2017 Marvel Wrap Up (Part 3: Thor Ragnarok)

Thor: Ragnarok Spoilers

So obviously Thor might be the longer spoilers review because it is pretty fresh in my mind. This is also the case because I think it has the biggest impact on the Marvel cinematic universe despite being a pretty self contained Thor story.

So last time we were in Asgard we discovered that Loki had returned to Asgard and was impersonating Odin. Well at the beginning of Ragnarok, Thor returns to Asgard and exposes Loki. This is done in a really funny way because you see Loki disguised as Odin watching a play of his "heroic" death. It's great because Anthony Hopkins is acting like Loki impersonating Odin and it's done really really well. If you hadn't watched the previous movie, you could probably still deduce that Loki is the one really ruling Asgard because he's sitting watching a play and eating grapes.

This also leads to probably the best cameo in history as Matt Damon plays an actor playing Loki. And of course because this play is commissioned by Loki himself, he really hams it up and it is a really funny comedy bit at the start of the movie. Sam Neil also plays an actor in the film. I remember Sam Neil being cast in the film but I thought he was going to have a larger role in it. Even when I saw him as an actor in the movie I thought he was going to have a larger part. I was very wrong. Still it was fun to see those two at the beginning for a fun cameo.

The start of the film sends Thor and Loki to New York to find Odin but it also brings them to 177A Bleecker Street, the Mystic Sanctum protected by Doctor Stephen Strange.

Now I have watched Doctor Strange a couple times since my first viewing and I have really become disillusioned to it every time. It's not a bad movie, it just falls into that damned Marvel formula that I am personally getting sick of. And unfortunately, Doctor Strange doesn't really add a whole lot to this movie and could have been written out and nothing would have changed.

This interaction between Thor and Doctor Strange was included in the post credit scene of Doctor Strange and that is the only reason it was included. I doubt Waititi would have kept it. It reminds me of the Ant-man Falcon fight scene in Ant-man, a scene that I really hated because it brought the movie to a screeching halt in order to promote Civil War. Doctor Strange has a similar motivation but I actually didn't hate this scene as much as the Ant-man scene. It was pointless, but it didn't feel like it was promoting anything. It felt like Thor was in New York and ran across another hero in New York. It's a weird balance Marvel has to strike because this would happen in the comics and it makes sense that Thor would run into someone in New York, especially Doctor Strange. However, because Marvel has used that loophole in the past to stop the movie and promote future films I of course was skeptical. Again, it wasn't necessary, but it wasn't bad.

I might talk about this more in a future post but I think that Doctor Strange shouldn't take up a role in the Avengers. I think he should be his own entity that is a force for good, but a more neutral force. I liked how he was kind of the sage character in the beginning and was more of an advice giver as opposed to joining Thor on his mission.

Then you have Odin's death.

So again, 2017 seems to be the year that Marvel is actually killing off some supporting characters and it looks as thought they are not coming back. Odin dies in this film but instead of it being sad for his children Thor and Loki, it is kind of brushed aside. For as big of a character as Odin is, his death was almost a little confusing for me and way too quick for me to really process. Obviously you don't really have time for the emotional response you got from Starlord in Guardians of the Galaxy, but I would have expected more. Also... there was that big reveal that Loki was impersonating Odin at the end of Thor the Dark World and that is resolved in the first 10 minutes of the film. It kind of points towards the reality that the continuity of these films is pretty flawed and Taika Waititi really didn't have any intention of heading down the road that I think Marvel originally set out at the end of The Dark World.

Which is good, but at the same time a little bit confusing. If you look at the scenes from Age of Ultron where they hint at Ragnarok, that version of Ragnarok was going to be a lot different. I would have been really interested in seeing what this version of Ragnarok would have been but it probably would have been similarly as underwhelming as Thor The Dark World was.

The main part purpose of Odin's death is that he was the only one keeping Hela in exile and now that he's dead she can return. There is a little bit of retconning in Odin's character as Hela is actually his first born daughter. She was his "executioner" during his conquest of the 9 realms but when her power became too great he exiled her and now she's back for revenge.

And when she comes back she comes back with a fury.

Remember these three? Yeah they all die kind of horrendous deaths when Hela comes to take over Asgard. Lady Siff (played by Jaime Alexander) doesn't make an appearance in the film and is the only one not horribly murdered by Hela.

I get the feeling that Watiti wanted to kill Siff but since she's the only one of these characters that I actually remembered, I wasn't surprised that she wasn't in this film and will probably either continue her run on television, or show up in a Phase 4 Thor movie and they'll lament over their friends who... I'll be honest I can't remember their names.

And it's worth talking about Hela because I've had some time to really decide if she's as good as people say she is. But first let me be clear, the issues I have with Hela aren't with Cate Blanchett. She's great.

The issues come with how she's utilized. I think people are willing to give her a bit of a pass because Blanchette does give a great performance and she just chews on the scenery the entire time. She's also Thor's sister and for some reason the villains that are related to Thor somehow end up being more liked.

But the main issue is that as much as Hela is a fun character, she's not really utilized correctly in the film and she really only interacts with Karl Urban's character until the very end. I'll talk about Skurge, but my point is that you've got this great actress in Cate Blanchett and you put her in a corner until Thor and Loki, the more entertaining people in the movie come back to Asgard and even then you just have them do a fight scene. They get a little bit of banter but at the end of the day, she's just an obstacle to figure out their personal hero journey. And that's the thing with Marvel films is that they put so much effort into their heroes that their villains get thrown to the wayside.

The reason I was more entertained by Jeff Goldblum's character is because he got more interaction with the main characters. He was a foe longer than Hela was and that interaction was great. Yeah it started with a weird Willy Wonka montage to introduce him... which was weird, but still funny! But at the end of the day I enjoyed The Grandmaster as an antagonist than I did Hela.

Both villains get a pretty vague ending and I'm really grateful for that. These are two incredibly talented actors, I think Marvel would be out of their minds to really kill them off. I don't really have any doubt that Cate Blanchett is coming back. They don't give her an explicit death and while they didn't say conclusively that she's dead at the end of the film, it still is open for her to come back and be the muse for Thanos in Infinity War. And the Grandmaster is seen at the end facing an angry mob but it's more for humor not to insinuate that he is dead.

But on the other hand of things...

What was the point of Karl Urban's character? Like I know Skurge is an actual character but you've got a great actor like Karl Urban and you make him probably one of the most boring characters in the MCU ever? He literally could have not been in this film and it wouldn't have made any bit of a difference.

Also let's talk about Loki in this film.

So in an interview before this movie came out. Taika Waititi said he wanted to make Thor the most interesting character of his own film, something that hadn't happened in previous films. That title always went to Loki. Up until this point, Loki has always been the fan favorite. I was surprised on how much they shit on Loki in this film to the point where his character almost becomes a little bit worthless in the grand scheme of things.

The other thing that kind of worked against this film was the fact that the brother dynamic between these two had already been done to death in previous films but especially in The Dark World. So while there are a couple of allusions to Thor and Loki's relationship, they kind of breeze past their past and by the end of the film, Loki, despite all that he's done, kind of becomes a good guy. The fan girls finally changed him I guess.

I'm impressed that Waititi made Thor the most interesting character but at the same time he really downplayed what made Loki so great. I love Tom Hiddleston and I like his character of Loki but I feel like he should have just died in The Dark World and Ragnarok is a perfect example of why that should have been the case.

The last thing worth talking about is the ending. There's a couple things with this.

First off... well done marketing team. This picture both gets the audience excited for the film, but is strategically edited so to not give away the ending that is Thor loses an eye in this movie. It does not look like he's getting it back either.

But that aside, Thor discovers that the power to defeat Hela was inside him the whole time and he goes all Raiden from Mortal Kombat, shooting lightning from his hands and actually becoming the God of Thunder.

The other thing worth talking about in the ending is the question mark about Bruce Banner and the Hulk. In the film, Bruce Banner turned into The Hulk for two years and mentions that if he turns into the Hulk again, he may not turn back. And then he just does and we kind of blow past the fact that we may never see Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner again.

Now, I think we will because Mark Ruffalo does play a really good Bruce Banner and it would be a shame to never see him again. However, I don't think a lot of people thought of that because of the humor that was incorporated when he turned into the Hulk for the last time. Now I thought it was really funny when he jumped out of the plane all heroic and just flopped on the ground... but that is kind of an example of Marvel not really knowing when to put in a joke and when not to. It was a funny moment, but it actually has very serious consequences for future films. To be honest, I don't think Waititi was really thinking about that though... to be honest this guy is kind of becoming my new hero.

The other example of Marvel not really understanding that time to joke and the time to be serious is the destruction of Asgard.

Besides this scene really only being used for a comedic bit, it does show the being they release that brings the destruction of Thor's home Asgard. A world we have come to known. And there's a moment where it is being destroyed and their new rock friend makes a joke about how it could be saved right before it blows up. The joke is funny, however, after some time after watching the film I realized how bad of timing that scene was and the perfect example of the Marvel bathos that they're so known for. It's entertaining but it pulls away the magnitude and keeps me from really being invested in the plight of the characters.

But the last thing worth mentioning is the mid credits scene where Thor's ship full of Asgardians are flying to Earth and they run into a huge ship. Who's ship is that? What does this mean for our heroes? FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON THE ONGOING MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE THAT WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE DAY WE ALL DIE!

The big theory is that that is Thano's ship and this will kick off Infinity War with Thor and his people being Thano's prisoner or something. It was a pretty bait and hook for the end of the film and it does get me excited for Infinity War.

I might do a fourth part of this to talk about how all these movies connect and point us towards 2018 when Infinity War Part 1 starts. The thing is I've tried to make predictions in the past and have been very very wrong. And if Thor Ragnarok tells us anything, it means that Marvel may seem like it's going in a certain direction but then the winds of public opinion and directors will blow and the result will be totally different. It honestly makes me a little bit nervous for Infinity War but I think the biggest thing that 2017 Marvel movies pointed to was Phase 4. All three movies from 2017 were pretty self contained films which I actually really liked. I don't really need these movies to be directly connected to Infinity War.

With a couple of exceptions, mainly the use of Donald Glover in Spider-man as a hint of Miles Morales and Doctor Strange's really unnecessary cameo in Thor, 2017 Marvel movies kept the story on track for the most part and didn't really allude too much to Infinity War. It made the movies feel a little more solid on their own two feet and I think a lot better than previous MCU outings.

As convoluted as this whole cinematic universe is getting and as much as I complain about a lot of the formulas and recurring issues with these movies, it's obvious that I like them. I feel like if you can't critique the things you like that you probably don't like them as much as you think you do.

I know I said I was going to do a 4th part but I don't want to beleaguer this concept and I have other stuff I need to review. I might do a universe prediction/theorizing post soon once we hear more about Infinity War but until then, these have been my 2017 Marvel Spoiler Wrap up. What do you think of what's going on in the Marvel Cinematic Movies? Which of the three that came out this year was your favorite? Was there anything that I missed? Comment and Discuss Below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Whenever I can throw a shout out to Screen Junkies I try to because they're a real big source of entertainment for me and I like to share their stuff. Enjoy!

2017 Marvel Spoiler Wrap Up (Part 2: Spider-man: Homecoming)

Spider-man Homecoming Spoilers

So this spoilers review might be a little shorter because it has been a hot second since I've seen Spider-man Homecoming.  I actually just bought it on ITunes and did a quick re-watch just to get the main points of what really stood out to me. It won't be as long as the Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 spoiler rant but then again, this movie didn't have a lot of spoilers in it, at least none that I really think are worth mentioning almost 5 months later. Spider-man Homecoming might go down as one of my favorite MCU films and as cautious as I was in my first review, I have to say this was a really good film.

And it's ironic that I was just praising this film and I'm going to talk about the part of the film I really didn't like and that was the MJ reveal.

So for months prior to this movie coming out, there was this big controversy over Zendaya playing a character who a lot of people thought it was Mary Jane. Zendaya was always credited as a character named Michelle. For the entire film they were building her up as her own character named Michelle. She had no connection or resemblance of any version of Mary Jane we've ever known. And suddenly at the end, really casually she just says, people call me MJ, establishing that this is probably going to be our Mary Jane for the new Spider-man franchise.

And listen, I don't care about the race element of this. I laugh at people who do. While I'm not a huge comic book fan, there is nothing about the character of Mary Jane that says she could not be played by a woman of color. Nothing at all. Zendaya the person playing Mary Jane is not the issue.

The issue I have with it is the fact that Michelle the character is not consistent with the character of Mary Jane. Mary Jane is supposed to be the popular girl next door, she's supposed to be out of Peter's league.

