The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022) TV Review

 Hey everyone! How're you all doing today? I'm hanging in there. I got some news about a good friend of mine a few hours ago. He had a stroke this afternoon and is in the hospital. A friend of his let me know, and will keep me updated as he finds out more. In the meantime I'm here to review The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which just came out on Disney+. There won't be any spoilers in this review, so if you haven't seen it yet, you can still read this. Let's get into it.

When Guardians of the Galaxy first came out back in 2014 I didn't believe that it could work as a live action movie set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which had only blown up in popularity two years earlier with the release of the first Avengers movie. Comic book fans, at least those who were aware of the Guardians of the Galaxy, felt that the movie was a huge risk since these characters weren't widely known, even in the comic book community, and it being a purely Science Fiction film at a time where that genre wasn't doing great, and even Star Wars had just popped back into mainstream culture with the hype of the then upcoming Sequel Trilogy and accompanying one-off A Star Wars Story films. But it worked, and I loved it when I saw it in theatres. And while I wasn't as happy with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) when I finally got the chance to watch it, when The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special was announced back in 2020 I was excited. Especially because the possibility of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 had only just been confirmed after James Gunn had been fired by Disney only a year or two before.

It was fun. Basically Mantis (played by Pom Klementieff) and Drax (played by Dave Bautista) decide to save Christmas for Peter Quill (played by Chris Pratt) after hearing Kraglin (played by Sean Gunn) tell the story of how Yondu (played by Michael Rooker) shot down Christmas when Quill was a kid, not long after the Ravagers had taken him from Earth, as we saw in the opening of the first movie. To do so they go to Earth to kidnap Kevin Bacon and bring him to Knowhere as a present for Quill.

Groot (Vin Diesel), Nebula (Karen Gillan), and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) all appear in this special though their rolls are very minimal here in comparison to the previous two movies, and Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Which is fine because it's a 44 minute special rather than a two to three hour movie, but I do have a question about Groot. Why does he look like a guy in a suit rather than the CGI being that he's been throughout the rest of the MCU? Rocket and Cosmo the Space Dog are both CGI, but Groot isn't, unless they redesigned him for this special to make him look like he was a guy in a suit. 

I found Drax to be more annoying in this special than he was in the second movie though I did love the way Bautista portrayed that. It's just the character is annoying now that his revenge plot against Thanos is over since Thanos was killed in Endgame. And yes, that was a spoiler for Avengers: Endgame, but it's been almost four years since that movie came out, so if you haven't seen it yet, it's your decision. Bautista still does a great job playing him though.

I was really glad to see Mantis get the spotlight in this special since she really hasn't had a whole lot to do in the last three movies she was in. I'm not familiar with the character from the comic, but I found the character lacking in the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie and the two Avengers movies she was in. So I'm happy that she had more to do here because I thought she was cool but without a whole lot to do in her previous appearances.

Overall this was a fun special. I've heard some people say that this felt like the signal to end the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but honestly, I thought it did a great job of setting the characters up for the third movie. Better than Endgame did anyway. If you're looking for a fun Holiday special to watch, I definitely recommend this one. Even if you aren't generally a fan of James Gunn's work. 

That's it for me for today folks. I'll be back soon with another review. Until then I will talk to you all later. Take care my friends.