Tag: James Gunn

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Posted on by victorfraga

After the fizzle of the later Marvel movies, Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 brings in a shiny new villain played by Will Poulter, who manages the novel trick of appearing both menacing and comic, in a film that does little to exhibit his artistry in any discernible way. The movie, touted as James Gunn’s return to family-friendly fodder after the shock-rock theatrics of the genuinely awful The Suicide Squad (Gunn, 2019), is a fairly pedestrian Marvel adventure, and Poulter looks visibly embarrassed by the gold suit he has to wear.

Poulter plays Adam Warlock, a space being tasked with wiping out the titular Guardians, a merry band of miscreants that includes a Harrison Ford lookalike (Chris Pratt), a baby tree, and a raccoon who parrots each and every opinion off as if he’s coming up with them for the first time (Bradley Cooper, in case you’re interested). The plot nugget, the Guardians decision to continue fighting following the annihilation of the universe, stems from the similarly ho-hum Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2018), presenting Pratt’s Star-Lord in a moment of emotional distress as he mourns the alien he had hoped to spend a life with.

Breaking with galactic overlords and star demons, the film delves into real world problems, with no less an organisation than Peta commending the film for depicting the horrors of animal testing. The franchise’s first British master villain (Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary) is as garrulous but powerful warlord who evokes terror on everything he sets his hands on, although the meat of the film is dedicated to a physical match that sadly never comes to fruition.

With the former Scooby-Doo writer James Gunn still in charge, there’s more than enough comedic setpieces to keep the children satisfied: many of the zingers are performed by Karen Gillan, who lets her natural Scottish accent out on some of the film’s funnier one-liners. Parents will enjoy the soundtrack, which boasts a mixture of 1970s anthems and bouncier, more modern work. But the rest relies on the tired tropes Marvel has spent the last 15 years boring audiences to death with, and it’s no coincidence that my favourite character in the film was Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), an android as disenfranchised with her reality as I was with the movie. It’s high time Marvel switched up the formula (tellingly written off as “rollercoaster” adrenaline by Martin Scorsese), for something more human and heartfelt. And yes, I would rather watch a raccoon discuss his life’s failings, than view him tackling a six-foot robot amidst a flurry of unconvincing effects!

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 is in cinemas Wednesday, May 3rd.

The Suicide Squad

Posted on by victorfraga

In the opening credits, between gunshots and carnage, we are greeted with the image of a weasel drowning beneath the South American ocean. The weasel forms a part of the rebooted Suicide Squad, a band of cohorts spearheaded by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), a government agent who exchanges short prison sentences for servitude. The convicts are told that the mission is highly dangerous, but will be of service to the United States. Strangely, the programme does not see it fit to explore what crimes the prisoners were incarcerated for, but rather throws the criminals into a series of dizzying, even nauseating, set pieces.

Within minutes, audiences get to watch the deaths of many of the characters they assumed would headline the film. By the time we get to the third act, audiences can widely accept that many of the characters (featuring Idris Elba and Margot Robbie among the luminaries) are not going to make it to the finish line. Sadly, audiences are also beyond caring by that point.

Basically the story evolves around a nefarious gang of convicts thrown into a mission that could ruin their reputation and even cost them their lives. One of the most misguided superhero effort since Iron Man 3 (Shane Black) was released eight years ago, The Suicide Squad is so profoundly displeasing it could only have been written by a hireling eager to resolve an external conflict driven by greed. Considering the furore that met Twitter in the days after his dismissal from Guardians of The Galaxy 3, the writer-turned-director James Gunn could be forgiven for siphoning some of the resentment into the work he was sculpting. But this acidity quickly turns into idiocy, as Gunn personalises the childishness as a boisterous commander, who equates patriotism to fellatio. Kudos to Gunn for avoiding the “Woke brigade”, but his desire for provocation only furthers the distance between misguided and misjudged.

Peacemaker (John Cena) signifies the “typical, hardworking American” that harnesses the very worst of self-flagellation, while Bloodsport (a sanguine Idris Elba) poses as the archetypal London thug. Even the bolshie Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is written as a cliché, and she’s given little to bring to the film barring intonation and innuendo. If there wasn’t Peter Capaldi chewing the scenery as a barmy scientist, this would be written off as an unoriginal addition to the growing DC canon.

