Very loosely based off the novel by the same name, Starship Troopers was a pretty infamous film when I was growing up, but it has become a cult favourite of the science fiction genre. Unfortunately... people thought this lightning-in-a-bottle exploitation of Paul Verhoeven deserved a sequel... and another sequel...
To this day I refused to watch the sequels, but now I feel I am ready to see just how trashy they really are.
Yes, there is a third animated sequel now, but that one will have to wait!
Starship Troopers (1997)
Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi love letter to warploitation and war satire still stands up by today's scrutiny! As silly and self-aware as it is.
In a future were Humanity is in the middle of a mindless war with an unknown alien force, enrollment with the military is encourage and even enforced over young people. Ricco is one such young soldier, and the story follows his recruitment, training and finally battle experiences.
If there is one thing Verhoeven is good at, it is making vastly enjoyable, satirical adult movies, distilled most completely in this film and 1987's RoboCop. The film takes the few comic skits from RoboCop (television adverts) and blows them up by eleven with full military recruitment videos that treat war, bloodshed and killing in defense of Earth as a family friendly commitment for all, young and old. The satire is rife throughout this film, coupled with the seemingly ambiguous designs or origins of the war to begin with! It is great fun, though I'm sure some audiences might find some grief in it if they are looking for a more "serious" toned sci-fi film.
Starship Troopers is a long, loaded film too. It goes through multiple phases as we follow not just Rico's (Casper Van Dien) career but also his girlfriend's (Denise Richards) career as a space pilot and their own friends. The narrative almost feels episodic, but its heart and satire prevents it from feeling like a stop-and-start.
The visual effects, asides the occasional alien, are still fantastic. Verhoeven clearly put a lot of money and effort into making his film look physical and practical, with model effects for the spaceships and several physical effects for some aliens. This coupled with awesome blood squibs to ramp up the gore makes the film a riot in terms of action and war scenarios!
This film has some infamy for me personally; at least, for people my age. Released in 1997 were I was thirteen, this film became notorious for containing aliens, war, swearing, nudity and gore, I remember friends feeling proud having seen it! It certainly delivers all of these things in ample supply!
It has plenty of cliche, and the episodic nature of the screenplay makes things feel a little forced at times, especially with how flippantly the universe and the society are described. It plays fast and loose with its logic which might annoy or perplex more cynical people. It has surprisingly not aged, though there is one scene at a party with some pretty dated music playing!
Overall it is a great science fiction action movie! I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the genre and hasn't seen it yet. It is gory, adult, full of wartime satire and packed with action set pieces and awesome special effects.
Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)
Without Paul Verhoeven at the helm and a fraction of the original film's budget, none of the cast returning... the sequel completely tanks unless viewed in a vacuum (of space!)
Set after the events of the first film, the story follows a platoon devastated in the war against the Bugs on a distant planet. They become entrenched within an abandoned factory, and while their psychic officer sense something within their ranks, they find an imprisoned and disgraced officer.
Well... this is certainly a step down from the original's budget and tone! The film opens with action as our squad is vastly outnumbered... at least... we assume they are. The cinematography is terrible, the shots alternate between our characters shooting in a grey fog, to aliens running around in isolation.
The majority of the film however takes place inside the factory, and actually takes the tone of a horror movie instead of an all out war film like Verhoeven's original. We get very few of the original aliens; our protagonists are safe behind a surrounding energy barrier, instead the threat comes in the form of body-snatchers.
The budget kills the film stone dead, the filming is poor, the acting is poor, we are trapped in a single location and the enemies are hiding within our human characters, and by comparison to its glorified and sprawling predecessor this film deserves a lot of frustration and hate. It doesn't even attempt to justify its existence with decent setup and connection with the greater universe.
But... by its own merits, it has some redeeming factors. It has some decent claustrophobia, and there are still great physical alien effects that are gooey and bursting with venom and bile. Director Phil Tippett has done very little actual direction work, but he had worked as a stop-motion animation supervisor and creator on such little known films as RoboCop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the original Star Wars trilogy! While his direction is terrible, I can appreciate the monster effects that he clearly had a lot of say with.
I suppose I had such low expectations for this film that these few decent qualities surprised me and actually made me appreciate the atmosphere generated.
Put it this way, the first film had a budget of $100,000,000, this film had $7,000,000! Not even a tenth of the original budget! So while it is very questionable why this film even exists, you can forgive its need to reuse "money-shots" from the first film, and television-grade acting.
