were no longer plain old you, but Han Solo or Captain Kirk or Indiana Jones himself.  Guardians of the Galaxy is exactly that kind of movie.  I spent the entire time in the theatre sitting with a big silly grin on my face and feeling about 10 years old, and I can't wait to see this flick again ... and again ... and again.  

Public Service Announcement: The "Guardians of the Galaxy" Soundtrack Is Available

AND IT IS FREAKING AWESOME.  

Come on, it begins with "Hooked On A Feeling" and ends with "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."  Peter Quill wasn't kidding around when he called the collection "Awesome Mix, Vol. 1."

I'm using Spotify.  You can find it via other services too.

As for the Guardians movie, I've been looking forward to this for months.  It opens tonight, so I will be pretty much useless until then.

Movie Review: "X-Men: Days of Future Past"

What's past is prologue.

The sequel to 2011's pretty good X-Men: First Class is even better as it brings Wolverine center stage for a daring mission to the past in order to prevent a disastrous future.  Icing on the cake: the past is the 70s.  Get ready for all the wide collars, long hair, and polyester you can handle, my darlings (American Hustle should have helped prepare you!), and enjoy a rollicking story with all your old favorites, a fascinating villain, and, perhaps best of all, the delightful surprise of a supporting character who absolutely steals the show.

Movie Madness!

The summer movie season's here!  I am so, so happy!  Granted, it is expensive to see all these movies, but I've been saving pennies for the express purpose of doing this.  While some people like going to sports events and others like going to resorts for summer fun, your humble blog hostess and her crew like going to the movies!  I'm in the process of working on 5 movie reviews at the same time right now (this is so much more fun than schoolwork), but if you're in a hurry, here are the grades.

• The Grand Budapest Hotel: B+
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier: A
• Godzilla: B+
• X-Men: Days of Future Past: A+
• Only Lovers Left Alive: B
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Honestly, I haven't even bothered to go yet

Yes, I know this all sounds like grade inflation, but these flicks I've seen really are THAT good.  Next up: Maleficent, Edge of Tomorrow, and How to Train Your Dragon 2!  I am expecting great things.

In related news: some people are so inherently beautiful that they can make even scrubs or 1970s fashion look goooooood, baby.

Need A Study Break?

ARRRRGGGGHH, FINALS!

But if you need a study break (or five or twenty), you can go marathon TV shows on Netflix or go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier for the third time (something that I may or may not have done very recently).  

By the way, I know I owe you a real movie review, but let me just say this for now:  If you don't see this flick you are totally missing out.  89% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes?  BRING IT ON. 

I'm going to see the new Spider-Man flick too, but I'm frankly pessimistic.

Movie Review: "Thor: The Dark World"

We're Up All Night To Get Loki.

"Thor: The Dark World"?  No, my darlings.  You know how you eat your boring vegetables just so that you can then have a decadently delicious dessert?  This movie is pretty much the same thing: we put up with a great many idiocies and narrative missteps just so that we can have Loki in the second half.  The title of this movie really should be "Please Tolerate A Lame Villain, a Muddled Premise, a Stupid Love Story, Meaningless Bit Characters, Idris Elba Wasted Again, and Stellan Skargård In Underpants So You Can Have Loki ... Eventually."  The flick is worth the price of admission for (and pretty much only for) the indispensable presence of Tom Hiddleston's irresistible, sinuously feline god of mischief now in his third appearance (after Thor (2011) and The Avengers (2012)).  OK, here's a more fitting poster: