Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy"

Director: James Gunn
Runtime: 121 minutes

Though there's not a pirate to be found in Guardians of the Galaxy (at least not of the Blackbeard variety), the word that kept popping up in my head during the credits was "swashbuckling." Without question the Marvel universe's cheekiest adventure to date, James Gunn's breezy adventure may go through the motions of plot, but it's rather winning when it comes to character dynamics. At once acknowledging its own silliness and genuinely caring about its rag-tag group of heroes, this comedic foray into space opera territory errs on the lighter side, for better and for worse (but mostly for better).

The film's whole feel is best summed up by the film's main character Peter Quill, as played by Parks and Recreation star Chris Pratt. He's slick, he looks the part, and he's got the whole roguishly handsome vibe going on, yet with just the right look in his eyes to let you know that things are never going to fall into outright despair. The film kicks off with young Quill's mother dying of cancer, yet barely a minute later he's abducted by a group of space rogues who train him to be an intergalactic thief. 

And it's on one seemingly routine, Indiana Jones-like mission that Quill's life takes its pivotal turn and gets the story proper going. After stealing a mysterious metal orb from an abandoned planet (and rocking out to the mix tape on his cassette tape player), Quill finds himself targeted by multiple forces. Among them are the fierce warrior/assassin Gamora (a bright green Zoe Saldana), who wants the orb for her boss, and two bounty hunters looking to collect the sizable claim on Quill's head. Those assassins are Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) and Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), and they happen to be an anthropomorphic raccoon and tree, respectively. 

Of course, one thing leads to another, and everyone gets locked up in a floating space prison (as you do), falls in with fearsome warrior Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), and begrudgingly decides to work together. Turns out that orb is an ancient weapon, and Gamora's now former boss Ronan (Lee Pace) wants to use it to commit genocide. What happens next? Well, nothing terribly surprising, although that hardly ends up being a bad thing in this case.

Regarding plot and character, director Gunn and writer Nicole Perlman make no bones about the fact that they're creating a film designed to launch a franchise. So even though the "get the MacGuffin back from the villain" story largely goes through the motions, the pair compensate by placing focus on the mostly lighthearted bickering and bantering among the central quintet. This turns out to be a winning formula, as it's when the film is usually at its most purely enjoyable. Much of this also has to do with the nature of the characters. Rather than the usual Marvel demi gods and super humans, the Guardians are, for lack of better term, more down to Earth that your average heroes. They have their skills, but not to the point of being too different from the rest of their wild, dangerous universe. 

The main cast all have a great deal of fun with their light-as-a-feather material, and Gunn even finds ways to work in some genuinely emotional moments without going into the thornier emotional complexities. Pratt makes for an endearing leader of this band of outlaws, and proves to be a surprisingly capable leading man in both comedy and sci-fi/adventure. Saldana, now launching her third major sci-fi franchise (after Avatar and Star Trek) is as fierce as ever, and makes Gamora a suitably level-headed character without turning her into a spoil sport or a nag. And Bautista, though initially a little shaky, nicely grows into his role as the vengeful and literally-minded Drax.

The real heart of the movie, however, belongs to its two entirely digital characters. Cooper does an exceptional job voicing the wily Rocket, and helps punctuate the close encounters with po-faced dramatics with perfectly calibrated doses of sarcasm and humor. Diesel as Groot has less to work with (the character's only means of communication is to say "I am Groot"), yet he turns these repeated declarations into appropriately varied expressions of the character's emotions (and thankfully, Rocket, the Han Solo to his Chewbacca, is always on hand to translate). Both characters are also superbly rendered by the visual effects artists, which only lends extra heft to impeccable voice work from both actors.

Despite some hints at deeper trauma or sadness in these characters, the overall approach is to keep everything buoyant and in forward motion. Even with its cardboard cutout of a plot, Gunn keeps it all moving, and the film ends up feeling about 10 or 15 minutes shorter than its actual length (2 hours). So much happens, yet Guardians hardly feels like it's going along too quickly for its own good.