There are better body-snatcher stories out there, it has little to no connection with the first film, making it quite a redundant watch unless you like to see some creepy alien designs.
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)
Directed neither by Verhoeven or Tippett, Marauder was a straight-to-DVD affair even in the USA and directed by Edward Neumeier. It claws back some of the original's satirical tone, has more budget to play with but feels really awkward when it is all said and done.
Johnny Rico (played by returning actor Casper Van Dien) now a Colonel, must rescue an important psychic military leader who's ship crash lands on a distant world. The handful of soldiers on the planet must hold out against approaching aliens long enough to be saved, yet political espionage threatens Ricco's rescue attempt.
Unlike the second film, the third movie attempts to embrace the wider universe and government that lurks in the background of the franchise, and... marginally fails in doing so. While it does recapture some of the tone and satire, the delve into why this corrupt, military controlled government shows the flaws in the premise all too well, and this film lacks the ambiguity the original film could play with.
The killer issue I had with this film is a strange switch of narrative direction when we get to the third act. A villain, determined by their actions, is positively redeemed and proven to be correct about everything and virtually wins when other conspiracies come to light. It is hard to explain without "spoiling" it, but it felt as though the third act had been rewritten for some reason and a narrative (and thematic) flip occurs. There's also a heavy handed religious development, which comes out of nowhere and doesn't feel right within the satire of warploitation movies...
Despite Rico returning, the film is mostly centred around Captain Lola Beck (Jolene Blalock, of Star Trek: Enterprise... err... fame?) as she leads the hopeless survivors of the crash landing to safety. While this isn't terrible by providing some nice landscapes and photography, the script is bland and I counted several occasions where they rip off Pitch Black ("Where's your God now?" quips Beck)
While the budget is a little better here, it is still woefully short at $9million, the bugs CG looks like the worst it has ever been, though the film maintains a level of physical effects. The opening attack on an entrenched fortress is decent and has some fun moments.
The film feels quite scatter gun, as if they wanted to hit as many notes as possible like the original film but with a fraction of the cost, most notable is the completely shoehorned "group nude scene" that presumably fills in for the original's shower scene. But unlike a shower scene, this one feels completely unnecessary and completely gratuitous.
It is hard to say which is better, ST2 or ST3... While the second film lacks any of the tone or heart or integrity of the first film, it does feel more comfortable with its singular purpose. The third film feels like a low-rent but full sequel to the original, despite narrative flaws and cheap special effects. While it is a close call... the third film's attempt to be an actual sequel means it just wins out.
Nearly ten years since our last visit to Basin City, but for all the fondness for brutality being shown in black and white, stylised shine, there isn't the same energy or business in the sequel.
Following the events that ended 2005's Sin City, A Dame to Kill For follows three of the original film's characters: Nancy, Dwight and Marv, as their paths cross and join through the never-ending and merciless night of Sin City.
It feels like this film is five or six years too late, but let me clear something up. Long before Cinema Cocoa I still rated movies annually and in 2005 Sin City topped the list! It was fresh, vile, exciting, Noir and packed with stories like a comic book version of Pulp Fiction. It is has some very unforgettable moments (most of which involved Elijah Wood)
But its 2014 sequel feels a little... empty, as if the original material didn't have much more to give? (I admit, I've never read the comics)
The film opens with everybody's favourite Marv, and certainly Mikey Rourke appears to be having the most fun in returning to this character of all of them! Bringing the same brutal physicality he did before, but lacking some of the personal vendetta from before; he simply comes to the aid of our two other "heroes", Dwight and finally Nancy.
While Rourke reprises his role, I was sad to see Clive Owen not returning as Dwight... I love continuity, and this sort of thing bothers me. Don't get me wrong, Josh Brolin does a great job! In fact he could be on par with Rourke here and stands out from the others, and considering his story involves the Dame in the title, Eva Green's Ava, you'd hope he would be!
But the sequel's stories fall short of the original's intensity, though ten years and such similarly styled missteps as The Spirit has made this series revival difficult, most of it focuses on Ava, a seductress and femme fatale of Basin City. If you are a fan of Eva Green('s body) you'll be happy here! The sequel banks singularly on sex appeal than the original's dark kaleidoscope of variety. What I take away from this film is Green's breasts, and men being thrown through a lot of windows!
I had trouble understanding this film's narrative alongside the 2005 film, especially around the character of Manute... The man with the gold eye. Yet in this sequel he gets his gold eye?? But this is a sequel... It is also sad (alongside Brolin's recast) that Devon Aoki did not return to play the mute assassin Miho.