Zendaya's character is Michelle, not Mary Jane. Michelle is a unique character. She's not bad, she's just not Mary Jane. And hey if they had just said her name was Mary Jane from the beginning and created a new character, I would  have been okay with it. But no they spend the entire movie establishing this character as Michelle (even though we all pretty much knew she was Mary Jane) and then tacked on at the end that people call her MJ like a really bad Easter Egg.

If Marvel wanted to make the character different, do it. If they wanted to create a new character, do it. But this half way in half way out bullshit they pull really frustrated me. Luckily Michelle's character is really inconsequential to the entire film, but it's just evidence that as powerful as Marvel is, they're still very safe with their properties. The reality is, while her nick name is MJ, this still leaves the door open for the real Mary Jane to pop up in future films if Zendaya doesn't work out or the audience doesn't respond to it well enough. That's not taking any risks and it feels cheap.

Now this could have been Sony's choice, but overall I think Marvel had a lot of creative control over this and they could have put the kabash on it and they didn't. I even cringed a little bit on my second viewing. I knew it was coming this time and I still thought it was cheap and not a great reveal.

The obvious phenomenal element of this movie is The Vulture or Adrian Toomes. As I said in my regular review, he might be one of the best Marvel Villains ever and of course, he is connected to Peter. It's not like he was a totally unrelated person, of course he needed to be the father of the girl that Peter likes in this movie.

When Peter picks up the girl for the Homecoming dance and Michael Keaton showed up at the door, my heart dropped. It was a great reveal and not anything that either I or anybody really saw coming. At first I wasn't wild about it but it didn't take long to really connect with me and especially when he has the conversation with Peter in the car with his gun drawn and he's pulling out his Michael Keaton scary as hell voice, I was on board one hundred percent.

The interesting thing about Vulture, especially with what we're shown in the post credit scene where he meets Scorpion in jail, is that there is definitely a potential for a Sinister Six film in the future, hopefully connected to the MCU.

The Sinister Six was a planned movie for the Andrew Garfield Spider-man franchise. It was scrapped when the Amazing Spider-man films were scrapped but there is definitely a possibility it could show up in Phase 4. I don't know what Marvel's contract with Sony is, if eventually they will go their separate ways when Sony can handle Spider-man on their own, but if I were Sony, I'd stay with Marvel as long as I can and get some of the Avengers in on the big fight Spider-man will probably have with a bunch of his iconic villains in the future... maybe.

While Adrian Toomes is a phenomenal part and he really does compete for the best part of the movie, the other competing element is Tom Holland as Spider-man himself.

There are a lot of really good themes that run through this movie and they mainly show up in his relationship with Tony Stark.

It's obvious from Spider-man's role in Civil War that he looks up to Tony, and while Tony is not in this movie as much as the trailers suggest he is, he does have a presence in the film. Honest Trailers recently did their take on this film and they called Tony the absent step-father of Peter and that's very true.

But Tony brings a great dynamic to the film because he teaches Peter the importance of understanding himself as an individual apart from the suit. And before it gets too Iron Man 3 on us, it also is specified to Peter in that he realizes that he is still a kid and while he can be a great hero who is more than his suit, it is still a coming of age story where he realizes that he can still be a kid by the end and that's okay.

The scene in the trailers where he is on the ferry as its falling apart and then he has the conversation with Iron Man and he takes the suit away from him is still a really great sequence of scenes. Not only

does that scene happen and it puts Peter at his absolute lowest, but then he goes home and has to face Aunt May and they have a really touching scene where he breaks down in front of his aunt.

But probably the most heartbreaking scene in this movie and the one that really hits home the emotionality of the movie is where Peter goes to confront the Vulture and he gets caught under a bunch of debris. Tom Holland does a great job because throughout the movie we've seen Peter as trying his best to be brave and be a hero but when he's trapped underneath those rocks he cries out for help and it really shows Peter at his most vulnerable. Those are the points in this movie that make me really love this movie.

And the best part is, it wasn't undercut by a joke or some bathos effect that Marvel really likes to do even in their most dramatic scenes of 2017 like Ego telling Peter he killed his mom, it was a genuinely sad moment where they just let Tom Holland act and they let the audience feel. MARVEL DO MORE OF THAT! Not everything needs to be a joke.

Something that I had actually kind of forgotten about was Spider-man's suit made by Tony Stark. He has his own Jarvis voice in his suit voiced by Jennifer Connelly named Karen and not only do we have a lot of fun seeing a montage of Peter's new suit functions, we also get a really cute relationship between Peter and Karen.

Karen of course is an AI so she doesn't totally understand human nature but at the same time it's Jennifer Connelly and she has this really soothing voice that Peter actually becomes friends with.

Something I have been realizing since watching this film is that Peter goes through a similar initiation phase with his suit that Iron Man does... I get a strange feeling that Iron Man is going to go away one way or another and Spider-man is going to take his place... but that's speculation for a future post about Infinity War.

But now that I'm thinking about it, I really enjoyed that element of the movie and it was pretty important in the second act of the film. But then Tony takes the new suit away and after the ferry scene we never hear from Karen again. It's not a plot hole by any means but we never really get much closure between Peter and Karen.

That is kind of nitpicking at this point, especially since Peter gets the suit back in the end. But it would have been nice to have Peter put the suit back on and have Karen's voice come back on and say, "Hello Peter, I've missed you" or something.

Oh and speaking of the end. Apparently Aunt May knows that Peter is Spider-man. I laughed out loud when that revelation happens and Aunt May yells "WHAT THE..." and then credits.

But this will be an interesting change of pace. In both the Tobey McGuire and the Andrew Garfield Spider-man films, Aunt May never figured out Peter's secret identity. When the sequel to this film comes out, we'll be starting with Aunt May knowing that and knowing for any other sequel to come. How will that change things? I don't know. I really like Marisa Tomei in this role so I'm sure she'll do a great job and I hope her role continues to grow.

Those are the big story plot points I wanted to cover. The other things worth talking about are the loads of Easter eggs littered throughout this movie, there are almost too many to count. The great thing about it is that they all felt pretty organic to the movie. This was more something I noticed after my second watch. I know I said that they might be promoting future films that haven't been put into development yet, but I am kind of going back on that statement because honestly I can't really think of anything that they're really promoting without it feeling organic to the story Spider-man is going on.

