Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 and 2

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 is not the greatest superhero movie ever made but it is my favorite superhero movie.

Briefly: The best superhero movie ever made is Spider-man 2 (the Sam Raimi one with Doc Ock). The most important superhero movie ever made is Joss Whedon’s Avengers.

Vol. 1 goes from a stunning opening where a boy loses his mom and gets kidnapped by aliens immediately into an amusing heist with a dancing hero (Star-lord mannn) and then breezes through a fun plot about buncha losers who find they have to work together to be their best selves and save millions of lives from a racist villain.

Rhomann Dey: They call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Denarian Saal: What a bunch of a-holes.

Guardians of the Galaxy

It toes the line between comedy and action and drama so effortlessly and with so much joy that you never come down from that initial high.

In comics, a team of castoffs and losers was old hat, but at the movies, the A-list still ruled the box office. Despite a wealth of interesting characters DC can never manage to do much more than endless reboots of just Superman and Batman. Meanwhile, which their biggest hit characters licensed out Marvel turned to its other heavy hitters — a super-soldier, a Norse God, and a billionaire scientist with a super-suit.

The Guardians are most definitely none of those things. Instead, they are space criminals and losers and idiots.

It is obvious that Director James Gunn had a lot of affection for Star Wars but to comic fans it’s also clear that Gunn had probably read plenty of comics and specifically the classic J.M. Dematteis, Keith Giffen and Kevin Maguire run of the Justice League. Affectionately known (by me at least) as the Bwah ha ha era.

In that run most of the heavy hitters couldn’t join the Justice League and so the premier super team in DC comics was made up of second-string characters (I like Booster Gold but he ain’t Superman) and although there was plenty of super action there was also a ton of comedy.

Gunn, who took over the project that was begun by screenwriter and director Nicole Perlman, pulls this off and manages to hit the notes needed for the overarching 10-year-long Infinity Saga plot.

Both movies also find their groove through the use of pop music. And, no offense to anyone, but most of it is second-tier pop music. Gunn’s ability to find just the right song for just the right moment is up there with two other great directors, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese.

It’s still a movie that ends with a dance-off. It’s still a movie that doesn’t quite make sense of Starlord’s relationship with his kidnapper. Gunn hints at it and then makes it the central theme of Vol. 2.

Yondu: He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn’t your daddy.

Guardians of the Galxy Vol. 2

It is not perfect. But it is as close to perfect as most any movie ever gets.

Vol. 2 is the rare sequel that is on par with the original. It doesn’t surpass the original. The second bite at the apple is rarely as good as the first. But it is nearly equal to Vol. 1.

If Baby Groot dancing between the life and death battle his adoptive family faces doesn’t fill your heart then I wish you joy in your future endeavors and regret to inform you that we cannot be friends.

The sequel expands a stacked cast with bright spots by adding another ally in Mantis and turning Nebula into a reluctant part of the family.

The movie drags a bit (though not much) and I giggle every time I watch the scene where Ego takes the song Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl) and uses it to hammer home the plot of the movie he’s starring in. It is not subtle.

However, a movie with a talking trash panda, two alien assassins, an empath who looks like a bug, a sentient tree, and a muscle-bound warrior who can only understand literal phrases probably left subtle a long time ago.

As I write this I am a couple hours away from seeing Vol. 3.

We’ve been on a 10-year journey with this crew with these two movies, last year’s Holiday Special, and their appearances in Infinity War and Endgame.

And with Gunn taking over the film and television division of DC this is most likely the closing chapter for both the Guardians and Gunn’s involvement with the MCU.

Every great story needs a final chapter and in the movies when you hit the third one it’s usually a fine time to turn out the stage lights.

We don’t know what tomorrow holds but we can be certain that this was a great ride. All the way from the opening notes to (hopefully) the final stanza.