The best elements here are involving Jessica Alba as Nancy, who's story follows off the back of the original film most clearly, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's newcomer Johnny has a great little story.
A Dame to Kill For didn't feel as memorable as the original, or as faceted, but the style and the characterisations are still as strong and it works well as a Sin City 1.5 rather than a full sequel. The 3D effects were decent too.
A little, a little disappointing, acting like an homage to an incredible film rather than outdoing it like a good sequel should.
A high speed science fiction thriller with a difference, and three of my favourite actors!
Lucy is just another girl before a friend gets her involved with a Korean drug cartel, she is abducted and becomes infected with an experimental neural stimulating drug. The effect cascades and increases, making Lucy a superhuman with access to incredible mental powers. Can questions about the human mind be answered before the cartel catch up with her? Or will she self-destruct under the increasing strain on her body?
I was more than happy that two of my favourite actors were in this film, headliners Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman, but imagine my joy and surprise to see Oldboy's Min-sik Choi in the opening credits too!
French director Luc Besson is no stranger to superhuman heroines either, colours of Leeloo from The Fifth Element and shades of one of his first films La Femme Nikita. He is in his element here. It is also great to see something original again! Something akin to comics and current science fiction franchises and yet an original screenplay!
The film is fast paced and full of action set pieces and physical fighting as we watch Lucy develop from the standard "10%" of her brain capacity escalates higher and higher! We know Johansson is capable in stunts and action what with Marvel's Black Widow character, but Lucy becomes more of a race against the clock than a brawler, introducing the audience to the incredible mental powers humans might be capable of. It uses its entire runtime to express what is happening to Lucy and how it affects her mentally.
Min-sik Choi's antagonist isn't used as much as I would have liked, but as a Korean powerhouse of acting talent, it is good to see him in a Western production, especially one such as this!
The film's key strength lies in its sense of humour, which goes from dry and intelligent to subtle and goofy. While Johansson's Lucy becomes colder and more detached from her human side, our secondary characters, especially Freeman, have great fun bouncing off her detachment and incredible powers with bewilderment. This humour and fast pace stops the film becoming something of a pretentious waste of time and more an enjoyable romp with intelligent undertones.
This sense of humour does go off the deep end a little. Besson, in a peculiar move, splices throughout his film footage of wildlife and disconnected scenes that are metaphors for what is happening narratively. For example, when Lucy is first kidnapped we see an escalating scene of a cheetah stalking its prey, or a mouse going towards a trap. Running parallel with this is Freeman's initial presentation speech about the human mind, also with wildlife footage.
This will probably alienate the wider audience, who'll wonder why there's National Geographic clips in their action movie!
But after reminding myself this is a Luc Besson film, Lucy gets better and better as it goes on and you can't wait to see how far her mental powers go, and how the director will present it!
Remake Rumble...? More like Remake Execution.
So, against my better judgment I've decided to do this particular Remake Rumble! I guess it wouldn't leave my mind until I had seen it through. Read, and feel the frustration!
Oldboy (2003)
The definition of a revenge tale, beautifully savage and cynically dark in humour, Oldboy is one of those films that gets better and better each time you watch.
A drunken, hopeless father is abducted on his daughter's birthday and imprisoned in a room for fifteen years. When he is mysteriously released, he swears vengeance on whoever took his life away.
It is hardest to write a review of a film you like so much. If you look at Cinema Cocoa's first post, you will find Oldboy makes the twentieth spot on my top fifty films, yet I don't remember how I came by this film originally. All I do remember is the impact it left on me as a piece of film making!
Directed by Chan-wook Park, Oldboy crams almost every facet of revenge into its two hour runtime and packages it with great cinematography and a wonderful score. With Min-sik Choi as the leading man providing a great range of acting talent, there's a fantastic sense of dedication and integrity to the film.
But praise doesn't stop there. The film is remarkably well paced for how many scenarios it plays out and how complex the screenplay becomes. Like peeling an onion, every scene and every set piece has a purpose to unlocking the mystery behind our hero's plight, the writing just dropping enough hints that... if you are clever enough and reading between the lines... audiences can start to puzzle it all together.
I've seen this film at least three times now and it is safe to say I appreciate more and more each time!
Why only three times? I've had the DVD in my collection for years! Well, Oldboy is not the easiest film to watch, it certainly might turn some people's stomachs and there is one scene involving a claw hammer that makes me squirm every time and just thinking about it makes my teeth hurt...