The one exception to that rule is Donald Glover's character. The only reason he is in this movie is to give fans an Easter Egg and the nod that Miles Morales is in this universe and he's coming. There were other ways that Spider-man could have found out when the deal on the ferry was happening and it did feel kind of out of place.

HOWEVER, after a second watch and a revived appreciation for Donald Glover after spending a few days watching Community, I will say, he is pretty funny in this movie. Honestly, I could watch a spinoff with just this guy going around and hanging out in Queens. Miles Morales doesn't even need to be in it. Did he need to be in this film? No. Did Hannibal Buress need to be in this film? No. But what we are given is pretty fun.

I think the second watch helped me come to terms with a lot of things that stuck out the first time and a sign of a good film is the fact that you notice more about it upon second or multiple viewings.

Spider-man is going to have a huge role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the future and this movie makes me incredibly pumped for that. I plan to talk more about him when I get to the end of this seemingly endless Spoiler Wrap Up.

But was there anything I missed? Any great scenes I need to talk about? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Stay tuned for part 3: Thor Ragnarok spoilers.

2017 Marvel Spoiler Wrap Up (Part 1: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2)

As I said in my Thor Ragnarok review, I want to do one big review talking about all the spoilers from all three Marvel movies that came out this year. These will be the parts of the movies that I couldn't talk about in my regular review. Usually a do a spoilers review not long after the regular review but this year has always been filled with special circumstances. I thought I'd create a longer review, broken up into a couple of parts, to talk about the spoilers of each film and also use this as a Marvel 2017 wrap up and talk about where the franchise is going and where my head is with those movies.

I'll repeat my sentiment of the Thor review that 2017 was a pretty safe year for Marvel. In April they released the highly anticipated sequel to the movie that nobody thought was going to be successful in 2014 but is often cited as people's favorite Marvel film, Guardians of the Galaxy. In June, they released Spider-man: Homecoming. While it was the second reboot of the wallcrawler and the third iteration of the character, I think putting him in Civil War gave people just enough of a taste that we were all really excited about this new outing. Like I said in my Ragnarok review, it was probably the "riskiest" of the three but the quotations on that word are highly emphasized. And then there's Thor Ragnarok. Thor is one of the original Avengers. While he may not be a favorite, people are still going to go see a movie about him just because he's an original Avenger. And when people started seeing the trailer and hearing that the Hulk was going to be in this film, it was a no brainer that it was going to make money and even be a pretty good film.

How did Marvel do this year?

Well they didn't do badly. This was the first year that there were three MCU films released and while I definitely have my opinions on them, I will admit that the films were, as a whole pretty decent and overall entertaining. At the end of the year I'm going to do a countdown to the best superhero films of the year. I'm going to say it right here, I don't think any of these are going to be at the top of that list, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy them. These were entertaining and enjoyable films. Good times at the theaters.

But I want to talk some spoilers and then some overall Marvel thoughts. So let's start with the first Marvel film that came out this year, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2.

Guardians of the Galaxy Spoilers (There are some Thor Spoilers in here too)

The main thing worth talking about in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume two is Yondu. The main thing to talk about is his death but something I do want to mention is just how his character turned into something really great in this movie. He is retconned a little bit in order to fill a bit of a father figure role but part of what makes his character work in this film is his relationship with Rocket. While I still think the character change of heart is still a little rushed and doesn't totally make a lot of sense, especially with what I remember about the first film, they do a good job creating sympathy around this character and Michael Rooker gives a performance that makes us all see ourselves in Yondu. So much that when he sacrifices himself for Peter, it is a pretty emotional moment, especially combined with the heartbreaking performance from Chris Pratt (Again, he's kind of transcended this franchise).

One notable thing about Marvel this year is that they are starting to take fan notes and actually kill off some characters in a way they will not come back. They do it in Thor with Odin and they do it in Guardians with Yondu. While I applaud Marvel for actually creating some stakes in this universe, I will still give them crap for killing off characters like Yondu and Odin and waiting till Phase 3 to actually have some "meaningful" deaths.

The only thing separating Yondu and Odin's death from Quicksilver's in Age of Ultron is the fact that they actually do a good job with the emotionality of these deaths and these were characters we were a little more familiar with. But still they're not huge characters and them not being in the universe doesn't exactly affect the Avengers or the Guardians of the Galaxy in a big way that raises the stakes at all. Yondu, while turned into a character with some depth, probably didn't need to be in Infinity War, and Odin spent the first Thor movie asleep and the second one... Honestly I don't remember what he did during The Dark World... These were not characters that were really important in the overall scheme. So yeah, way to start raising the stakes a little Marvel but I don't think they were really raised that high.

I want to talk about Ego next.

I think this might be the thing that really bothered me about Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. You have the opportunity to have a living planet as a villain, played by Kurt Russell, and what do you do Marvel? You have him be the same one-shot pretty paper thin villain you always do.

I mean Ego was a lot more interesting that Ronan the Destroyer int eh first film, but he spends the majority of the movie being a good guy and only really turns at the end. Now he was evil the whole time but he's quickly defeated by the end of the film and we go back to our status quo. You have a villain who is an entire planet! You have Kurt Russell playing him. You have a special relationship between this villain and one of your main franchise stars, why kill him?

Since seeing this movie I have watched a couple videos talking about the merits of this film and I imagine that if I re-watch this film, I will probably have a change of heart about this film. I stand by a lot of the comments I made in criticism of this film, but I am open to changing opinions and forsee that occurring when I watch it again, one day. But the element of this movie that might sound contradictory is that I often criticize Marvel for being too franchise-y and having no conclusiveness to it. Ego in my opinion exemplifies them utilizing that conclusiveness somewhat correctly, so while I applaud them for doing the right thing story-wise, speaking from a franchise perspective, I don't get why they didn't keep him for future installments.

Something impressive about this film is Ego's story with Peter's mother. First off they use some really good visual effects to recreate young Kurt Russell. But his main plot is to plant a piece of him on different worlds and conquer the entire universe.

Peter is included in this plot because he shares the same celestial power that Ego does and Ego wants to use him to fulfill that conquest.

One of the greatest moments is when Peter seems to be coming around to Ego's side and he sees the upside of conquering the universe like Unity from Rick and Morty... and then Ego messes it up by telling Peter that he was the one who put the tumor in Peter's mother's brain. Again, I go back to the notion that Chris Pratt is better than this franchise because that moment you see Peter's wonder turn into anger and he just lashes out and shoots the crap out of Ego.

