Posted in: Movies, Review | Tagged: film, guardians of the galaxy vol. 2, james gunn, marvel, Review

Bleeding Cool Reviews 'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2': "A Bit Long But A Strong Sequel To A Great Movie"

EDIT – THIS ARTICLE WAS BY KAITLYN, I'VE CHANGED THE AUTHOR TO SATE RATINGS ISSUES

Bleeding Cool has a host of nerds that love to talk about movies, comics, and the like. We wanted to give everyone an opportunity to let their opinion be heard for this Marvel sequel. Here are brief reviews from our staff and look for full reviews from our staff going forward.

Kaitlyn Booth – 8.5 / 10
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is another fantastic entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It takes some of the weaker elements of the previous movie and makes them better by turning the focus inward to the characters. This is a movie about a family and what that means to a bunch of emotionally stunted a-holes like the Guardians. It makes everything feel that much stronger and emotionally hard hitting because all of the actions come from character beats. The space battles and action scenes continue to be fantastic and the comedy is great but the moments that will stick in everyone's mind after the credits (and five after credit scenes) roll will be the slower beats. The moments where Yondu or Nebula get character development, the moments where we see how gentle and loving the Guardians are with Baby Groot, or just seeing how much Peter really misses his mother at the end of the day. The entire cast brings their A game, and this is, once again, one of the more approachable Marvel movies to the layman. Absolutely worth getting out for fans and non-fans alike. There is so much to like here.

Bill Watters – 8 / 10
Let's be honest, when a sequel comes along to something that was as fresh and great as Guardians was, it'll be hard to really compare against. Is it as good as the first one, well no, but that doesn't keep it from being a whole lot of fun. With a nearly two hour and twenty minute running time, there's a number of scenes that could have been trimmed. Various character development moments that are either a bit more forced than we would have expected coming from Gunn, but in the end Groot is adorable, and it's fun to see the gang back in action once again. For me, this movie's star is Yondu, and his arc is going to be the one most talked about after the credits roll.

Eliot Cole – 8.5 / 10
I loved this film, James Gunn has crafted something special that's a level above 'Vol. 1', and feels so much like a DnA run it's unreal. I really liked how they're prominently thanked, too. This film was the first digital MCU to use the new camera setup, and the colours really popped, taking it away from the somewhat muted original. On performances; I felt that, despite his central role, Chris Pratt was weirdly underused (along with Zoe Saldana's Gamora), however that did leave Dave Bautista's Drax to become oddly central as a lead in to much of the emotional core in the film, both literally (because: Drax) and through action. Baby Groot's moment in the sun (the whole film?) is brilliant (saving the possibility of genericising the character overall) and hilarious. Which is something that, despite efforts to the contrary, could perhaps be leveled at Rocket. Rocket's loss was Michael Rooker/Yondu's gain, supplying a (completely telegraphed) tear jerking redemption arc. Finally, Kurt Russell's Ego is fantastic, and "young Ego" is flawless, so props to the CG crew. An added bonus will be watching our commenters doing backflips on the "HOW DARE EGO NOT BE A PLANET" discourse.

This is a wonderfully emotional, compact, largely self-contained, focused MCU film with very little flab and awesome cameos and easter eggs. Go see. Please.

Joe Glass – 8.5 / 10
Easily one of the better Marvel films, again because it focuses on the characters and character arcs over the simple spectacle of the overarching plot. With a Stan Lee cameo that could easily be the most brilliant send off of it turned out to be his last one, and with the show quite possibly being stolen by Drax and Mantis, this film has the big silly spectacle but also a lot of heart.

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