But while the film is intensely violent (the corridor fight scene has gone down in cinema history by now!) I forget the wicked, black sense of humour that runs all the way through also. This film has an awesome script and Min-sik Choi delivers his lines and reacts to his internal monologues with incredibly sick jest. I laugh with him, and as the film says: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone."
How much longer can I gush about a film? Not much longer as I don't want to spoil it by telling you too much. The film has a surrealist edge, though like the violence it is somewhat restrained in preference of a calm, methodical dive into madness. At times Oldboy just seems like a casual stroll with morose, almost reluctant tones, and I think that's why I enjoy it so much; while the violence is visceral at its heights, it isn't a slasher movie... it is a thriller.
With a screenplay so layered and mysterious, with acting both subtle and outrageous, intense action and a script both comic and horrible, Oldboy offers everything and fails at none of them. By the end your mind will be bruised and sore from the ordeal, yet amazed at the masterful execution of it all!
Oldboy (2013)
Spike Lee directs a watery, shallow remake of the cult Korean film. Josh Brolin weeps, and Josh Brolin weeps alone.
A drunken father and failing husband finds himself imprisoned for twenty years in a mock-up hotel room. When he is released he aims to clear his name, reunite with his daughter and find whoever locked him away for so long.
Okay, so as you can tell already I love the original movie and a remake by its very existence will frustrate me. In fact I boycotted seeing this film originally, that's how low my expectations were! This Oldboy received such a critical hammering (no pun intended) that I was prepared to forget it even existed... but that would be ignorant of me...
Initially, I had some hope this film would be just "average" and not the train wreck I feared; Josh Brolin is probably the best American to fill the acting range and physical ability to fill Min-sik Choi's formidable shoes, and automatically I knew (mostly from having such an indepth understanding of the original) how this American version's twist ending would differ. It seemed vaguely promising.
But almost like a reversal of the original film, where it gets better and better, this film gets worse and worse... and worse.
None of the original's black humour is present, none of it, unless you count laughing at all the wrong parts to be edgy comedy. The editing is terrible, what was Spike Lee doing with this?? It has zero gravity or atmosphere, and feels more like running through a checklist of requirements such as the shoehorned nods to the original like... showing us an octopus! For no reason! The characters even act unnaturally in scenes just to have a shot framed like the original! Then... there's the hammer scene. Badly choreographed, badly structured... it pales in comparison.
Part of what made the original so interesting was how interwoven its screenplay became as you watched the puzzle unlock, but here, there's none of that, it just plods along like any other cliche hostage movie.
Oh, but we have Samuel L. Jackson, and he swears a lot! Is that... supposed to be the humour coming through? Having an actor playing the same role he plays in sodding everything he's ever done?
Then...
There's Sharlto Copley. The guy who used to be cool from District 9. Good... lord.
So, this film becomes something of a "who done it?" in the second act, Brolin's Joseph is trying to find who had imprisoned him. He gets a phone call from Copley's Adrian who is putting on the most generic, cringeworthy, stereotypical upper-class British accent you can fathom! Good god, Spike Lee, what... This is NOT acting, this is hamming it up! I swear, at the end of this film, he is walking around like Nosferatu!
And remember, we are in America. Are you telling me that when Joseph finds the antagonist went to the same school as him he didn't consider: "Hm, who at my school had a CARTOONISHLY BRITISH ACCENT LIKE THE ONE I JUST HEARD ON THE PHONE?"
Sorry, I will try to regain my composure.
Asides a cartoon villain, Nick Fury, bad film-making, and terrible homages to the original I tried to see this as a unique film. Many people say don't compare remakes to the original (despite how that is a completely ridiculous concept)
America's Oldboy could have been quite interesting had it distanced itself more from the original, what we get it something lost in translation, like an abridged version or worse: a parody. I think what damages it most is its finale, and its villain's motivations... or rather lack thereof.
Even the violence is toned down, I even saw a computer generated blood splatter. Seriously? Though the sexual content was higher than expected, given how America hates that sort of thing.
This film isn't just a direct insult to the original masterpiece, this is an insult to American movie making. If you are going to remake something, at least try and do a good job with it! Don't say something like: "Oh, well the Korean film was weird, so dumb Western audiences will take my shoddy, cliche script and bad directing as avant garde and self-aware that it is of Asian origin!"
Additional Marshmallows: Why one full, happy, marshmallow-filled cup of cocoa? You ask? Josh Brolin... and the sliver of original thought that was buried under the nonsense of abusing someone else's original idea.
