Needs more Peter Serafinowicz.
By all means, it should not have succeeded. Andy Dwyer of Parks and Rec should not be a roguish
space hero. The guy who made Super should
not do a comic book movie. Vin Diesel should not be a tree. A talking,
gun-toting raccoon should not work. And yet, in spite of all these and many
other factors, this movie works even better than the rest of the Marvel
catalogue. Yes, even The Avengers.
Guardians of the
Galaxy is and isn’t a superhero movie. It’s an epic space opera that makes
for a better Star Wars movie than the
Star Wars prequels. Our Han Solo-type
is out to make a buck and look what happens—he gets embroiled in a desperate
attempt to save the galaxy from certain destruction. He even makes a few
buddies along the way. And yet, somehow, all of this is happening in the same
universe in which an eccentric arms manufacturer teams up with a Norse god, an
irradiated strong man with rage problems, a thawed out WWII super soldier—maybe
it’s not so crazy.
But the film itself is insane,
or at the very least weird. A lot of effort went in to making this alien and
spacy. We don’t need to be told this is in a galaxy far, far away. The images
do it for us. Humanoids of varying shades and hues walk in the backgrounds and
foregrounds, and the locales are peppered with utopian futuristic architecture
and gritty spacer aesthetics. There’s an entire sequence that takes place in a
dead giant being’s head that’s being mined out for its riches. It’s reminiscent
of the magazine Heavy Metal if its
content was toned down for PG13 audiences. It’s very much a comic book movie,
and it’s perhaps the best at being that.
The movie serves as a further evidence that the Marvel film brand
is stronger than ever and almost certainly stronger than D.C.’s. Marvel was
willing to take a risk on an unproven intellectual property, knowing full well
that if it fails they’ve got the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to fall
back on. Meanwhile, D.C. struggles to slap together a Batman and Superman movie
without doing anything to string them together beyond keeping the same Superman
actor. It’s this brazen confidence in Marvel’s property that no doubt supports Guardians’ success.
Chris Pratt does a fine job as Peter Quill, earth boy raised
by space scavengers. He’s as hilarious as we’ve come to expect given his
performances on Parks and Recreation and
in The Lego Movie. Bradley Cooper
plays the mouthy anthropomorphic raccoon Rocket who was not as annoying as I
had expected. For a tree, Groot is surprisingly emotive, though more of that is
owed to the animators and not necessarily Vin Diesel’s performance, though that’s
not to say he did terribly. He did fine for a talking tree. Dave Batista plays
our psychopathic strong man bent on vengeance, and for as angry and serious as
he was, he chimed in with some great comedic moments for himself. The weakest performance
here seemed to be Zoe Saldana as Gamora, due in part to her noticeably less
frequent comedic timing than the rest of the characters. She plays the vengeful
assassin lady admirably, but she doesn’t seem to have as much fun as the rest
of the actors.
At the end, I’m left wondering how this film will merge with
the rest of the MCU or if it even has to. Word is we have a sequel in the works
for Guardians already, and while I’m
happy to hear it, I’d be even happier if they keep it on that end of the galaxy
and not ours. There’s so much more to see in Guardians’ self-contained universe. We could use a good space opera
franchise right now, especially when we’ve been burned by other space opera
franchises in the past.
I vaguely remember the old Guardians comic book that was out when I was a kid, but I got reminded of it when the rebooted lineup was introduced in the current Spider-Man cartoon. From what I recall of the old characters, I like the new lineup better.
ReplyDeleteThe movie was entertaining, had a decent plot, and showcased solid special effects.
You're right about DC movies. Most stink although the last Batman and Superman movies have some merit.
As for Marvel, I wonder if they'll ever adapt the whole Civil War plot line, but I doubt they will because doing so would entail a lot of expensive actors playing many superheroes.
I think the extent of Marvel's ensemble movies will be limited to The Avengers. Marvel's in a funny position because, even though they're mostly owned by Disney, not all of their properties fall under that umbrella. I think X-Men is still owned by Fox and Sony's still got Spider-Man. It'll be interesting to see if that ever changes hands, and if so, if they'll be brought into the fold of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" that's been carved out of The Avengers' characters.
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