Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

[Henry88]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel17a.htm
$167,000,000

well it is off to a great start

[Dr Kain]

With 15 movies on its belt and counting, is there anything else left for Marvel to tell in their cinematic universe? Is Guardians of the Galaxy 2 as interesting and unique as its predecessor? Or is it just another mindless sequel cashing in on its namesake? Watch to find out.

[lhb412]

I'm glad I avoided spoilers/reviews/the various new trailers and TV spots and clips that invariable pop up in the weeks before release.

[Dr Kain]

[Henry88]

$431,548,346
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel17a.htm

looks like this will be a 1B movie.

[canofhumdingers]

I saw this yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt like a relativelay "safe" film yet also managed to do some things I wasn't expecting at all. And despite feeling "safe" it was still incredibly entertaining. It owes a great deal of that success to its incredibly likeable cast and hilarious writers. As I read somewhere, you could make a movie of this group just hanging out together for two hours and it would still be tons of fun. In fact, many of the best scenes kinda are just that... the characters hanging out together without any major action or huge plot points occurring. But there's also some real, fairly hard hitting character development. The movie wasn't afraid to be as emotional as it was funny, but those tender moments really worked because you cared so much for the characters.

I do think the third act got bogged down in itself a bit but just as I was starting to get antsy, it moved on to some more powerful character moments.

I think I might actually say this was better than the first, though the first has a better climax and probably a better third act over all. Either way, they're both awesome and this was a very satisfying sequel.

[jellydonut25]

This is the most positive I've felt about a Marvel movie after my first viewing since....Avengers 1? Part of that blame lies on me for building Winter Soldier up in my head too much and feeling like I wasn't quite seeing what everyone else was, but a lot of it lies at the feet of Marvel for falling into safe formulas and hammering square pegs into round holes. Are some of those elements present here? Absolutely. The jokey elements are pushed at least a half step too far on quite a few occasions (I feel like almost every Marvel movie violates the rule of like, "treat the serious things seriously, even if you have a lot of jokes"), the finale is pretty much MARVEL (swirling CGI, bunch of drones/nameless faceless villains, main villain whose plan is somewhat nebulous), and I guess I'm the only person who feels this way but can we please do SOMETHING about Karen Gillan as Nebula? She's awful.

However, a lot of these flaws can be forgiven. The third act might be full of weightless CGI, but in a fairly rare occurrence for a Marvel movie, the main fight between the hero and villain feels personal, and like there's something more than JUST the stakes of "people dying" due to the plot put on it. It's a more intimate thing in that way.
The jokeyness at the expense of supposedly serious antagonists is more forgivable because of who the Guardians are and the 'world' they live in. I still cringed at the "rolling out the carpet" moment and I thought the Pac-Man thing was fun in the moment but lame the more I think about it.
And Gillan? Well, she's not in it too much, so I guess there's that.

Stripping the plot down and simplifying it works in a movie like this, where it's just a straight sequel (what a breath of fresh air in the MCU, btw), and you've got more or less a true ensemble cast. Just let the characters interact with and play with their world, and as long as the plot doesn't have any gaping holes (none that I saw here!) everything else will fall into place. Rocket remains my favorite of the bunch, but Drax is great, and I found Gomora a lot better in this outing, and Zoe Saldana's performance especially is improved (for me). Also, I can't stress enough how much I liked the ending. I don't know if we've had a Marvel movie as willing to have an ending like this. The 'world' of the Guardians is the only one in the entire MCU where actions seem to have real consequences. Yeah, Groot is still "alive" but it's a different character basically, and there's a real consequence felt from the fallout of his sacrifice. And then things in this movie that happen, and some of the character beats (especially with Drax, Rocket and Yandu)...first Marvel movie to make me FEEL something on an actual emotional level, I think at all.

Solid 4/5 for me, and as of right now, probably only behind Kong and Logan on the year for me.

[O.Supreme]

Saw this last night at the urging of my wife. I am a bit in crisis mode right now having to move on short notice, I tend to go into "no fun" mode until the task is done, but she insisted that we go. It was a nice little escape for a couple of hours. It felt overall like a much smaller scale story than the first one. I know a lot of people like the more intimate settings with fewer characters, but I can take it either way. It was a much more emotional film than the first that's for sure. Also I'm not too big a fan of the more casual cursing coming up in Marvel films, but I guess that's just the parent in me. I also at the Pac-Man moment.

