I normally don’t do holiday specials or things like that in my Christmas reviews. However, I was really looking forward to The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special so I felt I needed to review it.
Kraglin (Sean Gunn) tells Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Drax (Dave Bautista) about a time that Yondu (Michael Rooker) ruined Christmas for Peter (Chris Pratt). Wanting to make Christmas special for Peter this year, Mantis and Drax travel to Earth to bring back Kevin Bacon as a present.
Most of this holiday special is Mantis and Drax cavorting around Los Angeles looking for Kevin Bacon. There were some really funny moments. The aliens stumbling onto the Chinese Theater, where tourists frequently flock to get pictures with people dressed up as characters, and ending up with a ton of people wanting to take pictures with them? Pretty epic. I also loved Mantis yelling at Drax every time Drax tried to use violence as a solution to a problem. She was usually rather meek in previous movies so it was nice to see her be a little more forceful.
One of the things I didn’t like about the special is that it felt like I was missing something when it started. Well, it started as an animation, which I didn’t expect but when it changed over to live action, I felt a little lost. We have watched all of the MCU films/shows to date so there is no reason for me to feel like I’m missing information. The other thing I didn’t like was the look of Groot (Vin Diesel). I’m not exactly sure how old he’s supposed to be but the treeman looks like he’s been taking steroids or something. His torso is bulky but his head is way smaller. I don’t like it.
If you are a fan of Guardians of the Galaxy (GoG), obviously you’ll watch the holiday special. You might be a little lost if you haven’t watched GoG vol 2, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. But if you are up to date on all of the MCU movies, this should be a good time for you.