REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

When Guardians of the Galaxy came out in 2014, I originally thought it was one of the dumbest looking things out there, and just an overall dumb idea. I was thankfully very much proven wrong, because the Guardians easily have become my favorite aspect of all marvel right now. And when I heard the sequel was on its way? You can bet I was ecstatic. More awesome space action, big laughter, and awesome music? Yes please! And... well the sequel is fun. Is it as good as its predecessor? Probably not, but I guess that's to be expected nowadays. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 provides a gun enough story but honestly, it feels slightly bloated, and a bit of a small mess.

When I first saw Guardians of the Galaxy I  2014, I'd not seen anything Marvel in years. Not since Iron Man. And when I saw it, it was a followable story without me needing to know ANYTHING about Marvel. It did a good job telling its story, introducing and developing its characters, and it didn't need to unload all this information that I would have had to see the other movies to understand. This movie? Honestly it's a bit of a mess in that retrospect. And I think that comes from the fact that there are just so many characters they're trying to flesh out in this movie. New and old. The film does do a good job in developing these characters out, and developing their relationships with one another... but honestly that's all it kinda does right, because the story seems to go all over the place.

The story's main focus is of course Peter Quill's father being revealed and how they bond, and again the relationship they develop is rally believable and well done, but they also throw in this Raveger subplot which is barely touched throughout the film, these high priestess aliens that are absolutely forgettable (and it doesn't help that it seems they'll be back), and....(sigh).... baby Groot.

Who thought this would be a good idea? Let me take a step back here, because thankfully, Baby Groot doesn't take center stage so much of the film. He's not exactly the biggest focus. But when he IS, it can be very annoying. The opening sequence of the movie, we see the Guardians battling this big alien monster for some compensation, but instead of actually showing us that battle.... Baby Groot is the focus of the screen as he dances to the usual 1970's classic pop/rock. An obvious callback to the first film. I don't know why. It wasn't that funny then, and it's certainly not funny now. Seriously, no one was laughing in the theater at this part. And it goes on for quite a while too. It got stupidly annoying. And honestly, so did Groot. How did one of the most badass characters of the first film stoop like this? He has a few good moments, but everything that made him a genuine awesome character last film is gone here. "Travis, it's because he's a baby!" Yeah. And it was a bad move. What would you rather watch, Groot impaling multiple enemies through the chest with his arm, flinging them around a hallway, or a mini groot that is very much just eye candy, and takes out ONE single bad guy in this movie? In a Marvel movie, what do you think I'm gonna choose???

Sorry, I had to get Baby Groot out of my system. He's easily my biggest problem with this movie.

If you want some other criticism, I don't exactly care for the jubilee of CGI used either. I'm not gonna pretend that Marvel movies know when enough is enough in CGI, but when you have sequences that serve little more than to seemingly pad out the runtime and do their best to get a giggle from the viewer, I will dock points. There's a sequence I  which Rocket and Yondu need to make a jump through space, and the sequence involves the distortion of their faces, and... It looks like it came straight out of the late 90's. If that's not enough, some of the landscapes and environments don't exactly wow me either. There's just not a lot to convince me that their world is real. Too much CGI... and this is coming from a guy who doesn't often complain of the overuse of CGI...

And finally, though it's growing on me, on be of the biggest aspects of this film kinda fell short for me. The soundtrack. I wasn't alone in 2014 when I praised the selection of pop and classic rock showcase on that wonderful little cassette tape. It showcased quite a bit of fun stuff, from David Bowie, to Norman Greenbaum, to the Runaways, to 10cc. It's a wonderful soundtrack. And while this film's soundtrack is charming in its own ways, it does kinda fall short for me. I had quite a wishlist of artists I'd hoped to see featured, and not one of them was featured. (For the record I'm not saying this soundtrack sucks because nothing I hoped would be on there made it, I'm saying I had a big list of potentials,  and nothing made it to my surprise honestly) The music is still fun to listen to, with nice hits from Fleetwood Mac, Electric Light Orchestra, and George Harrison, among others, but there are songs I feel may have been misselected. Even the stuff I wasn't familiar with in the last film's soundtrack managed to impress me. I'm not really getting that same feeling here. Again, it is growing on me, and it is not at all a bad soundtrack, it just lacks the magic I feel of the first one.

