Weekend Watch - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the third (and final?) installment in the quirky trilogy of films following the interstellar band of misfit heroes within the MCU. This film sees the return of Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Sean Gunn, and the vocal talents of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel in their respective roles in the franchise, joined this time by Will Poulter as the superpowered Adam Warlock, Chukwudi Iwuji as the diabolical High Evolutionary, Elizabeth Debicki reprising her role as Ayesha the Sovereign High Priestess, and the voice of Maria Bakalova as the Cosmo the (telekinetic) Space Dog. The film hit theaters this weekend to some mixed-positive critic reviews and overwhelming love from audiences. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A-; the threequel can’t outshine the originality of the trilogy’s first film, but it makes enough fresh decisions while staying true to the formula that it remains a great watch.

Should you Watch This Film? Yes, but there’s a caveat. This is a much darker PG-13 than Marvel usually goes with – I would recommend giving this a screening before going with kids under ten because of how specifically dark it goes with exploring Rocket’s backstory.

Why?

                I’ll be the first to admit that I tend to be a little bit higher on Marvel releases than a lot of people, but I really think this is one that won’t be too against the grain. The issues of bloating and excessive interconnectivity are notably gone from this installment of the MCU, allowing the film to focus the entirety of its story on the development of its own characters and giving them satisfying conclusions to their character arcs. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 delivers an excellent conclusion for its players with plenty of wacky hijinks and fun music cues to excuse its darker deviations, particularly thanks to the excellent work of Chukwudi Iwuji in the role of the villainous High Evolutionary.

                The story of Guardians 3 focuses on Rocket’s backstory, establishing his connection to the High Evolutionary while also giving the team the motivation they need to take on the embodiment of science without ethics. For the most part, this feels like a return to the trilogy’s roots, featuring ill-advised heist attempts motivated by personal choices that then puts the Guardians in a spot to save many more people than just themselves. While familiar, the lovable characters at its heart, the despicable villain on the other side, and the originality of the settings help keep the film from ever feeling overdone or derivative. Within this story are a few flashbacks that provide some insight into the plans of the High Evolutionary and Rocket’s development into the character he was at the start of the trilogy that feature some pretty intense emotional moments regarding violence against animals that might keep some viewers from fully embracing the film.

                That villainy in the backstory and his continued performance in the present helps make Iwuji’s High Evolutionary one of the best in the MCU. His stakes aren’t quite as high as some might want from a film about the Guardians of the GALAXY – focusing mainly on reclaiming his lost property (Rocket’s brain) and the fact that he’s just a bad guy – but Iwuji fully goes for it and elevates the character to true villainous greatness. Marvel has had a run of “good” villains in the midst of their somewhat middling run of Phase 4 – Namor in the overstuffed Wakanda Forever, Gorr in the overly light Love and Thunder, Scarlet Witch in the story-light Multiverse of Madness, and even Green Goblin and Xu Wenwu in the fairly solid films No Way Home and Shang-Chi respectively – but they’ve all shared the same trait, choosing redemption to bring about their defeat. Marvel went with the Doc Oc formula from Spider-Man 2, and it worked for their villains, just not their stories. Iwuji’s Evolutionary is just really and truly evil, not twisted by any tragic backstory, just a bad dude with a lot of power who uses it to do unethical things, and Iwuji plays him excellently. This is not the generic “bad guy” of Guardians 1 or the chipper god/dad/planet of Guardians 2; the High Evolutionary is the answer to the question, “What if Victor Frankenstein had the future technology and the powers of a god?” and that answer is a terrifying blend of mania, ego, genius, and cruelty. This is a villain that you will absolutely love to hate in the best way.

                With such a great villain, the Guardians have an easy job of making the rest of the film memorable and enjoyable, with each getting their time to shine. Zoe Saladana’s new Gamora has to find her place in the galaxy following her five-year jump into the future, and she does so in a surprisingly impactful way. Groot gets to feature in some truly creative action set pieces that allow him to shine in brilliantly creative ways. Pom Klementieff’s Mantis gets to show off her own emotions and some real fighting skills as she truly finds her footing as an individual in this film. Dave Bautista’s Drax gets to actually show off his more tender side, still serving in many ways as the film’s comic relief, but with a more emotional impact than even his quest for vengeance in the first film. Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill finally gets to come to terms with his obligations to Earth while also processing the grief of his lost love and general relationships with women in a deeply positive way. Karen Gillan’s Nebula might be the true anchor of the film, reminding the Guardians of their roles while forging her own ties with the team separate from her estranged sister. Obviously, Rocket is the centerpiece of the film, and Cooper’s voice acting really lends a lot to the emotional beats of the film, and his story is brought to full fruition by the film’s end.

