Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Review

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The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is a super fun and entertaining film right in time for the holidays. With tons of laughs and heart, this is a Christmas special worth adding to your Christmas movie list.

Guardians of The Galaxy Review

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is a really fun time and a wonderful addition to the multitude of Christmas specials out there. I remember being excited for this film from it’s original announcement as I thought it would be a fun thing for Marvel to do and I thought it could turn out fantastic. So I was eagerly anticipating this films arrival and when I finally got to watch it at the end of November I must say it was AWESOME.

To start with the Christmas of it all I thought the film captured a wonderfully whimsical Christmas atmosphere with many charming Christmas decorations, songs and other touches that add to the whole vibe.  I felt that the film fully embraced the Christmas spirit and let itself be a Christmas special first and an MCU project second. 

The first thing I want to touch on in this film is the characters.  We don’t really focus on all the Guardians too much with most of the film being about Mantis, Drax and Peter. I felt this film made me like Mantis more than I had in the previous movies because she got a significant role in this one. She really is the heart of the special as she wants to do something nice for Peter.

She is the one who drives the plot forward as well, coming up with the plan and working to accomplish the mission. Drax represents the comedic side of the special with so many moments that cracked me up throughout and his reaction to many of the things on Earth were so unexpected.

Peter is kind of the reason the whole adventure happens, he has definitely taken a more somber turn as a character, which from the trailer for the third Guardians film seems to be a sign of things to come for the character. We do get to see him reminisce about some of his time on Earth and with Yondu.

The story isn’t complex at all. It is perfectly straightforward and simple as much of what makes this works is the characters and heart rather than the amazing story. Don’t get me wrong though the story is fun. Mantis and Drax go to Earth to get Kevin Bacon as a Christmas gift for Peter and we get to see all their misadventures along the way.  Kevin Bacon, brings charm and humour playing himself and I think he had fun filming this.

I think that the new special presentations that Marvel is trying for Disney+ is a great idea. It allows for more stories that wouldn’t necessarily work for a 2 hour movie but could be told in 40-50 minutes.  They can be more creative and experimental with these as well as there is less pressure to make them these huge epic stories with high stakes. I actually feel the seasonal/ holiday specials could be a good way for the MCU to continue producing specific content for the time of year to gain that extra attention.

Honestly, I felt that this was probably better than it had any right to be and it checked off all the boxes for what  I hoped the film could be. With tons of energy, heart and those Christmas feelings this is certainly one I could see myself watching during future Christmas seasons.