Truthfully, I know I've been a bit critical in this review, and yes, I stand by that criticism, but this film is still a lot of fun. It does what the first film does in pushing that limit of fully embracing the fact that it is indeed a comic book movie. The humor can vey much revolve around that. In 2014, when I saw Guardians, I said it was about as literal a comic book movie as one could get, and that feeling is still there. There is very funny, unexpected humor (even if a lot of the humor centers on Baby Groot, and penis jokes.... yeah that was a thing). The action is tons of fun. From the fun space combat to the gunfights on the ground. And I will say that the big climax at the end of the film? It's great. They say that Marvel suffers from bad villains. I think they hit the target here.

But of course, I think this film's biggest strength is it's character development. The relationship between characters of the last film incredibly fleshed out. I found myself rooting for characters I never thought I'd root for. And even if a lot of these characters just let out as bunch of expositional backstories at times, I really did connect with all of them at one point or another. The film did get emotional on more than one occasion, and it does hey me very much excited to see what's coming in the future of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and it gets me excited for the next Avengers film. Here's hoping it delivers.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 earns a high three star rating out of four for me. The story is jumbled, but it is held up with the fun I've come to expect from both Marvel movies, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Would the solid story have been appreciated? Absolutely. Should some of the bloated sequences here have been cut? Sure. I mean... There's like five post credit scenes that barely do anything for any future story, except maybe one. But it's held up, it's fun, and I guess I couldn't ask for anything else. I will say my expectations for the third film that's been announced well be higher, even if the magic of the first film may not be able to be caught again, but I will expect more than what I got here. Don't get me wrong. This is a fun movie, but it does suffer the common problems of most sequels. And with some of these problems seemingly fixable, I will say I hope next time, we will get a bit more magic than what we got here.

Feel free to request a film you'd like me to view I  the near future. Leave a comment down below, expressing your own thoughts on the film, and as always, thanks for reading.

Final Verdict: 3/4

REVIEW: The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven is the definition of a remake that nobody asked for. Like...no one. Did anyone my age even know about this movie? For Those who don't know, The Magnificent Seven is a remake of the classic 1960 western of the same name. And that is a remake adaptation of the epic classic 1954 Japanese masterpiece "Seven Samurai". So really...this is a remake of a remake! And people think endless sequels are a sign that Hollywood is out of ideas. Okay enough jokes, Magnificent Seven is the remake about seven gunslingers who protect a village from a large gang of bandits. It was a classic western back in the day, and it's back. How does it hold up?

Not very well. Right off the bat, this film not only does little justice to the original classic (if any at all), but just makes you rub your head in frustration as every cliché in the book is thrown at you amidst nonstop gunfire, explosions, and cheesy unamusing one liners.  If you're going into this theater, hoping for a good retelling of the classic, then you're going to be sorely disappointed. Look, I'm not gonna pretend that the original 1960 film is perfect, because it's not. Seven Samurai is the superior fillm, but it was still very well done, and did justice to the film it was adapting.  This?  This is pitiful. The story is replaced by over-the-top action that is all show, no impress. Chunks of this incredible story, have been taken out of this story, where they now rest in oblivion. 

Okay, before I unleash myself on this film, let me say what I liked. The first thing that immediately comes to mind is the diversity of the characters. This I like. In the original, the main characters were all your typical cowboy gunsliging heros, who defend a village against a bunch of bandits. And they're all white. Here, the cast is more diverse. The lead is black, one's a Mexican outlaw, one's a Chinese immigrant, they even put in a Native American. This would all be really cool, if they were developed properly. But unfortunately, they don't take advantage of this diverse lineup. They don't get risky with it.  You'd think that racial issues would come into play here, but they don't. Not one n-word, not one issue regarding discrimination. Nothing. I can think of one stupid racial stereotype joke that Chris Pratt does with the Mexican. And the Native American kinda trashtalks "white-man's food".  Beans. How barbaric.  The original lineup isn't as diverse, but they're much better developed, and you actually connect with them. This movie attempts to try to have us feel for these guys, as they laugh with one another and give us an idea of "bonding" but each character is so unbelievably one-dimensional that by the time the end rolls around and characters start dying (spoiler alert), you just don't care. 