Gunn and his behind the scenes team have also knocked it out of the park on the visual front. Guardians hops all over the galaxy, and the art design of the all the locales feels distinct and lived-in. And, like the recent X-Men film, the overall color palette is both more vibrant and more sophisticated than almost all of the other Marvel-based films in the last decade. Guardians of the Galaxy clearly succeeds when it comes to tone, but it's also worth noting the truly sincere level of care that went into the art direction, costume design, make-up, and visual effects. Tyler Bates' grand, soaring score is a bonus on top of the slick technical accomplishments on display.

All of the above, including the winks at the audience, is more than enough to offset the well-handled, yet wholly recycled plot. Guardians does work as a self-contained adventure, but it's also designed to spawn sequels. Unlike The Amazing Spider-Man (or TASM 2), Guardians knows how to make its "origin story" click. The plot is there to make sure that things don't get stagnant, yet it's left to the characters coming together as a bizarre team and family that really matters. It's utterly frivolous entertainment, despite the hints at deeper, dark emotions, yet it also sets up a thoroughly engaging world that offers a quite literal universe to explore. This quality is what elevates Guardians of the Galaxy above other fun-but-disposable fare. It may not sink its hooks into you, but it ultimately proves to be infectious on multiple levels, and makes the wait for the next adventure (2017) feel far too long.

Grade: B/B-

Review: "Fast and Furious 6"

Director: Justin Lin
Runtime: 130 minutes

In the decades since Jaws began the tradition of summer blockbusters, a hierarchy has evolved among the big-budget tentpole films that studios roll out between May and August. At the top, you have the likes of The Dark Knight, a dark and brooding epic that blends popcorn thrills with operatic grandeur. The next tier is the lighter, comedic action fare that still has some genuine smarts to it, like the first Iron Man and Pirates of the Caribbean films. And then there's the bottom tier of the (successful) summer blockbuster caste system: the excessive dumb fun. 

It's in that bottom tier where Fast and Furious 6, the latest entry in the mega-successful Fast and Furious franchise, gleefully resides. 2011's Fast Five was a surprise return to form (and the series' first film to garner positive critical consensus) for the series. Furious 6 (its official on-screen title, for some reason) builds on Five's momentum, and takes it to ridiculous new heights. To examine the film is to find a piece of cinematic junk food. But what awfully tasty and satisfying junk food it is.

Opening roughly a year after Fast Five, 6 reintroduces DEA agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson's biceps, and presumably the rest of him), along with his new partner Riley (Gina Carano). The pair are trying - and failing - to capture criminal mastermind Shaw (Luke Evans, all cheekbones and pervy facial hair). Shaw, an ex-black ops soldier, has been stealing technology to build a super weapon worth billions of dollars. Desperate, Hobbs turns to Dom Torretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker), and their crew for help. His leverage? A photo of former companion Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), who presumably died in the events of 2009's Fast and Furious. 

Not content with simply illegal racing or heists, this new entry has decided to turn the insanity up to 11 by making its protagonists super spies. It's part of what allows Furious 6 to reach some thrilling and ludicrous heights. Don't worry, there's still plenty of driving, and even a race, but it's all dressed up as a lunkheaded espionage action thrill-ride. It's terrifically goofy, and terrifically entertaining. Returning director Justin Lin once again creates a constantly engaging experience out of the paper thin material. Whether you're laughing with the film, or at it, the entire piece has been designed to be nothing more than shameless entertainment. Lin and company succeed with flying colors.

I could talk about the overripe dialogue, or the ridiculous explanation for Letty's reappearance. I could mention my problems with a relatively unnecessary subplot that sends Brian undercover in a Los Angeles prison. But, with its mostly crisp action and outstanding sound work, Furious 6 moves along so briskly that the legitimate flaws in structure and execution barely have time to register. Even the nighttime driving scenes, with their murky blue/black color palettes, shine thanks to the nifty custom cars that Shaw and his crew use as they tear through the streets of London. The hand-to-hand combat is also pumped up, with several major fights resulting in some of the film's most satisfying action beats.

