Our Hero, the Awesome Chris Pratt, lands his intergalactic spaceship on
a desperate and dangerous alien landscape. He steps into a derelict and
cavernous ancient cathedral overgrown with dangerous fauna. Chris Pratt puts on
his Walkman and plays his “Awesome Mix Tape #1.” The song, played loud and
funky is “Come and Get Your Love,” by Redbone. And to this tune, the opening
credits of our movie come on the screen as Chris Pratt dances and shuffles
through the many dangers of his archeological mission. That’s when I knew I was
watching something new, something interesting, and most importantly something
undeniably fun. And you know what, it was.
Until now, I have not heard of the Marvel comic “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Apparently it is rather recent comic without much of a fan base. There are no
recognizable characters. The team consists of a Firefly-esque band of misfits
that have come together to do fun outlaw stuff, mostly salvage jobs. The leader
is Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), a human who was abducted by aliens when he was a
just a little kid in 1988. This particular back-story is a boon to people like
me who are somewhat turned off by the complete arbitrariness of most way into
the future science fiction. The most obvious perk of the story happening
basically in current day even if we never see Earth is the soundtrack. It comes
from the Walkman containing his Awesome Mix tape that young Peter was carrying
when he was abducted. It has got Marvin Gaye, David Bowie, and even Blue Swede.
These songs reflect good taste on the part of Peter’s mother who made the tape
for him before she died of cancer. I was surprised and delighted that “Cherry
Bomb” by The Runaways got an extended play over one of those getting-for-battle
montages. It’s a killer song. Then there is the marvelous pair of digital
creations Rocket Raccoon and Groot. They are originally a pair of bounty
hunters. Rocket Raccoon is the product of a mad scientist who turned a raccoon
into a living, breathing, sarcastic as all hell, and complete with a snarly
Napoleaonic complex. Bradley Cooper voices Rocket Raccoon. Admittedly, I could
not recognize him in the voice. Groot is, I guess, an Ent, a walking tree. Vin
Diesel voices him in what can be safely be said is an underwritten role. All
Groot can say is “I am Groot.” Although, he is a bit like Chewbacca in that
apparently the Raccoon can interpret his connotations perfectly. These two
characters are not muppet sideshows. They are so well conceived and artistically
put together that after awhile I realized that I had forgotten that I wasn’t
simply watching actual actors. We are at a point in movie technology where
these characters are alive. It is an
extraordinary to watch and given the progress I would think this might be the
last time I comment on how well it is done. From now on, perhaps I’m going to
judge these performances just how I would judge a human performance. On a very
basic level what has been have achieved is a blurring of the distinction
between the two. Joining the party late is the Pro Wrestler Dave Bautista as
Drax. He does a very convincing job of being big and dumb and completely
incapable of grasping metaphors. Finally there is Zoe Saldana painted dark
green this time as a fierce warrior of some sort. She is the serious one of the
bunch because you know she’s a woman.
The plot of this story is arbitrary and absurd and quite frankly really
comparable to some truly awful movies like John
Carter of Mars and the like. There are bunches of people with weird names
in weirdly named places you’ve never heard of and they are trying to get this
weapon that is going to kill everybody unless Peter Quill and the gang get it
first. Motivations come and go easily for the people and not much makes sense
in that annoying Science Fiction way you know where because it takes place in a
far off place you don’t have to worry about making any of the technology
realistic or plausible. But guess what? I did not care. I just did not care. Because what this movie does good it does awesomely great and I could forgive
all the absurdity because the movie never really asked me to take it all that
seriously. What it asked me to do was have fun and then it provided great
music, good jokes, quirky characters, but above all abosolutely stunning things
to look at.
The design of this movie is truly Oscar worthy effort. It is hard to
assess who is exactly responsible for what. When you look up the crew on IMDB
you are faced with the fact that hundreds of people have worked on the movie.
But here are couple of names of the people in charge: Charles Wood of
Production Design, Ray Chan of Art Direction, Alexandra Byrne of Costume
Design, and whoever was in charge of makeup. There has not been a movie so
vibrant and fun to look at since “The Fifth Element.” This movie makes use of a
comic color palette. The prison jumpsuits are bright yellow. Several characters
are of light blue and hot pink and orange hue. My favorite design has to be the makeup of a character named
Nebula (Karen Gillan). Now that is a sexy blue robot (I think she is a robot,
maybe). If the makeup and hairstyling of this movie doesn’t win an Oscar I have
no idea what I’m talking about. At one point I was looking forward to seeing
new characters being introduced just to see what they looked like. What was
better about Benecio Del Toro’s part in this movie? His performance or his
white suit and hair?
This movie was directed by James Gunn and partially written by him too.
I have not seen anything else he has done but given the size of these blockbusters,
it is hard to say (and probably shouldn’t be said) that this is his movie. This is a corporate movie and as a corporate movie it has certain plusses and
minuses. It does not, cannot have the personal touch that small movies have.
But it does have the ability to apply lots of money for the employment of hundreds
of artisans and designers. “Guardians of the Galaxy,” is a persuasive argument
that summer tent-pole blockbusters can be worth the money spent to make it not
just profit-wise but also in artistic merit. Yes, corporate movies can be
quirky, original, and fun too. Attidude is all, i.e. the courage to play “Hooked on
a Feeling” by Blue Swede in a science fiction movie and have faith that the
audience is going to like it enough to ignore how the whole setup is completely
absurd. Such courage in very expensive projects is rare but take a look, it
exists.
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