Overall the film was pretty good. It will no doubt be an early Blu-Ray purchase when it becomes available, not sure how I'd ranking it against the first Guardians, or the rest of the MCU...that will take some time to determine. Also I know all along in the MCU changes have been made to certain characters. Some I like, some I dislike, and some I don't really care about. Ego bothered me a little. I guess I always go back to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_the_Living_Planet . When I think of Ego. Sure we did get one "planet face" shot in the film, and the last 20 minuets or so was Ego doing what I would expect and saw in Marvel Comics past, but I guess to make him relate able, they had to do the whole "humanization" thing. I'm just worried how all this will effect Marvel in the future. The comics are now influenced by the films. How long before the comics retcon Peter Quill's origin to have Ego as his father rather than J'Son of Spartax? I know its all fiction and I really shouldn't care and maybe in time I wont, its just bothering me now.

Oh also, did anyone else get the feeling that the remote piloting of the sovereign ships was somehow shoehorned in? I remember a story that was online a while back that stated Guardians had the most on-screen deaths in movie history (referring to the tens of thousands of Nova Corps ships) even though this was silly and baseless and had been done in many sci-fi space movies over time, it seemed kind of like a jab/response to such ridiculous journalism. ---And I really want to see the Avengers response to a giant blue blob popping up out of nowhere in Alabama . Of course they may make mention of it on Agents of SHIELD in which case Ill miss it because I stopped watching last year.

Also if anyone wants t see a cool Ego Story from Marvel Cartoons past I highly recommend this F4 episode. It includes Thor, Galactus, and has a very similiar ending to Guardians 2.

[Henry88]

$630,564,419
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel17a.htm

money money money by the pound.

[mr.negativity]

[lhb412]

I thought the 'video game' gag with the Sovereign was fun. It fit in with the overall joke that they're supposedly perfect but are really just childish.

[jellydonut25]

I didn't care for it because of what I think was my biggest complaint about the movie (a movie I still really liked): NOTHING is taken seriously. You should always treat your antagonists as serious, even if you're a jokey movie. It's mostly forgivable here, but I didn't love the stuff that really undermined the Sovereign.

[O.Supreme]

I was a bit tired when I wrote my initial comments...I completely forgot to mention I did enjoy the cameo of Stallone and the references to the original GotG. was also pretty spectacular as well, caught me off guard and got me a little misty eyed.

[lhb412]

https://twitter.com/deer_antelope/statu ... 5826099201

Since Ultraman and James Gunn are friends howsabout putting him in Guardians Vol. 3?

[Benjamin Haines]

This movie was impressively good, even better than the first I'd say. It has the advantage of most of the characters already being developed but it's also a relatively smaller-scale story than the first film with a lot more emotion and meaning behind it. It avoids rehashing its predecessor while taking the characters forward in bold ways, and the end-credit scenes lay the groundwork for Vol. 3 really elegantly. This is definitely a top-tier MCU entry.

[mr.negativity]

Production Budget: $200 million
In Release: 28 days / 4 weeks
Domestic Total as of Jun. 1, 2017: $345,741,332
Foreign: $454,700,000
Worldwide: $800,441,332

[Benjamin Haines]

It's the first MCU movie to top $800 million at the global box office without featuring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man.

[tbeasley]

Long story short - I quite liked it.

[Benjamin Haines]

This is now a thing:

[O.Supreme]

I had seen that listed on the soundtrack....never thought there would be a video to go with it...I have to say, they nailed the 70's look, but it gives me that same uncomfortable feeling like watching the SW Holiday special.

[Benjamin Haines]

It's delightful! They managed to get most of the main on-screen cast in there too (no Kurt Russell, Bradley Cooper or Vin Diesel) plus a couple surprises!

Mostly it reminds me of Earth, Wind & Fire music videos.

[The Shadow]

The "Guardians Inferno" video gets a lot of things right: it sounds good, the video replicates the 70s video effects well, and most of the costumes seem like a good match, but some of the costume work and some of the dancing shift into 'let's be goofy' territory and away from homage and I think that spoils the overall work a mite.

To compare, I think that "The Night Begins To Shine" from Teen Titans Go! is a superior overall homage work (in its case 80s music & album art). I I find it kind of odd to say that TTG! has a better homage musical number considering the show created as a comedy first and foremost. Here's CN's video from when the song first ran on the show, TTG! just finished a 4-parter featuring the song if you're interested in seeing the most recent version [link for most recent version: https://youtu.be/vriYd6tVq1s] :

Initial Youtube music video by CN:

[mr.negativity]

[jellydonut25]

Holy crap.

[Jinzo Ningen]

I feel like I just got kicked in the stomach.

It infuriates me that everyone is so frickin' PC-sensitive anymore that stuff someone said (or wrote, etc.) forever ago is used to cut them down and, rather than stand behind someone who has made them a kaiju-sized pile of money, the scaredy cats at the house of mouse just about face and drop him like a hot potato. Wow. Just... wow.

My anticipation for Vol.3 just fell through the floor.