Guardians of the Galaxy

Some have called Guardians of the Galaxy a real risk for Marvel, arguably the biggest they have taken since they released Iron Man back in 2008. But for me, as DC guy, this has been the Marvel film that I’ve been looking forward to the most, more so than any other Phase Two film (the films after The Avengers that will build into The Avengers: Age of Ultron), purely because they were trying something new and they had complete faith in what they were doing and in these characters.

With the success and good will that Marvel currently has going, they have chosen to the right time to introduce the more galactic element of their cinematic universe, something that is going to play into their long term plans, especially when you consider the growing presence of Thanos. Even if dragging his big moment out could risk him looking borderline incompetent after a couple of his emissaries have been defeated by the heroes.

So the basic idea of GOTG is of a group of five loveable losers, including a talking tree and gun toting Raccoon, who come together, at first for individual gain and then to save a planet from a warlord (probably the easiest way to describe him). It's safe to say that the film is more interested in character than plot and by going with a relatively straight forward story, it really allows the characters to shine.

The stand out characters in GOTG are Peter Quill aka Starlord (Chris Pratt), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) and Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper). Starlord, he'd prefer it if I called him that, is the main character and our "in" for this story and it's through him that we have the characters and worlds explained to us. Starlord comes across as an arrogant Han Solo mixed with Uncharted's Nathan Drake. He's charismatic, funny and doesn’t always know when he to be serious (a scene with Ronan towards the end is bizarre to say the least, but fits the character perfectly).

Rocket and Groot, possibly the oddest couple you'll come across, start off as a kind of comic relief. However, this quickly evolves into a much more complicated and emotional relationship. Rocket constantly derides his wooden companion, making fun of him and telling him what to do. Rocket is also very much about self preservation and improving his financial situation. Groot, is the friendly and loyal partner, who really wants nothing more than to please Rocket and get him to like him. All of this feeds into the climax and arguably the films most emotional moment.

It isn't all good though, as per usual, Marvel have struggled to really give us a stand out villain, here it is Lee Pace, as Ronan the Accusor, who is given little to do and as a result has little impact on the film. Barely accomplishing anything within the film, apparently he's feared throughout the galaxy. I just wish I knew why. The problem with Marvels villains in this series, bar Loki who occupies a grey area, is something they need to start addressing in their future films. They do the right thing by giving the majority of the films attention to the hero(es), but sometimes we want to see the other side. Give us a villain with some depth who has a cause we can at least understand.

Visually, this film is stunning, Every sweeping shot of a planet is picturesque and every building teaming with life and detail. The highlights for me were the prison sequence and The Collectors offices. Each one comes across as a lived in place with its own history that adds to characters that inhabit them.

The models of Groot and Rocket are impressive, Rocket is arguably the better of the two as we have probably all seen a raccoon, albeit not a talking one and as a result any shot of Rocket is a real triumph.

As with The Winter Soldier earlier in the year, GOTG has two good acts and one weak one. Whereas The Winter Soldier had a final act that didn't really live up to the standards of the first two, in GOTG, it is the middle that lags. The section in Knowhere (a kind of space port, with a unique location) is sluggish. Like the characters we are just waiting for something to happen and bar a great monologue from Rocket, it is largely forgettable. The spacecraft dog fight was fairly pedestrian and actually took me out of the film. But the end of GOTG could be the best finish to any Marvel film released so far, because I was actually invested in some of the heroes, a genuine first for me in the Marvel cinematic universe.

This was the Marvel film that I have been looking forward to for a long time and was one of the top three films I was anticipating this summer and thankfully it held up to what I was expecting. Creating a new storyline/series within the Marvel universe a long the way.

An fun and enjoyable sci-fi adventure for everyone.

Director: James Gunn

Writers: James Gunn and Nicole Perlman. Dan Abnett (comic book) and Andy Lanning (comic book)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Note: There are no spoilers for The Winter Soldier, but some plot details for The Avengers are given away.

I have openly said that the first Captain America film The First Avenger was, and still is the worst of all the Marvel Studio’s films (It also sits in my bottom three of all time), as it served as little more than an extended introduction to The Avengers. With Phase Two (set between the first and second Avengers films) part of Marvel Studio’s plan, we are seeing a lot more character specific films and ones that don’t entirely exist to set up a future film.

