Well, critic impressions so far are quite positive. It’s… more of what James Gunn did before, which is either something you’re tired of, or something you’re happy with.
I, personally, am content to get a consistent conclusion after all the cast and crew went through.
I want to be excited about this, but volume 2 and the holiday special both left a lot to be desired. It doesnt help that the whole of Marvel these days ends up being mostly disappointing. Truth be told, I would be just fine if they stopped making comic book movies for a while. The golden age of CBM films has come and gone. For me, the last great Marvel film was Infinity Wars. Oh well.
I want to be excited about this, but volume 2 and the holiday special both left a lot to be desired. It doesnt help that the whole of Marvel these days ends up being mostly disappointing. Truth be told, I would be just fine if they stopped making comic book movies for a while. The golden age of CBM films has come and gone. For me, the last great Marvel film was Infinity Wars. Oh well.
In GOTG1 ( it's still my favorite MCU movie ever), Drax was different. He wasn't absurdly stupid to the point of being the butt of a joke, but he was clearly a very unique kind of person and situation. There was an actual character arc there
In GOTG2 and the Holiday Special, he was basically Danny Glover in the last few Lethal Weapon films. Kind of the butt of jokes for the sake of it. Less of a character and more of a caricature.
GOTG1 was mostly about Peter Quill's journey. In GOTG2, there should have been a focus, IMHO, on the rest of the team. Even Gunn's own real life brother got a small redemption arc. Drax got pretty much nothing. Which is kind of a shame, because Bautista is a criminally underrated actor. He's gotten better and better as time goes on.
I love the GOTG franchise and this is one of the few MCU movies I'm looking forward to seeing, but I do hope they all die. All of them. That way they can't be dragged back and run into the mud later on for a cheap cash grab.
In GOTG1 ( it's still my favorite MCU movie ever), Drax was different. He wasn't absurdly stupid to the point of being the butt of a joke, but he was clearly a very unique kind of person and situation. There was an actual character arc there
I'd like to have optimism over Thunderbolts; a sort of Dirty Dozen with questionable frenemies is usually good for a laugh - and mindless action...but time and again, the MCU seems to lose its edge, bogging down in sugary sentiment or lecturing or just plain boring or outright dumbness.
It’s interesting Googling this one, some sites insist it is happening others insist it isn’t and none of the sites seem reputable, but there isn’t a lot of mention of the legal barrier that is Universal.
Still kind of crazy the path we took to get GotG3. Disney firing Gunn, the backlash, the actors going on the warpath, Gunn going to DC, getting The Suicide Squad, getting rehired, doing Peacemaker, going back to Marvel, finishing GotG3, taking over as co-head of DC films…
Fair disclaimer is GOTG1 is my favorite MCU film and my favorite Marvel film. James Gunn only really makes one kind of movie. If you vibe with his humor, style and pacing, then this will be your bag. If not, I don't know what to say, everyone is different. and I respect those alternate viewpoints.
Whatever people think of Gunn, he made people give a damn about a talking tree. And now he's made you give a damn about basically a stuffed animal that talks like George Carlin. Better than the 2nd ( which I felt was compromised because it had to adjust for the rest of the MCU storylines for the Avengers films ) but I wouldn't call it better than the first.
My personal rankings -
GOTG1
CA - TWS
( Blade II - People can argue if the Blade films are MCU films, but I'll see them personally as Marvel films)
CA - TFA
( Blade I)
GOTG3
Thor Ragnarok
GOTG3 moves up the food chain and is IMHO better ( for me) than Thor Ragnarok, which I love almost as much as I hated Love & Thunder. I am not a huge comic guy so I don't know if Adam Warlock here is in line with what hard core comic fans would want out of him. There is heavy fan service in this film. But it's the swan song so I'm OK with that personally. It's not perfect, but you can see the actors want to be here, they are having fun and they also love these characters too.
Would I categorize this as a film worth a trip to the movie theater? ( i.e. like LOTR original trilogy, Matrix, ESB, Interstellar, The Dark Knight, Pulp Fiction, Heat, etc, etc)
For me, the answer is "Yes". But again, I'm biased.
From the industry side, I got some rough casting confirmations for the new Gunn DCEU. If you like the actors in the GOTG universe under Gunn, you'll probably see them again very soon. Basically the same core character themes, just different names and costumes. Whatever some people think of Gunn's releases, internally, lots of people love to work for the guy.
I know I'm in some niche minority, but I thoroughly enjoyed GOTG2 and preferred it to the first GOTG film. My general enthusiasm for MCU films settled many years ago and even mega-juggernauts like Endgame left me only mildly entertained, but GOTG2 really had me at every level. It was one of the few MCU films that kept me engaged, despite various minor problems that all genre films share.
I felt like GOTG2 had a very large scope and gave every character their moment and relevance in the story. It's something Gunn is really good at - creating absolutely mad outsider ensemble pieces where every character, whether secondary or tertiary, has a moment to shine, move to the forefront and play an integral part in the narrative. No throwaway characters or plot moments, GOTG2 was surprisingly tight even through all of its giant arcs of vastness.
I like the way characters such as Nebula moved forward and now Mantis is a prime player - something I never expected to happen when watching the first GOTG film. There's evolution there and an extension of the MCU happening through the GOTG franchise. I suppose this is the end, but it's been an enjoyable ride for the past decade. Gunn deserves a lot of credit for spiking the MCU into new territory with GOTG because it was the first MCU film that settled its origin and propelled its story outside of Earth (proper) and truly expanded the MCU into a fuller wider huge new cosmos.
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