This is a very emotional moment and what do they do with it?

They throw a Hassellhoff joke in there...

This is why Guardians of the Galaxy didn't do much for me. While there are a lot of good emotional moments, they can't quite give it the full impact it deserves because they gotta throw a bathos joke in there. The same goes for when Ego and Peter are fighting later, both of them using their power and it's this really emotional father and son fight and... Peter fights him with a Pac man Avatar...

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 does its humor really well.

Baby Groot and when he eventually becomes Teenage (or adolescent) Groot was hilarious at the end. I'm really looking forward to how they use these characters and humor in Infinity War. But overall, as much as I want to like Guardians 2 as a serious movie, I can't. And I think I might call it the Hassellhoff Marvel effect.

That's the majority of the Guardians of the Galaxy spoilers.

There was the end credit scene where the Gold People bring up the fact that Adam Warlock is going to show up. I'm going to be honest, when I saw that I said out loud, AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR ADAM WARLOCK.

I have since read that Adam Warlock will probably appear in Infinity War and he's more likely going to be an element of a future Phase 4 film. But even still I have to just point out to Marvel that they have about fifteen billion characters they have yet to announce. Captain Marvel still hasn't been introduced in the universe and now we're throwing Adam Warlock into the mix? And when I say she hasn't been introduced, I mean there's been no mention of her at all in any of the recent movies. The only way we know that Captain Marvel is coming is because Brie Larson has been cast as her. We don't know when she's showing up or anything and we're giving Adam Warlock a post credit scene? Give me a break.

Again, while I may enjoy Guardians 2 on a second viewing, right now it is at the bottom of my top superhero films of 2017 list because it was just underwhelming.

This will be part 1 of a couple of future posts. Let me know what you thought of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 as far as spoilers go. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Part 2 coming soon.

Thor: Ragnarok

This was a safe year for Marvel. You had Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Spider-man in one year. How were any of those at all at risk of failing? The closest thing to a risk Marvel took this year was the possibility that Sony was gonna try and take too much of the reigns and ruin Spider-man. Everything else about this year just spells assured success. Does that mean I've loved everything that has come out of Marvel this year? No. Does that mean Thor Ragnarok is good? Well...

Thor Ragnarok takes place two years after the events of Age of Ultron (apparently the timeline has been a huge thing this year so don't read too much into that timeframe). Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) is having dreams about the destruction of Asgard known as Ragnarok. Last time we heard from him he was going off to find some of the Infinity Stones.

Eventually Hella, the goddess of death (played by Cate Blanchett) returns to Asgard and claims she is the rightful ruler of the world. Thor and Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston) are stranded on a strange new world called Sakaar. To show how powerful she is, before Thor is stranded, Hella destroys his hammer, his weapon almost quintessential to his identity.

Thor is taken as a prisoner by a mercenary named Scraper 142 (played by Tessa Thompson) and he is sold to the ruler of Sakaar, the Grand Master (played by Jeff Goldblum).

While under his captivity, Thor is forced to take part in a gladiatorial competition where he can only win his freedom by beating the Grand Master's Champion.

And if you've watched the trailers, you know who that Champion is.

That is one thing about this movie. It's not really a movie where a lot depends on how much is secret, but a lot of the film was revealed by the trailers. Not enough to really affect the movie going experience (it's not like there's a Shyamalan twist in this film), but there were a couple of parts in the film that would have been kind of fun to realize on my own and not see in the trailer before hand.

Anyways, the Champion is The Hulk/Bruce Banner (played by Mark Ruffalo).

Pitted against his former Avenger friend, Thor must recruit Banner to help him along with some other new and old friends to go back to Asgard and defeat Hella before the destruction of Asgard occurs.

So as safe as making a Thor sequel was, the Thor movies have probably gone down as people's least favorites. I don't knock you if you weren't a fan of Thor the Dark World or even the first Thor, they're not that great of films. I personally really enjoyed them but I've only watched Thor 1 more than once. I haven't seen The Dark World since the first time I saw it.

Thor is not an easy character to spend an entire movie focusing on. He contributes to Avengers movies as a great over powered character, kind of like Legolas from Lord of the Rings, but you would never want to see a Legolas standalone film, at least not the Legolas from the movie. He's much cooler just being a badass.

Thor is a little bit like the Legolas of the Avengers. While I totally expected this movie, I didn't totally expect to to be as fun and enjoyable as it came out as.

The movie is directed by a gentleman by the name of Taika Waititi. If you don't know who he is, he was the pointless friend from Green Lantern and he directed a comedy I still need to watch fully and review (because what I saw from it was really hilarious), What We Do In the Shadows.

Waititi does take a bit of a different approach to the character and makes him a little bit more humorous. If you've watched the small videos of Thor rooming with a guy named Jeff and joking about Civil War, you've seen the new Thor. If you haven't seen those videos, I linked on at the bottom. He's a little bit more of a little dim witted jock. Still interesting, just a little bit more humor throughout and that is very apparent from the beginning.

My point is Thor is not exactly a really deep character. I think he had a couple of good moments in the last movie with Loki as that movie was about brothers and family. And while that's kind of here in that film, that motiff has kind of been put on the back burner for an overall weird and incredibly 80s sci fi adventure.

And no matter what I say, no matter what criticism I pull up here, I will just say this. I had a lot of fun with this movie. I have felt pretty lukewarm about Marvel movies in general recently that and I've been very hyper aware of the repetitiveness and the formula that has actually gotten a little old after a while.

The great thing about Thor is that it feels like they're shaking things up. It actually feels like characters are changing because of what happens in this film and I really like that. In past films it has felt like instead of a standalone film, Marvel films have felt like just the next sequel and have not given much closure. While there isn't a lot of closure in this film and it still feels apart of the giant machine Marvel has created, I did feel like things are going to change from this film. The characters have gone through something new and when they show up in Infinity War, they are going to be different.

Waititi has mentioned in interviews that he is kind of ignoring some of the continuity in this film so if you're wondering why it doesn't exactly feel like the other Thor movies, it's meant to do that on purpose. This allows for some new characters like Tessa Thompson's character who I really liked, a new-ish Hulk, and of course the Goddess of Death Hella.

