Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

I was largely unimpressed by the second installment of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. The first one was novel, unexpected and knowingly poking fun at itself. The second one has some similar humor, but it doesn't land. It is more annoying and not as witty. We have Kingsman and Deadpool and the Lego Movie--the self-deprecating humor isn't new anymore. It does some things really well though. The music supervision is spot on. The special effects and production design is fantastic. I appreciated the movie's boldest statement, it's depiction of the video game-ification of drone warfare. I did not appreciate Mantis, a dangerous stereotype of a subservient and submissive Asian woman. Drax insults her throughout the film, insults her appearance and her personality. She seems relatively unimportant to the plot, only serving as the butt of a joke. 

Furious 7 (2015)

The seventh (that's right, seventh!) installment of the Fast and Furious series takes place post-Tokyo Drift.  It has the same message about family, the glamorous high life, diversity (spoiler alert: they kill off the Asian) and fast cars.  The only difference is they aren't fugitives anymore.  And this one is probably the most ridiculous in its stunts. But perhaps what is so ridiculously insane is the stunts were real, with minimal CGI.  They actually threw these nice, expensive cars out of a plane.  That was a pretty incredible sequence that was exhilarating and well edited.  There are some terrific action scenes. They know what they do best: car sequences, though I could've done without the non-auto fighting scenes.  The Rock has a fighting scene early on, and then does not reappear until the end rather comically.

Of course, we know that this was Paul Walker's final film before his untimely death.  This fact looms over the entire film.  I kind of got the sense that the intention was for Walker's character Brian to die. Brian, himself, speaks a number of foreboding lines that seem to foreshadow his death, but I suppose it would have been a bit harsh and disrespectful to have his character die.  Especially towards the end, you can tell that the stand-in for Brian is not, in fact, Paul Walker, but one of his siblings, though they do look strikingly similar.  Walker does get a fitting send off at the end, with Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again" over a montage of clips from the previous films in the series that remind you just how far this franchise has come.

  

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Unlike Marvel's other offerings,  this movie runs like one long joke.   Lucky for Marvel, it's very funny.  In the theater that I went to,  there was no pity laughter; it was all genuine riotous laughter.   Being unfamiliar with the comics,  I'm not sure how seriously it is supposed to be taken. This proves that action movies can be more than just special effect.   The writing can still shine (talking to you,  Transformers).  The out of place 70s/80s music in an outer space saga adds to the joke feeling.   It really shouldn't work, but it does.  It is mixed into the film well in the form of a mix tape taken from Earth.

The casting of Chris Pratt was perfect,  not too serious at all and so funny.   Probably best known for playing dim witted Andy in Parks and Recreation, who knew he could pull off the hero type (albeit not your conventional hero)? Personally,  my favorite character is Bradley Cooper as Rocket the genetically modified racoon.  The scenes in which I laughed the hardest were funny because of Rocket.