To screw up a metaphor, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special melted my Grinch heart. I was just telling a friend I really don’t watch Christmas movies on a loop. I’ll watch ’em and the schmaltz might make me warm and nostalgic for Christmas, but it’s not my usual jam. Well, this damn Holiday Special really hit me when the heart blood flows.
This forty-five minute Disney+ special rejoins the Guardians of the Galaxy on Knowhere around Christmas time back on Terra. Mantis and Drax decide to recreate an Earth Christmas for Peter by getting him the gift of Kevin Bacon for the holidays.
The first half of this special is a lot of fun. We are reintroduced to the Guardians, we get an actually funny Christmas song, and we even get character advancement and literal growth (I’m looking at you, Groot). The trip to Earth that lets Drax and Mantis just hang loose with the locals in Hollywood is just a lot of good ol’ fashioned goofy fun. And Kevin Bacon (in the flesh) is having fun too… though one wonders if this precludes him from ever being in the MCU as a character. But whatevs.
The final twenty minutes go full Christmas and it’s just charming and schmaltzy in the best way possible. It was a joy reuniting with these characters, watching them gift each other presents, and learning the meaning of family and having a Kevin Bacon in a box. This is what you get when you establish great and fun characters and just let them hang loose.
Plus the flick really gives Mantis some needed character growth that she’ll probably never get in the movies. She’s got a rage and a hilarious creep factor we’ve never seen before (and she can fight). This may be about Starlord’s Christmas, but it’s really Christmas for Pom Klementieff (and Dave Bautisa… and Cosmo, now that I think about it).
This isn’t top tier Marvel, but it’s going pretty high on the list. Maybe I’m grading too high just for letting it callously mine my latent Christmas spirit… but, hell, that’s what all the best holiday movies do. I really enjoyed this one and I want to give it a hug.
Score: 87