One thing you should know is that Hella is not the Marvel villain we've all be waiting for. There is a lot we don't know about her and while she's probably better than most just due to who she is and the fact she's played by Cate Blanchett, she is still pretty paper thin and not really given a lot of time to develop as a character as the heroes are.

In fact I actually kind of liked thought The Grand Master was a little bit better of a villain than Hella was. Maybe it's the fact that it's Jeff Goldblum but I just hope this isn't the last time we see Hella. By the end it's a little unclear. I could see her getting more development and I can't imagine Marvel is just going to bring on a great actress like Cate Blanchett and not use her for more than one film... then again they have done that before...

Someone always worth mentioning is Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. While I liked his character in this film, one thing I will mention is that Bruce Banner is a little bit more of a "cowardly" dweeb in this movie. You can tell the distinct difference between him and Hulk and for some reason they decided to have Bruce Banner be a little more weaselly in this film. Again, I don't not like it, I think Bruce Banner was always a little white bread in previous films, but it just adds into the fact that not everything is going to add up in this film and they seem to be totally fine with it.

One thing I'll say without giving too much spoilers away, it's more of an observation.

I think Marvel's biggest regret has to be the fact that they casted Idris Elba as a minor character like Hemdall. They try really hard to beef up his importance in this film like they tried in The Dark World, but I can't imagine Marvel is patting themselves on the back too much for having a solid actor like Elba play a guy who can just see really far.

Like I said, Thor Ragnarok is fun. I have been pretty lukewarm on Marvel films recently and while this definitely is far from the best Marvel movie out there, I just had fun in this film. It felt self contained (for the most part, this is a Marvel film we're talking about) and I was thoroughly entertained.

I recently answered a question online on what were my Top 5 favorite Marvel films.

Earlier today it was:

1) Winter Soldier
2) Avengers
3) Spider-man Homecoming
4) Civil War
5) Age of Ultron

I honestly feel like I tacked on Age of Ultron just because and now I feel like on entertainment value alone, Thor Ragnarok might take that fifth place spot. I haven't decided on that so I would say this list is far from "cannon" but it does illustrate a point on how entertaining this movie was. Again, no where near the top spot, but definitely not a bad time at the movies.

But those are my thoughts on Thor Ragnarok. I realize I haven't been doing spoiler reviews for any of the Marvel films I've seen this year. Here's my plan. I'm going to write a spoiler recap for all the Marvel movies of 2017. This will serve as both my overview of moments I thought were cool from Marvel films that edge on spoiler territory, but I can also talk about Marvel's performance as a whole and talk about where the franchise is going. What do you think of that? What did you think of Thor Ragnarok? Where does it fall on your top list of Marvel films? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. In case you haven't seen it, here's the Team Thor video they made for Civil War. If you're wondering what Thor is like in this movie, this is a pretty good representation. Enjoy!

The Last of Us

Up until this year, I have always been an Xbox guy. I don't know if it was the controller or the games that came out when I was younger, but Playstation never really appealed to me. So for a long time I went with the Xbox 360 or the Xbox One. However, as time has gone by there have been a lot of games I have heard about that have come out on the Playstation that have gotten a lot of hype. It's the reason why I reviewed the first Uncharted game (hopefully more to come) and it's why I'm reviewing The Last of Us right now.

This game in particular was pretty high on my list of games to check out because it was not only a highly praised game but I had a lot of friends who played it and absolutely loved it. Sometimes your friends have more say than actual game reviewers.

And because this game is very cinematic, I want to review the game for both its story and its gameplay. As you will figure out, they do connect.

The Last of Us takes place in a post apocalyptic United States, 20 years after the initial outbreak of a bacterial disease that makes people lose their mind and turn rabid. They're not exactly zombies because they're not dead, but for the sake of this review I'm just going to call them zombies.

The interesting part about this world is, not only is it 20 years later which is quite a good amount of time, but it also seems as though there is still some semblance of government control. While governments have crumbled, they have not been totally dissolved and there is some kind of law and order, even if it very limited. You still have your waring bands of scavengers and like most zombie stories that come out these days the focus of the gameplay is just as much you fighting other people as it is fighting zombies.

The story mainly focuses on two characters, Joel and Ellie. There are other characters that these two run across along the way but these two are the main focus. Each one of them has their own backstory, some of which I will go into but some of which I will not because it definitely goes into spoiler territory. I got lucky enough to play this game four years later and not get anything spoiled for me and it made a great experience, I want the same to be for you all.

These two are great. Something about the last five years have made stories about older men and young women having father-daughter-like stories very popular (Logan, parts of Stranger Things season 2) and while I'm not sure it stems from this game, this game definitely sets the standards for that dynamic because these two are great.

You mainly play as Joel. Even without knowing his backstory, you can tell Joel has been through some shit in this game. He's worked as a smuggler in this post apocalyptic world and he has closed off himself to any kind of relationship that would bring him close to anybody.

As far as gameplay goes, Joel is this drunken brawler type in that he is able to grab his enemies, use them as human shields, beat the living crap out of them. And the great thing about the game is the fact that when he does something like that or he's choking someone out, not only can you sense it from the way he handles as a character but also in the interactions you get from those enemies being choked out. It's a very visceral experience because it feels very real.

Like I said, Joel is a very complicated character and he's also very much an anti-hero. Like any of the zombie stories of today, you don't live through the apocalypse unless you're willing to do some shady things and you definitely do that in this game. That becomes an appeal of the entire game because it feels like you are watching a miniseries or a very long movie, even when you're just playing the game, not in a cutscene. I will talk about the cutscenes but first I want to talk about how the gameplay is almost apart of the story too.

The Last of Us is somehow able to create incredible interactive storytelling in the gameplay. As much as you want to pop in the Last of Us movie and just watch all the cutscenes, the gameplay is almost as much a part of the story as the phenomenal cutscenes. Watching the cutscenes from this game stitched together is possible on YouTube and if you don't have a Playstation and never plan on playing this game all the way through, it wouldn't be a bad substitute. However, I feel like if the gameplay was gone, you'd miss a very immersive and personal touch to the story where you would fail to understand some of the motivations for what happens in the cutscenes. The gameplay is not only very adaptable and easy to control, but it plays a part in the experience while not really feeling like you're solving puzzles or doing combat. Everything feels like it is part of this cinematic experience and boy is it fun. 

But back to characters, then you have Ellie.

I don't know if I have the emotional attachment to Ellie that I think a lot of people developed after playing this game. I think she's a great character and I will delve into that for sure, but I get the feeling people loved this character a lot more than I did.

