I've talked about this before, how expectations can mold your appreciation of a movie, so let me tell you what my mindset was coming into this one. I liked the first Guardians, although not as much as everyone else as I think Ronan is such a forgettable villain. I really didn't like the second one and thought it was a huge step down from the first one, it felt rushed and had another very weak villain. Marvel was coming off of a terrible string of movies and I even didn't like the Guardians Christmas special. I was still a fan of James Gunn though, and loved his Suicide Squad so there was that to look forward to. So, to say I wasn't expecting to like this one as much as I did is the understatement of the year. Another thing I wanted to talk about after watching this movie, was the much talked about superhero fatigue. When people mention it I think they tend to dismiss or forget that two incredible superhero movies came out this year alone (the other one being the Spiderverse movie, of course), so it just proves that if well written and well executed a superhero movie can still be really good, what people are tired is the terrible writing and lack of originality that populates most superhero movies released nowadays. Anyway, with all that out of the way, let me tell you just how much I loved this movie. It is incredibly well written, interweaving character development, emotional set pieces, comedy and action like it's nothing, with the highlight for me being the characters which are the heart of this thing. I mean, Star-Lord, Rocket, Gamora, Nebula, Drax, Mantis, Groot, even all the supporting characters like Cosmo, Kraglin or Adam Warlock, they're all so likable that you can probably ask ten different persons which one is their favorite, and you might get ten different answers. That's a testament of how good they all are! Execution wise, this is a beautiful movie, very well directed and the VFX for a change are actually good and serve to enhance the story. My only nitpick might be the villain that, although good conceptually and probably the best of this trilogy, is not as memorable as everything else, something that seems to plague all Gunn movies. Anyway, I really, really liked this movie and it is easily in my top five MCU movies. Highly recommended.