The basic story, as I will try and avoid spoilers here, for The Winter Soldier, is after a number of attacks on SHIELD's assets and officers, leading to an assassination attempt on one character'slife, which Cap has information on but can’t say anything about, Captain America is then forced to go on the run to try and clear his name.

Led by Chris Evans as Captain America, who still carries a hope that everything can be clear and that people will do the right thing, even though he himself works in a suspect organization, built on factions within other factions, each one with their own morals and objectives. His struggle with this, even though somewhat marginalized at times, is similar to Superman’s in Man of Steel, as he wants to trust the world and do good, but just can’t push aside all of his doubts.

Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury is as entertaining as he has been in all of his performances, although this time there is more to it, he is vulnerable and open to serious challenges regarding his direction of SHIELD.

Scarlett Johansson, reprises her role as Black Widow, the arrogant but very competent assassin. Bar The Avengers, this is the film that has given us the biggest glimpse into her past and the crimes that she has committed in the price, as well as showing just how far she is willing to go. It’s a welcomed change of pace, to see more of this character that at times has been an underdeveloped character.

The action sequences in The Winter Soldier are light years ahead of what we see in The First Avenger, they have tried to minimize the amount of green screen and dependence on CGI, instead choosing to shoot as much as they can in camera. The first thirty minutes has the best sequences in the film, a night raid on a ship and one of the best, if at times over the top, car chases you will see this year. The only shame is that Cap isn’t in the car chase, which is probably the action set piece in the film.

As the film goes on, some of the action sequences begin to go on for too long, far past the time when the ‘this is awesome’ or ‘look how cool this is’ factor has left the scene. There are about ten or twenty extra dead (and incompetent) henchmen than we really needed.

But do not let this put you off the action is entertaining and there are genuine stakes and moments of peril within these sequences. Something that was lacking in the previous film and the majority of Marvel’s films.

One common thread running within the Marvel films (bar Tom Hiddleston) is that the villain often seems neglected or under developed, they are evil for the sake of being evil. Here, with The Winter Soldier (I will avoid giving away his identity), we have a villain, who is actually dangerous and evil with a caveat, but due to his mystery and anonymity, he becomes more interesting to watch.

He comes across as a lesser version of The Joker from The Dark Knight as he just  from nowhere and causes havoc and destruction while clocking up a staggering body count around him. I know the The Winter Soldier has a personal relevance to Cap, more so than Joker to Batman, but in terms of the way the character is utilised, he shares cinematic similarities. 

He isn’t given the dialogue or scene stealing moments that Joker had, but while that does fit the character, it would have been nice for him to be given one or two dialogue driven scenes to give him more depth. Sebastian Stan, does well to create a character and not a caricature with a largely silent performance.

This is the first Marvel film where they have tried to inject any kind of real world subjects or questions into it. There is an obvious and under acknowledged thread about surveillance and then later on a line or two about whistle blowing.

Unfortunately, these ideas are the ones that elevate a film and give it weight, while it may not have been Marvel’s aim to give us these big weighty ideas and questions, I feel that they missed a real opportunity. Anyone comparing this to a Tom Clancy, political thriller had better stop now.

The problem of shared cinematic universe is for me starting to raise some questions for me about the rules Marvel have set, while in the cinema, I turned to my wife and asked, “Where's Iron Man? Hulk? Thor? Or Hawkeye?” It’s hard to believe that not one of these would have shown up considering what was going on.

Yes, they are not all on great terms, but at the end of The Avengers they at least get on (the same can be said for Iron Man 3). Also, the events of the last three solo films do not take place at the same time, the TV show Agents of Shield has proved this. So if you are going to have this kind of interconnected films and shows, you had better start justifying why they aren’t helping each other.

While it didn’t quite reach the hype that it had coming in, this is probably Marvel Studio’s best film to date, as it curbs the humour significantly and focuses on making it’s characters interesting whilst giving them an engaging plot to follow them through.

Directors: Joe and Anthony Russo. Joss Whedon (post credits scene).

Writers: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (screenplay). Ed Brubaker (story).

The Avengers

This summer sees the release of a number of highly anticipated blockbusters, three of which are based on comic book characters, one a debateable prequel (I am sure some people will disagree with me on this point, to varying degrees) to a science fiction classic, another is based on a 1960s TV show that aired on the ABC network in America. There are others, I am sure, but these will be the five that I will, in all likely go and see during this summer. Some would look at this and see it as more evidence that Hollywood, especially when it comes to it’s tent pole films is running out of imagination, but only time will tell with that, and which will ultimately come with the release and reception to these films.