That being said, Ellie is great. For a lot of the game she serves as someone that Joel, being controlled by the player has to escort through their United States cross country journey. And yeah if you're a gamer, you know that escort missions are never usually fun. But Ellie is a great companion for your journey. Speaking on a gameplay level, I was actually really interested by the level of interaction she has. If I'm in a gunfight and somebody tries to flank me, I actually had Ellie yell, "Joel behind you!". It's stuff like that that I really liked when it came to gameplay.

Later on in the game you actually play as Ellie and her gameplay is a whole lot different from Joel's. It took a little bit to really get used to. Because she's smaller, she can't take people as human shields and her melee attacks aren't as strong. But when you use stealth it actually works better and she's like a spider-monkey when she jumps on people and just shivs them to death with her little knife.

The interesting part about Ellie is the fact that she was born in this post apocalyptic world. As opposed to Joel who lived through the initial outbreak, she only knows this world and yet somehow remains super positive through most of the game.

She's also a really well written kid. She curses, she's loud, and she's still naive to what is going on and how the world works, but man does she figure out. It's very much a coming of age story set in a post apocalyptic future and the truth is, if that's done right, it can be a very interesting story and it is.

And when you get these two together, tied on top with great gameplay interactions and a well written and well shot cinematic like game, get ready to have some tissues nearby because the tears are gonna come.

While I tend to prefer open world games, The Last of Us is a linear experience that is perfect in providing a cinematic experience. Whenever I put the game in, I felt like I was watching a movie or a miniseries and it was great. I actually bought the game earlier this year but only wanted to play it when I knew I had a lot of free time on my hands. I knew that I was gonna want to binge play this game like a series and it was really worth it.

While the gameplay is definitely a part of the experience, the main appeal of this game is the story. Without getting into too many spoilers, The Last of Us is this road trip journey with these two characters and throughout the journey that takes about a year's time, you get a lot of well earned drama, post apocalyptic settings and story points, and some great character interaction.

At no point did the different tasks you're given as a character feel unnecessary or irrelevant to the plot of the story and that's saying something because often times the story can get interrupted in games because there's a side quest you need to complete or something, but everything felt necessary and relevant.

The people you come across in this story are great. Nobody is really good or evil, they all fall into that shade of grey that is so fascinating. Even the characters who turn out to be your friends don't always do it for the right reasons or they may have done something sketchy in the past.

All of this with these two at the center makes for a compelling story that really rivals the storytelling of blockbuster films. I'm not sure why this game has not become a movie yet, but the honest truth is, I almost don't want it to be.

Video game movies are already given the stigma of failure from the get go. As much as I want to see this story portrayed as a movie, it almost undervalues the experience from the game and the movie becomes unnecessary.

Yes that means that not everyone is going to experience this great story which is a shame, but I don't know if a movie can match the perfection that already occurs in this game and the experience of being apart of it.

Of course I would buy the ticket for this movie if it came out, I just don't know how it could compare.

I really don't know any criticisms that I can talk about from this game. The story telling is better than a lot of films these days, the gameplay is easy and almost essential to the entire experience, and the game is visually beautiful.

I don't know if I'm going to do a spoilers review of this game. I think if I was going to it wouldn't be until I play through the game again. Hopefully I can nit pick some things I didn't like with the game but where it stands, any issues I have with it are very minute and not really worth mentioning.

If you have any criticisms of this game, please let me know. I want to hear your thoughts on The Last of Us. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films, TV, and video games I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So I'm including a link to the Last of Us 2 trailer that came out a while ago. I know there's a new one that came out today but I wasn't really a fan of it besides how good it looks. I'll add a link to both. Apparently Maisie Williams who you might know from Game of Thrones has expressed interest in playing Ellie in a live action movie of this game. Slightly related, there's a new movie coming out in 2018 from the X-men Universe called New Mutants that stars Williams. Enjoy!

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

I don't like the Guardian of the Galaxy movies as much as other people. I have come to realize that something that contributes to that feeling is the fact that when Suicide Squad came out, I tried to make the argument that Guardians of the Galaxy did basically the same thing Suicide Squad was trying to do and one movie is regarded as one of the greatest Marvel films and the other was regarded as one one of the worst films of 2016. I have since backed off that when I came to the realization that Suicide Squad was not a very good movie, but some of my feelings of Guardians of the Galaxy remained. Since, I have re-watched the first movie and I will admit that it is a fun movie. HOWEVER, I do believe the hype of the first film is incredibly overblown and while it is a good movie, it is far from the best of the MCU standalone films.

GOTG Vol 2 picks up not long after the first film as the Guardians are mercenaries for hire who help people fight giant monsters, etc, basic hero stuff.

After a deal goes wrong, the Guardians are on the run from people trying to kill them and they find themselves stranded on a planet with their ship disabled. This doesn't last long because soon they are greeted by a mysterious Kurt Russell who introduces himself as Ego and says that he is Peter Quill aka Starlord's (played by Chris Pratt) long lost father.

Quill who has been searching for his father for years is at first skeptical of Ego but he goes with Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana) and Drax (played by Dave Bautista) to Ego's planet while Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) stay behind to fix the ship. For some reason there is some real animosity between Starlord and Rocket in this movie that I don't totally understand... sometimes it just felt mean spirited and counter intuitive when we know what this team went through in the first film.

So there's a good amount of subplots in this movie, the race of aliens that were chasing after the Guardians is still chasing after them, Yondu (played by Michael Rooker) gets thrown into the mix as the Ravagers start to question his metal, Sylvester Stallone is in this movie for some reason I still have yet to really figure out. But the main story is Peter and Ego having father and son moments trying to figure out one another. And it's... okay. I mean Kurt Russel is great in the film. I am convinced Chris Pratt has transcended this franchise as an actor and is a little bit too good for a simple movie like this. The father son moments between these two are good but they just have a couple of conversations. They're good ones, but I would have liked to see these two fight along side one another. It is revealed that Peter has celestial heritage and he starts to harness his power as a celestial. It would have been cool to see Ego and Peter team up and get to know each other more.

But as it is, it's a decently fun romp with A LOT of comedy. Where Guardians of the Galaxy 1 was your typical Marvel blend of action and comedy, Volume 2 feels more like a comedy than anything else, almost to the point where it's hard for me to really take it seriously at times.