David Ayer’s strangely misunderstood Suicide Squad (2016) offered a more rounded portrait of a clan desperately clawing back for some recognition in a world that would gladly kill them. Compared to the yearning of Ayer’s script, Gunn’s holds no resolute semblance of character or atmosphere, but gamely resorts to shocking audiences through a variety of unseemly means. And where is the love story that cemented the 2016 opus so beautifully?

Some of the “style” of the graphic novels remains: there’s a turbo charged battle to redemption; an extraterrestrial (this time shaped as a starfish) escapes to cause havoc around the South American jungles; and naturally, it’s a woman who is subjected to the most gratuitous depiction of torture. Gunn’s script is indeed hopeless. Where Ayer understood that it was the dynamism between the convicts that made for a gripping story, Gunn’s focus is on the heads that explode around this supposed tribe of terror. He may have the acumen, but Gunn ultimately fails the characters, the darkness and the wackiness left to him by Warner Brothers and Ayer.

The Suicide Squad is in cinemas on Friday, July 30th. On all major VoD platforms on Monday, August 30th.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Posted on by victorfraga

For those who never saw their less impressive first film, the eponymous Guardians are a rag-tag of space travelling mercenaries often on the wrong side of the law. Rocket (a raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper) has an unfortunate habit of insulting the wrong person at the wrong time. Peter Quill / Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) is a problem solver and adventurer, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) an agile fighter. The group also includes strong man Drax (Dave Bautista), from a race who take everything literally, and cute, walking baby tree-being Groot (voice: Vin Diesel). Welcome to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Clever and efficient story construction ensures that many different narrative strands are deftly balanced with several intertwined plots in play. Romantically involved with an Earthwoman in the 1980s, Ego (Kurt Russell) is an alien who seeds and cultivates mysterious plants on the planets he visits and is searching for his long-lost son Quill. A genetically engineered race called the Sovereign hire our heroes to protect their precious supply of batteries until Rocket steals some, at which point they send assorted armadas and later a gang of mercenaries led by blue-skinned Yondu (Michael Rooker) after them. And so on.

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Unusual elements fire off in every direction in this surprisingly innovative Marvel feature.

Leaving aside the plot, the space opera special effects are peerless and, seen on a huge screen in 3D, spectacular. All of which might be reason enough for the comic’s fans or even your average popcorn moviegoer to see it, if not for those of us who like our cinema on the more subversive side.

Where the film really scores though is in the spaces in between and around the franchising, the plot and the special effects which allow it room to breathe, play and get dirty. Take the very early scene in which the Guardians protect the Sovereign’s world from a marauding, tentacled maw. We’ve seen scenes like this before and they’ve become boring. This film knows that and shows much of the fight scene out of focus in the background or off to the side while in focus in the foreground baby Groot plugs in a sound system and dances to music as the mayhem rages.

Baby Groot will later fail several times to retrieve a simply described object from a sleeping jailer that would allow those who requested it to escape imprisonment and certain death. He keeps returning with various incorrect items. And later still, a lengthy sequence is constructed around baby Groot’s being assigned to press one of two buttons on a detonator, one of which would prove lethal. Infused with the spirit of gag cartoons or burlesque comedy, there’s something wonderfully subversive about all this.

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Some of the superheros from the surprising Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2.

Thus you have another scene where the action stops for Quill to insist that Gamora has an “unspoken thing” for him and dance with her on a balcony. Or a fight sequence where Yondu’s one foot long spear weaves a non-linear trajectory through the air as it takes out a plethora of enemy mercenaries by fatally piercing them one by one. Or an antagonistic character as complex as Gamora’s supposedly villainous sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) who may or may not be trustworthy. Or the iconic Kurt Russell clearly relishing his pivotal role. Or an entire sequence detailing a character’s funeral.

A big budget blockbuster this may be, but unexpected, additional elements constantly fire off in interesting directions without ever compromising form, narrative or visuals. The whole thing is efficiently scripted Hollywood eye candy with grime lovingly rubbed into its very fabric from the bottom up to turn it into something far dirtier and altogether more compelling.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is out in showing in cinemas across the UK from Friday, April 28th. Get a feel for the movie by watching the trailer below. Then close your eyes and picture it in 3D.