Sunday, November 27, 2022

My Review of The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special (2022)

 


Written And Directed by James Gunn

Drax (to Mantis): "We've ruined Christmas worse than Yondu."

2022 has certainly been the year for James Gunn. From a critical and successful hit for HBO Max with Peacemaker to getting the keys to DC Studios with Peter Safran, the guy has had quite the career boost. Of course before Gunn fully gets on board with mapping out the future of DC, there's still his work for Marvel and here's the first of two projects surrounding the Guardians Of The Galaxy.

It's Christmas time and Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) doesn't seem to be in the festive cheer mode. Animated flashbacks point to a previous experience ruined by Yondu (Michael Roooker) half told by Kraglin (Sean Gunn). As a result, both Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Drax (Dave Bautista) take it upon themselves to bring Christmas spirit to Peter.

Their great idea of course was to go to Earth and bring Kevin Bacon to Peter, which turned out to be a bit of a challenge. Not that a challenge deterred either Mantis or Drax. Nope, they got drunk with locals at a bars, chased Kevin Bacon out of his house and even managed to take out some cops at the same time before succeeding in their mission.

Then as they made their way back to Peter, both Mantis and Drax found themselves disappointed upon realising that Kevin Bacon was an actor and that the events of movies such as Footloose and Friday The 13th really didn't happen after all. Once they got past their disgust of Kevin being an actor, they did bring him to Peter, who freaked out a bit over his crew members kidnapping a real life person.

I have to admit it was rather funny watching Kevin Bacon sending himself up a bit and his scenes with the Guardians in question were nothing short of delightful. We even got a rather lovely singing moment too with him, which made Kevin endearing to Nebula (Karen Gillan) who also doesn't have a very high opinion of actors.

However I think the best moment of the entire special was the lovely final scene where Mantis revealed that she was Peter's half-sister and he completely embraced that. It was a lovely touching moment along with the full reveal of the animated Christmas flashback with Yondu's real reaction to Christmas with Peter. 

- New crew member Cosmo the Spacedog (Maria Bakalova) appeared here and even factored in the post credit sequence with Groot (Vin Diesel) and Rocket (Bradley Cooper). Both Flula Borg and Mark Hamill had cameo appearances here too.
- Yes, we got a Bat,an reference here and the discourse surrounding it has been amusing to watch over the last few days.
- Standout music: The Pogue's & Kirsty McColl's Fairytale Of New York, Kevin Bacon and Old 97's Here It Is Christmastime and Fountains Of Wayne's I Want An Alien For Christmas.
- Chronology: Effectively this felt like a prelude to Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3.

The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special was an absolute delight to watch. A fun, breezy 40 minute special that was genuinely funny, genuinely heartfelt and touching and very Christmassy to boot. Excellent performances from Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Chris Pratt and Kevin Bacon. Disney+ really should do more of these specials for the MCU.

Rating: 9 out of 10

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