And yeah the comedy is good. But a lot of the time it's not nearly as funny as the characters think it is. I'll mention it here, Drax laughs at a lot of things in this movie. Especially in the first act they have Dave Bautista do this belly laugh. You probably saw it in the trailers and yeah it's funny... the first two times. Then it just gets obnoxious and  a little bit forced.

Also while we're on Drax, he didn't need to be in this movie. I hate to say it because I like his character and I like Dave Bautista, but he served absolutely no purpose in this film. He could have been written totally out and the story would not have changed.

In the first film he was seeking revenge for the death of his family and his humor was more unintentionally funny because he didn't understand sarcasm. In this he goes full comedic sidekick and is really only there for comedy. Yes, some of it is good, but a lot of it is sex jokes. Again, good the first few times but it gets old after a while.

I think after watching The Mummy, I've seen the Marvel comedy effect at its worst. The Mummy did not know how to correctly implement comedy the way Marvel does in this films. Again, I think Volume 2 implements comedy well, but you can see the cracks in the armor. Furthermore, they go so far overboard with the comedy that you're almost not prepared for the parts where this movie gets legitimately sad or it ruins a legitimately sad moment for the audience. If I do a spoilers review I'll talk more about this, just know this movie had the opportunity to create some very serious moments and they are a little bit undercut by the comedy that was laid on heavy.

On the Guardians themselves, the team expands a little bit in this film. You've obviously got Starlord, Rocket Racoon, Drax, Baby Groot (who I will talk about in length in a little bit) and Gamora.

But then you add on Yondu and Nebula (played by Karen Gillan). You also add Mantis (played by Pom Klementieff), an alien with psychic-ish abilities. Overall, I think they're pretty decent additions. I think I like the core team more but I did have fun with these characters and you get to know them a little bit more, especially Yondu and Nebula.

Yondu's character is a little bit retconned in this movie to serve a father son role with Starlord. It is a little bit rushed and doesn't exactly fit with some of the stuff that happened in the first movie. It's not really bad, it just provides an example of Marvel seemingly starting to regret the handcuffs they put their directors in and you can see it in their most recent films. Spider-man Homecoming, Doctor Strange, and I've even heard rumors about this with Thor Ragnorak. All of these movies, including Guardians seem to take a little bit of a new direction. I think in a certain way they still follow the Marvel formula that I'm getting a little tired of, but they all have elements about them that kind of buck what has been built up and we're forced to accept a little bit of a retcon of what we've known as fans. It's not a huge thing, just an interesting theory I might talk more about in my Thor review, a movie I am legitimately excited for.

Something worth mentioning is the relationship between Gamora and Nebula. While I felt it was a little bit tacked on, it actually builds these characters really well and you learn more about them.

Gamora's character is a little bit watered down from her deadly assassin role in the first film. She's still cool, I just think they wanted to make her more tangible and relatable as a core member of the Guardians so they could bring in Nebula and knock our socks off with this new character development they put her through. It is really great and these two together really do bring a new element to the story. Well done James Gunn... well done.

Oh... and I need to talk about Baby Groot.

While this movie has flaws, while Baby Groot has the possibility of being just a gimicky character like the Minions, only brought in to make the audience go AWWWW. They did everything right with this character.

Something that I didn't really expect was that Baby Groot is literally a baby. While he was never a very smart character, he is still developing in this film. The team can't depend on him the way they used to and they more have to take care of him like a baby. And that may sound annoying but it's actually really adorable. While they have to take care of him, he still does do stuff for the team and while many times it fails miserably for comedic effect, Baby Groots comedic moments were absolutely perfectly timed and placed throughout the film. And then you have the Awww factor. It's there but it doesn't feel like a gimick. I actually thought he was going to talk more and make everyone annoyingly swoon with his baby "I am Groot"'s. But he actually speaks less than I originally thought he would. I wanted him to speak more in fact cause he was adorable. They didn't overplay their hand, they used this character masterfully. So thank you Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, the way you used Baby Groot was phenomenal and now I want a Baby Groot toy.

I cannot deny that this film was visually stunning. It almost looked too good to the point where the good CGI seemed so glossy that it almost seemed fake and like it was a video game.

And that kind of blends into another criticism I have of the movie, this movie feels like a bunch of really good video game cutscenes. A couple of the action sequences feel like video games that I can't play. Overall this entire movie feels like a video game. A video game I would like to play but couldn't and therefore I'm left wanting more out of this movie. This seems like it's own little adventure not connected to anything, which is good, but not quite the epic that I think we got from the first film and therefore it feels small.

Video game cutscenes can be really good, and these ones are. But have you ever watched a youtube video of all the cutscenes from a video game stitched together to make a little movie? As good as that movie can be, it's not the full experience and I kind of felt that with this film. Throughout the film there is your mini bosses that they fight until you get to the main one. And because there's so many character they're jumping back and forth between characters. Again, you either feel like you're watching other characters in a cutscene or your character fighting out of your control.

I want to get my Last of Us review up so I can talk more about that interactive storytelling and when it's done right, but Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 needed that interactive story telling and I just didn't feel it.

Of course you're going to have Starlord and his music which is another big and pretty good element of the story. I do think the Awesome playlist Vol 2 had pretty big shoes to fill because the first playlist was phenomenal. In my opinion it's not quite as good but it's still got some classic tunes and it educated me on some 70s music.

Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is a pretty underwhelming movie. I am trying to be as objective as I can because I have had a bias against these movies in the past. It took me a while to actually see this movie due to a couple of things. I heard mediocre reviews and I just haven't been very psyched for this movie. If there was ever a movie from the MCU that you could straight up skip without any repercussions with future movies, besides Iron Man 2, this could probably be that movie. However, if you're just looking for a fun time, you'll get it with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, its a fun movie, just not the best.

It's not horrible and I think there have been worse Marvel sequels, but it definitely doesn't rank very high among the billions of Marvel movies we have out right now.

But those are my thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. What do you think? Where does it rank among the other MCU movies? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me you requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I feel like I might have been a little too rough on this movie and on the Guardians of the Galaxy in general. This video kind of showed me that. I think James Gunn and this entire team is just trying to make something entertaining and they do succeed at that. I won't take back the criticisms I've made, especially since I need to look at this superhero movie the same way I do every other one I review, but it is worth giving credit that this cast and director just like to have fun with some wacky characters and make an entertaining experience, and that they do. Enjoy!