Korean cinema once again blurs the line of good and evil while at the same time twisting your stomach and fraying your nerves. This film isn't Oldboy but it is certainly memorable.
When a police officer's fiancee is tortured and killed by a serial killer, he vows revenge by hunting the killer down and... instead of handing him over to authority or even killing him, the officer instead exacts his own torture and deprives the killer of further victims.
Directed by Kim Jee-woon (The Good, the Bad and the Weird; a cult favourite of mine) and starring Min-sik Choi and Byung-hun Lee in the lead roles, this film certainly delivered what I was expecting. Some great acting with disturbing characters and good film making.
Who are these people, you might ask, Min-sik Choi is most recognised as the lead from the original Oldboy (within my top 20 films) and you might recognise Byung-hun Lee as he features in recent western blockbusters such as the G.I Joe films.
I Saw the Devil is not for the faint of heart. Our serial killer, who we follow for most of the story, is rapist and murderer of young women, and we see a lot of what he does. Unlike a lot of western cinema this film doesn't pull its punches very often, but the effect is exactly as the narrative requires. The killer is merciless, but our "hero" becomes so unhinged with revenge that he becomes something of a monster himself.
While many can sympathise with revenge, especially on someone so hideously deprived as our killer, the calculated lengths in which our law abiding officer goes to make him suffer makes the audience start to question his integrity.
The film's best moments are surely when these two characters connect; the brief moments when the murderous hunter is hunted down himself. Byung-hun Lee is an excellent on-screen fighter and even shows some parkour skills here too, coupled with Min-sik Choi's terribly disturbing finesse at acting as a psychopath, you have a great chemistry between the two.
I was a little worried for repetition when the character looked to reenact the hammer scene from Oldboy, but it wasn't so. Instead we get a similarly great fight within a moving taxi cab!
But, this isn't as good as Oldboy (the theme of revenge makes the two supposedly comparable) certainly my expectations weren't too high and this easily exceeded them, but I Saw the Devil felt a little drawn out. I think twenty minutes could have been cut easily from it and still have the impact. This feeling is exaggerated with multiple moments of "is that the end?" It also suffers from some occasional cliches, though I can't say it was predictable.
It isn't for everyone, sex and increasingly agonising torture scenes are rife, but fans of the slasher genre definitely need apply! The film making is above average and doesn't fall into too many cheap shocks and the acting is excellent, making it one of the best in the genre.
On Monday, 11th of August we lost one of Hollywood's most remarkable and charismatic men, and it was such a shock that I still don't think it has quite set in yet...
Now I don't care what the News articles say about Robin Williams now, I don't want cameras and reporters prying into his family after such an overwhelming tragedy. I would rather watch his films and remember how great and magnetic an actor he really was.
The problem here only is: there are so many to chose from!
Sure, Williams has been in many a bad film... but who hasn't? What's startling is the number of truly inspiring and excellent films are in his filmography:
Aladdin, Jumanji, Mrs Doubtfire, Hook, FernGully: The Last Rainforest (shut up, it is a personal favourite of mine!) he even played the live action Popeye, and that is just his family and kids movies!
My all time favourite "Vietnam war film" is not Apocalypse Now, or Full Metal Jacket, or Platoon, rather it is Robin Williams' Good Morning Vietnam. I've only seen it once, and I may watch it again soon, but I remember it vividly and it was at the top of my list that year.
Then there is the murder thriller Insomnia, one of Christopher Nolan's first films, where Williams extends his acting talents, Kenneth Branagh's definitive Hamlet from 1996 and of course Good Will Hunting!
The list is endless for a talent that was endless, and I couldn't keep a tribute post below four films! So instead I chose to watch one of the classic Robin Williams films that I had not seen before.
Rest in Peace Robin Williams, you will be missed by millions, but your legacy will endure for ages!
Dead Poets Society (1989)
A simple narrative story but watched for the excellent performances throughout, the film is inspiring and ageless.
Following seven school boys after they register into a new prep school in America, they find the unforgiving study, old and passionless teachers and strict principles stifling. But when they meet the new English teacher, John Keating, a graduate of the very same school, they find him to be an unorthodox free-thinker who wants them to appreciate life rather than be subdued by the school's systematic regime.
I very much enjoyed watching this as I understood some of the message our English teacher Keating was trying to get across to the boys. His first scene involves the classroom of boys to tear the entire introduction of their school textbooks out, an introduction proclaiming the rationalization of good and bad poetry; fundamentally stifling creativity within the parameters of closed-minded thinking. This scene very much colours the entire story to come, and as someone who has studied social conformity and the systems depleting creativity in individuals, I related to Keating's teachings!
