leocoolio

I actually like the idea of a Star Trek musical episode, it is something fresh and interesting, but unfortunately the execution here was quiet bad.

Now first of all a musical episode needs good songs, but the songs here were just boring, interchangeable and not interesting in both lyrics and chords.

And then a musical episode should also evolve the characters, reveal interesting or shocking secrets or propel a character forwards in a conflict that has been building all season. We get very little of that here except for La'an who ironically has the most important secret NOT revealed in a song but in a conversation. What a waste...

Compare this to the excellent Buffy musical where Buffys friends learn they ripped her out of heaven trying to safe her and she has been unable to feel any joy ever since.

Tara learns that Willow has been manipulating her memory to conceal her addiction.

Etc. These are some intense secret beeing revealed through song in the musical.

And it also has song very catchy and interesting songs.

This however was a "we want to do a musical but don't know what it is about" kind of attempt.

So 5 stars for the bravery of trying this, but no more due to the poor execution.

All Guardians of the Galaxy movies stand out among Marvel as especially relevant in themes and adept in conveying real emotional moments. This is largely thanks to the great writing and direction by James Gunn who delivers a great finale to the trilogy that will make you feel both sadness and joy but also again delivers strongly on the themes of family, friendship, dealing with grief, moving on from it and the value of kindness, which is already a great feat given the somewhat absurd setting of an action space opera.

There are many very very well written character moments especially for Rocket but for the other characters as well that and several moments that will make you choke up and even cry for either the tragedy or beauty of the moment if you allow yourself to dive into them.

The humor is again very well timed and unlike other Marvel movies does not take away from the more serious moments or overstay its welcome like in the recent Thor installment.

I love the direction they took for the characters as well and it gives Chris Pratt a couple of moments to shine as an actors who can be more than just funny (which he still is very much).

Although in terms of humor no one holds a candle to the absolute perfect timing and intonation of Dave Bautista who I very much admire both for his performance but also his integrity around the Gunn firing and re-installment.

In closing if you enjoyed Guardians 1 and 2 this is the perfect closure for the trilogy that will make you laugh, cry and think a lot not just about animal testing but also (if you are dealing with that) might help you deal with emotions of grief and moving forward.