Checked it out last night at an 11:00 PM screening!
Overall I really liked it. Much more than the first. It's not perfect, but I gotta be pretty picky to find the faults.
RANDOM THOUGHTS! (Spoilers?)
The Good:
- De-aging on Kurt Russell, or however they did it, was GREAT.
- I love ELO Mr Blue Sky, so that being the title sequence song was a big win. And my favorite Buffy episode is "The Zeppo" so seeing Groot get his "The Zeppo" moment and just dance away while the chaos happens behind him was great. Pandering, but great. I smiled the whole time.
- People say this is jokier than the first. I disagree. I think they each have the same amount of jokes, these just landed better.
- It's DIALOGUE PORN. I loved the conversations.
- It made me like Yondu. I didn't care for him in the first, here he was MAYBE my favorite thing.
- Never mind Drax is my favorite thing. Every line landed. His insensitivity to Mantis' looks were hilarious.
- Mantis is WAY better than I thought she would be. Cute to boot.
- The bet over Mantis antennae was great "If it's to not get decapitated he wins, anything else I win" (Paraphrasing)
- Loved the sister "C Story". Actually really liked Gamorra (sp?) this time around. Nebula is a great LOOKING character, design wise, but not sure I actually like her that much. Still looks like Rachel Leia Cook to me (good thing)
- I love the idea of a god planet as the villain. Way more interesting than blue light beams again. *cough* Dark Tower *cough*
- Totally got sucked into the emotional moments.
- Speaking of emotional... love that the second Kurt Russell said he put a tumor in Quill's mother's head, all need for a father was gone and Quill just shot him up to hell.
- Is Yondu's whistle arrow one of the great, original weapons of the last few decades? Such a neat idea.
- Ravager slaughter was great. Putting on tunes to murder them too
- Sean Gunn.... GREAT! I actually quite like Gilmore Girls, so seeing him in this flick in this capacity was great.
- Such a great looking film. Much better design than the first.
- The funeral and Sean Gunn's reaction... nailed.
Anyway I could go on and on... It's just a really fun movie.
The Not so Good:
There isn't a LOT to complain about... but here goes...
- Drax didn't actually fight... did he? In the first battle he did, though to no effect, the rest he just sort of threw out jokes (not a bad thing)
- A little too crazy with the 500 CG ships buzzing around, firing everywhere. Who can follow that? It seems to happen a lot lately, and in both Guardian movies (Star Trek Beyond had this issue as well)
- Some expositional dialogue was a little clunky.
- I thought the whole "gun that magically repairs ships" was a weird decision.
- After watching them jump through star systems, and crash on a planet with Drax hanging from the back with Gamora hanging on to him, and surviving, I didn't really feel like either of them were capable of being killed. Kind of kills any tension.
Final thought!
THAT'S A TEAM!
This movie shows exactly what's wrong with Rogue One. THIS is a team. This is (was) a diverse group of different species, genders fighting together against an enemy and genuinely feel like they've become a team. I mean they too had to find a weakness in a killer planet, and I cared about each of them and felt like they actually cared about each other.
Even when the first flick ended you felt like "yeah... these guys will still hang out together" and so you buy it when they're fighting again as a team to stop a battery eating alien. When Rocket shows Drax that he too stole batteries, and Drax laughs, you buy that they enjoy each other's antics.
Now think about Jyn Von No-smile, and Cassian Mc Snear-face and imagine them having adventures together in a world where everyone survived Rogue One. They're not going to jump in a ship with the boring gun-toting guy and the stick wielding non-Jedi. They would probably never talk to Goggles again.
The Guardians were in a serious situation, with real stakes, but still felt fun.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 made me actually think, "yeah... maybe 30 years from now there will be adults who look at this flick as their Star Wars".