                With its weakest links being Poulter’s Adam Warlock and an inability to fully live up to the expectations set by the first Guardians film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 still manages to stand solidly on its own thanks to the trilogy’s best villain and satisfying ends to its characters’ story arcs. Some of its darker aspects make this a film to screen before showing your younger kids who might otherwise love the MCU films, but it really is a refreshing return to form for the franchise, and I’m excited for the future again. Check this one out in theaters when you get the chance.

Weekend Watch - Avatar: The Way of Water

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week, we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is James Cameron’s latest blockbuster hit, Avatar: The Way of Water, the thirteen-years-removed sequel to the highest grossing film of all time Avatar (2009). This film picks up a little bit more than thirteen years after the original, following main characters Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his mate (wife) Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) as they once again have to deal with people from Earth infringing upon the natural world of Pandora, this time with the help of their four children who have been born since the last film. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+; a lot of the issues (story) of the first film are greatly improved upon, but new flaws keep it from being an A-level feature.

Should you Watch This Film? Begrudgingly, yeah. If you have a friend with a great sound system and massive TV (or if you are that friend), you can wait for this one to hit Disney+ next year; otherwise, there’s enough here to make it worth seeing in theaters.

Why?

                Avatar: The Way of Water delivers on a lot of the hype surrounding the long-awaited sequel. The visuals and sound are gorgeously designed – accomplishing things that I’m sure James Cameron only dreamed of back in 2009. The story improves on the weaknesses of first by providing more personal character motivations and characters that feel a little bit more than just archetypes (sometimes). The action is amped up and feels more visceral, providing even more engaging set pieces than the first as well. Though not without flaws of its own, The Way of Water provides what you want from a blockbuster and leaves you thrilled with your theatrical experience. I’m not going to do a deep dive on the visuals and sound because other people can communicate the whys and whats way better than I can, but suffice it to say that this movie feels great in the theater.

                I think that I can (guardedly) say that people might actually remember a couple of more characters from this film than the first. The story inserts Jake’s and Neytiri’s children (Neteyam, Lo’ak, Kiri, Tuk, and sometimes Spider) to the unfolding saga of Pandora in a way that endears the film to audiences far beyond the first. Though Sam Worthington still can’t decide whether he’s American or Australian, giving Jake Sully children with individual personalities and character arcs helps make him a character worth caring about, though I can’t help but also notice that Neytiri does fall a bit to the background in this one and feels more like a tertiary character to her husband and children with even less of a character arc than the film’s villain.

                When I first heard that Avatar (2009) was getting a sequel, my first thoughts were “Why?” and then “How?”, since the first film feels so self-contained. For the most part, The Way of Water carries on in this fashion, containing a simple (if overly stretched) story of its own with a beginning, middle, and end. In this film’s case, however, we know that a sequel is coming in two years and, looking at some of the film’s less fleshed out details, that anticipation becomes immediately apparent. Part of what makes this sequel so overly long are character details and story points that feel completely irrelevant to this film’s story but that I am sure will come into play in the third, fourth, and fifth films. Kiri, in particular, felt like an annoyingly extra character (not just because de-aged, animated Sigourney Weaver strays a little too far into the uncanny valley for my taste), filling the role of weird, but make it quirky, daughter whose backstory is just that of Jesus or Anakin Skywalker. I’m sure Cameron has great plans for her (and also for Edie Falco’s character whose name I’ve already forgotten), but they do more to fill out the film’s overlong runtime than be legitimately engaging in their own right.

                Suffering from some all-too-familiar issues of overcrowding and a continued obsession with Papyrus font, Avatar: The Way of Water provides an imperfect, but superior, sequel to the original blockbuster with excellent effects and improved characters that have me mildly optimistic about the future of the PCU (Pandora Cinematic Universe), or whatever it is they’re calling this. If you have the time to see it in theaters, it’ll be worth your time. If you can’t, try to find somebody with a great television set-up to catch it on streaming in the spring (or sooner, who knows what these release schedules are).