Another thing I kinda liked was the setting. There are some very cool landscape shots in this film, but it needs to be said that the settings of the towns seem rather underdeveloped in more ways than one. I feel like the city's size changed more than once.  And it does need to be said that the ending shot is completely CGI, and it stands out...SO BAD. I don't often complain about bad CGI, but with something like this shot, you'd expect them to nail it.  It wasn't anything complex, it was just four graves. And it looked so unbelievably fake.

This being an adaptation, I was ready to see some changes, but I feel a lot of the changes made, either hurt the film, or don't make sense. While the original antagonist wasn't exactly memorable, he was certainly intimidating, and you could see his motives.  The antagonist here is so unbelievably one-sided evil, that it's annoying. He does things because....he's evil. His motives? GOLD! (Facepalm) The original antagonist is written as the leader of gang who conducts annual raids on a village for their food and crops, which effectivly starves the village to the point of them searching for outside help.  This guy just rolls in, says he's driving everyone out because mining, murders a bunch of people and we're supposed to care. The movie falls on its face right there. I could call so many shots with this antagonist that it became a game for me. As a matter of fact, this whole movie became a game for me. There is so much predictability in its clichés, that it's hard not to see things coming honestly. Even out and out guesses on my part came true.  There are so many clichés that come into play here, it's almost laughable. You got the one hero who decides to leave, only to heroicly come back, you have a tough woman character who no one seems to give a chance, despite the fact that she can shoot better than ANY of the other guys in the village, you get bland dialogue, generic storytelling...it's just painful.

One thing that I absolutely hated about this movie however was the fact that the mortality of our characters seems so unbelievably absent. The action is over-the-top in all the wrong ways. I hate continuously bringing up the original film, but the Magnificent Seven did a good job of portraying the characters as humans with limits.  And yeah, none of them died until the end, but not one of them reached Clint Eastwood levels of quickdraw. Here?  Everyone is unloading their pistol in seconds, dead on accuracy, never missing. In fact, the ONLY reason any of them die is because the bad guys brought in a gatling gun. Hey that wasn't in the original film. Good job new film for bringing in your own touch...just to kill off the heroes because none of the other bandits are any good with their guns apparently. That or when they do hit their target with the guns, everyone soaks up bullets like BBs. Chris Pratt's character gets shot like five or six times.  And even THAT doesn't kill him. Heck, they rip off straight from Lord of the Rings as one of our characters gets the Borimir treatment. 

My final big issue with this film is the fact that the story seems much shorter in the wrong way. THe original film shows an ongoing struggle against a group of bandits that remain a threat.  Here, it's more like a one-off shoot-em up. The protagonist and antagonist exchange no words at all until the fighting is pretty much done, the battle drags on a long time, to the point where it's kinda boring actually, and when the hero and villain finally do meet and begin to talk, we get backstory that was never hinted at beforehand, and by the time it comes around, you just don't care.  You're just counting the seconds until the credits roll, and you can go home. We don't get the famous ending in which the heroes realize that they themselves didn't win, the villagers won. They just ride off into the sunset, no questions asked, the end. Roll credits, play the original Magnificent Seven theme, because it's the only song on this soundtrack worth a damn, and this movie didn't deserve to use this theme.  Much respect to James Horner, but this was no masterpiece score. This movie amounts to nothing more than a cheap excuse to bring an old classic back onto the big screen, only pack it full of action that you just can't get into.

The Magnificent Seven earns a one star rating out of four. It didn't infuriate me enough to score it any lower, but I continuously called the shot, continuously rubbed my face in annoyance, and continuously wanted to just turn my phone on and see if anything interesting was going on in the world. Because this movie certainly wasn't keeping my interest. And I'm sorry for that.  I was curious about this film.  I liked the cast for the most part, and I liked the idea of the characters being as diverse as they were, but they aren't focused on, aren't developed, and it doesn't hold up. It's an action packed mess that doesn't deserve the name it bears.  Do yourself a favor, and go find the original 1960 classic. Or do an even bigger favor, and find the 1954 Japanese masterpiece.  It's three hours of your life that still holds up.  If you find either of these films, I've won my battle, and you will have won too.  Just stay away from this.

Please feel free to request any film you'd like me to review.  Leave a comment down below expressing your own thoughts on the film, and as always, thanks for reading.

Final Verdict: 1/4