The film does centre around the boys from the class and their unity, Todd Anderson (played by a very young Ethan Hawke!) an introverted boy who Keating tries to inspire to speak out. Neil Perry, the boy who's father demands he become a doctor but his interests lie elsewhere, his father played by the relentless, intimidating Kurtwood Smith.
The film's best moments are with Keating's classes, and within Robin Williams' energy and conviction in portraying such personal belief. Sure, there is a scene were Williams gets to do his famous range of pop culture impersonations, but when the character of Keating meets with intense, philosophical debate, it is delivered with such simplistic honesty that you would have a heart of stone to not be moved by it all.
Of course I did find some of the film a little distracting, at least by today's standards and through the lense of Cinema Cocoa's growing frame of reference! For a start, Todd's character is quite obviously an audience surrogate; he does nothing and contributes little and is even quoted as being there to "just listen". This is irksome at first, but upon further study Todd may be a surrogate but he also embodies the audience's own trepidation, making for one of the most startling and incredible moments the film has to offer between Todd and Keating...
The story is quite predictable, though events that lead us along are sometimes surprising. With a distinctly unorthodox teacher as Keating in such a strict, brutishly traditional school you can't really not see where things are going to go! But you should watch this film not for the plot or the narrative structure but for the personalities and the heart lying underneath it.
But, these are minor problems as the film does one thing but does it incredibly well! It teaches something that should be taught to all; that self belief is important and that creativity, art and culture should not be disregarded because it isn't as financially stable as other careers. The film expresses a lot about breaking out of society conformity, making its story still very relevant today.
Watch it with an open mind, and appreciate that while some elements feel forced or even misguided, you should embrace the ideals that it teaches.
Additional Marshmallows: Despite Williams' more familiar pop cultural roles over the years, I don't think I could have picked a better film to watch in his honour.
(I'd like to say that this is the first time on Cinema Cocoa that I got the image for this review months before. I just love that poster!)
So in one grasp Marvel Studios attempts to draw all the loose ends developed over their Cinematic Universe so far together. What we get is Guardians of the Galaxy, a wayward child with so much energy and brash enthusiasm for itself it forgot to explain anything.
Peter Quill was abducted by aliens when he was a young boy in the 1980s and now, living among the stars and with alien races, his only solace is his old Walkman music player. This awkward, out of place man finds himself part of a ragtag team of fugitives and mercenaries (most with their own agendas!) roped into defending a civilization from total destruction!
You might think from my initial comments that I didn't enjoy Guardians, but it is quite the contrary: I really enjoyed it! It feels like a long time since I watched anything like this, and as a sci-fi fan I saw a lot of Star Trek, Star Wars and other space opera influences; Peter Quill's (aka Starlord) casual flings with pink, green skinned girls is unmistakably James T. Kirk, for example. It is wonderfully designed too with incredible, unqiue colourful visuals. Sets are full of life and energy or mystery, space ships are grand and have exciting technology to make you look on in wonder. That, and some very quotable dialogue that had the whole audience laughing out loud!
But this is Marvel taking the most liberties with its franchise I have seen yet. While Guardians is a hell of a ride, boys-with-toys, action comedy romp with all the great witty dialogue we come to expect from the likes of Tony Stark, it never goes into details.
There are loads of characters, and I mean loads. We have our five leads, we have at least four villains as well as two or three contending factions at war with each other, we also have numerous planets as well as the overarching Marvel story to elaborate! The film is a carpet-bomb of narrative chaos!
The definition of this, for me, is the inclusion of Benicio Del Toro's "The Collector", a shady individual seen in the post-credit sequence of Thor 2: The Dark World. Now I don't know the comics, but I know this man is important... But Guardians doesn't do anything with him! He has one scene and that's it. I want exposition Marvel, I want to learn more! Guardians hurls so much at you that if you aren't "with it" you will be left behind.
Luckily, I was with it, and forgave the shortcomings of narrative. What does make sense here is a stereotypical space opera; you know what's happening and what will happen in the broader narrative, actual surprises are with the character designs themselves rather than the plot.
I enjoyed it a lot! It is a throwback to classic, pulpy blockbusters before movies had the requirement to be "realistic" or pretentious. I would definitely see it again for the colourful characterisation, the sense of fun, the music, and the dazzling visuals and tech. In fact I regret not seeing this in 3D, not to say this film is gimmicky, but I believe some scenes would be even more dazzling.
