Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume 3
Regal Cinema - Hazleton, PA
My relationship with comic book movies over the years has been pretty weird. I didn't read comics too much when I was a kid, and while I've enjoyed most of the movies that I've seen that are based on comics, I usually end up forgetting just about everything that happens in the film about a week after I've seen it. There are only three that I can think of that have really stuck in my memory: Batman (1989), The Crow (1994), and Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014).
Until we signed up for Regal Unlimited, I really didn't go out of my way to see very many comic book movies. Part of that is because there are just so many of them that come out every year that they don't really feel special to me, and part of the reason is because the trailers for all of the MCU films all look pretty much exactly the same to me. I'm sure that this is because I didn't read the comics and I'm only vaguely familiar with the biggest characters (think Spider Man, Wolverine, and The Incredible Hulk), and not at all familiar with anybody else. The little bit that I do know about the comic book world comes mostly from video games, Saturday morning cartoons from the 80's, and a set of Marvel Comics trading cards that I had when I was a kid.
I had never even heard of Guardians Of The Galaxy characters before I saw the first movie on a flight from Philly to London. There were three things that I knew about the movie going in: it had a lot of 80's music, there was a character who was a tree, and WWE wrestler Batista was one of the actors. I ended up really loving the film, but for some reason, I never got around to seeing the sequel, so in anticipation of seeing Part 3 on the big screen, we watched Guardians 1, Guardians 2, and the Guardians Christmas Special early last week on Disney+ to catch up. As it turns out, I really should have watched some of The Avengers movies too, which I still haven't seen, but I'll have to get to those later.
They were giving out free posters at my local Regal. At some point, I have to start hanging these up in the garage. Between the posters from here and the Mahoning, I probably have enough to cover all of the walls twice over at this point.
We originally went to see the movie in a non-3D screening, but there were a group of kids in the back who wouldn't shut up, so we left after about ten minutes and asked if we could just go to the next screening instead. As it turned out, the next screening was in 3D, so they gave us a couple of pairs of glasses and in we went. There were at least twice as many people at this screening, but thankfully, they were all there to actually see the movie and not discuss their precious little social lives at the top of their lungs.
Having seen all three Guardians Of The Galaxy series in the same week, I have to say that this is one of the most fun sci-fi movie trilogies that I've ever seen. I hope that Batista reconsiders his decision to step away from this character. His performance in these three films is a hell of a lot stronger than it was in Knock At The Cabin, which was disappointing for a number of reasons. In any case, with or without him, this is a story that I would be glad to see continue.