The first of these films was The Avengers, but with different titles in certain countries, having seen the previous films that have set up this film, ranging from the tedious in Captain America to the surprisingly good (I went in expecting very little, despite the cast and director) in Thor, I was interested in seeing how they would attack the possibilities for this story.

Co-written and Directed by Joss Whedon, whose Buffy the Vampire Slayer series I was a huge fan of when I was younger, he didn’t seem like the kind of choice that Marvel would have gone for, having made his name almost entirely in television, there were no doubt more conservative choices they could have gone with, especially related to directorial duties.

The cast of the film is largely made up of the actors from the previous films but with a few new additions and one recasting, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, the majority bring the exact same character to this film, as they had in the others. For some this isn’t a problem, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston continue on with their superbly complex brotherly relationship, and Ruffalo constructs probably the most human and likeable version of Banner. The others characters just seem to be going through the paces when it comes to their scenes and others simply carry on with the same version, not bringing anything new to their performance.

There will be spoilers from this point, so please don’t carry on if you haven’t seen it, or don’t want to know any details.

The plot, is simple to say they least, Loki (Hiddleston) returns to Earth, to find an object called the Tesseract, a source of seemingly limitless power, in his bid to take over the Earth, with the help of an alien race, the Chitauri, with the Avengers being the only thing possible of standing in the way. During the first two acts we have to go through two or three giant action set pieces as the team work out their differences, until they finally realise that perhaps they should stop Loki before he brings an army of aliens to Earth.

Now this may seem as though, from how I have talked about it so far, that the film isn’t very strong when it comes to story, and it probably isn’t. But where it makes up for it, and this is plainly down to Whedon’s knack for dialogue is in the more subdued moments between the characters, more often than not a simple one to one conversation. Most of these moments feature Hiddleston’s Loki, the first of these moments is soon after Thor arrives (probably the best entrance of the film), another later on with Scarlett Johansson, even some of the less snappy conversations he has are elevated above what they could have been thanks to his portrayal of the character. As mentioned before Hemsworth brings Thor to life in a realistic way (for a demi-god), in a role that in either film could have, in the lesser hands, been nothing more than cocky meathead.

I saw this film in 2D, as I had heard that parts of the film, especially those set in space are very hard to make out, due to 3D making the screen darker (I don’t know the technical details of 3D, I apologize), so can only speak about this version of the film. The photography of the film is good, none of it is bad, but also none of it pops out as being instantly memorable, there is one long shot in the finale that swoops through New York following the different characters, which is fun but doesn’t linger for two long. The visual highlight is probably the first time Thor arrives to capture an already captured Loki around the end of the first act, and the battle between him, Captain America and Iron Man that follows.

One of the biggest let downs of the film is that none of the characters seem to have an emotional journey or arc throughout the film, maybe this is because of the very nature of “team-up” film, you have to spread out the screen time around the cast, making sure that everyone had their moment. But as a result here, no one really goes through any change, or has sort of epiphany or realization that will alter them (this could also be due to the no doubt already written, or in the process of being written sequels to the individual films), and this is a shame when compared to the other comic book team films, most noticeably the X-Men films, although I must admit they chose to focus on certain characters more than others, primarily Wolverine. However, would have pushing one character to the fore, and others into glorified supporting roles worked for the this film, possibly, but also it could have led to it being received as more of Thor 1.5, which in some ways this could have been seen to be, due to Loki serving as the lead villain.

This is unmistakeable a popcorn film, it doesn’t ask you to deal with too many ideas or to think about how it is a reflection of our world or is even as well made as some of the top echelon of the genre, such as both Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Spiderman 1 and 2, Superman: The Movie or one of it’s predecessors Thor. This could obviously be the film, and Whedon knowing what this film as sticking to it, but with a film that everyone knew was going to make money, and it already has, it’s a shame that it didn’t take more risks, in terms of story, the characters (some of them) or the ideas and messages that would have elevated this beyond what it is.

Ultimately, I enjoyed it for what it was. If you go and see it, don’t go in expecting great things, and you may enjoy yourself, and even be surprised at what you see. But what do I know; I’m a DC guy.