But, at its core, the franchise has always been about the cars. And, when it comes to gorgeous cars doing over-the-top stunt work, it's hard to top Furious 6. The film's last two set-pieces are among the most kinetic and hilariously overblown ever committed to film. One involves a tank, and the other a plane. And one climaxes with a stunt that is the biggest middle finger to physics imaginable. Both are worth the price of admission. It's simultaneously thrilling and laugh out loud funny. Diesel and Walker may be slumming it, but the supporting cast seems to be having a ball with their broad material (especially Tyrese Gibson). Johnson also continues to be a valuable new asset to the franchise, while Carano adds an extra layer of female punch (literally) by putting her mixed martial arts training to great use.

In a sense, Furious 6 is both the best Fast and Furious movie, as well as the best parody of the franchise. It is a film so willing to do anything to entertain, and it's all the more remarkable that Lin pulls it off. There's not an ounce of substance in the entire thing, but it hardly matters because, even at 130 minutes, it's such a riotously good time. Usually, when films try to function as simple dumb fun, they provide too much stupidity and not enough fun, rendering them a chore to sit through. With Fast and Furious 6, the racing-turned-racing-spy franchise has hit the absolute perfect balance. It's a bottom-tier blockbuster in the absolute best sense of the term.

Grade: B-
Sheer entertainment value: A

Review: "Fast Five"

The Fast and Furious series, for all of its diversions in sequel nomenclature, deserves credit for its consistency. It is consistently loud, consistently dumb, consistently fast, and consistently unassuming. It's also, despite the series' considerable ups and downs, consistently fun. The series' fifth entry, Fast Five, has earned the only positive consensus in the F+F catalog, and in some ways, it's easy to see why the critical community has decided to embrace this film. It's a silly and barely memorable film, but it's also down to earth, in the sense that it never aspires to be an ounce more than what it is (unlike, say, Sucker Punch).

Opening with a brief catch-up, we see that Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) has been sent to prison, much to the dismay of Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster). In the film's opening action sequence, the pair intercept Dom's prison transport bus, sending the thing flipping down the desert road. A news report then tells us that only one prisoner was missing when police arrived on the scene, and that there were no injuries. Yes, you heard that right. Not even 'no fatalities,' no injuries. Barely 20 minutes later, Diesel and Walker survive a massive fall from a bridge into a river. So while there are no elves or dragons in Fast Five, director Justin Lin and screenwriter Chris Morgan quickly establish that this all takes place in fantasy-land.

From there, we get a relatively standard heist set-up, although this time OMG we're in RIO you guys! The movie never lets us forget either (at least two overhead shots of the Christ the Redeemer statue, pans along the coast/beaches, etc...). The bad guy sets off the good guys, who plan monetary revenge, all while forced to evade US law enforcement, led by agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson's ginormous biceps). Pic's middle mostly consists of piecing together the plan, trial and error tests runs, and scattered encounters with Hobbs and his ilk. There's a pregnancy subplot too, although I could've sworn that at some point Ms. Brewster can briefly be seen toasting with a beer bottle (root beer, perhaps?).

And yet for all that's ordinary (especially the barely-there performances), there's still an undeniable sense of fun about the whole thing. Is it dumb? Of course it is. But it's so sincere in its stupidity, and so completely without pretension in regards to its "emotional" moments that the movie never gets weighed down. And even though the film may hold off longer on vehicular chases (a chance for a race involving a blue Porsche is skipped for time), the movie delivers when it wants to. Lin and cinematographer Stephen Windon do a nice job of showing us what's actually going on in the action, whether on foot or in cars. The film's trio of editors keep things moving fast, but never over-cut to the point of making action scenes incomprehensible or jumbled. It's a nice change of pace from the wannabe-cinema-verite-shaky-handheld that pervades so many action scenes these days.

And even though there's nothing resembling actual character development, I suspect longtime fans of the series already have fond enough associations with the main characters. For the rest of us, there's a clear enough of a line between good and bad that it doesn't really matter how one-note these people are. They're buff and beautiful, so it goes without saying that we're supposed to root for them. Somehow, that feels OK here. Fast Five may be dumb, but as stated above, it's inoffensively dumb, and it's also a great deal of fun. In other words it's the epitome of the lowest tier of big-budget summer entertainment, and there's nothing wrong with any of that.

Grade: C+