The Fedora Chronicles Dieselpunks Penman Hats Trinity Whip Company Sitemap Advertise On The Fedora Chronicles Chester Cordite Join our Facebook Group!

Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

Eric Renderking Fisk | Sping 2014

I can imagine this pitch meeting somewhere in Hollywood within the Marvel Studios and someone brought up the idea of “What’s Next…” what do we do to top “The Avengers?” Could we even top “The Avengers” or do we just try to make a really good – but really unconventional – comic movie? Now, after seeing this movie twice it’s still hard for me to define “Guardians Of The Galaxy,” is it a homage or parody of all the other movie franchises we enjoy? Is it a buddy film? Is it a heist film? Is it a prison break movie? Is this a movie about a pauper who doesn’t know he’s a prince until the conclusion? Is this action adventure? Romance? Comedy? Is it just the most pure SF Comic book movie in the history of comic book movies?

Sitting here actually trying to write this review I’m starting to realize that my inability to pigeon hole this flick is exactly why it’s successful. It’s taking elements from every genre, every specific franchise, and many classic movies and twisting them on their heads before putting them back together in such away that the final product that’s original and fresh. While it’s making fun of Star Wars, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, The Magnificent 7, The Great Escape, The Fifth Element (… And Footloose, Singing In The Rain, and even Lord Of The Rings.) Guardians Of The Galaxy still feels like nothing we've seen before. There are breathtakingly beautiful scenes of alien vistas and environments in one scene while in another minute we visit some of the darkest, dreary places that challenge the enviorments in “Alien” and “Blade Runner.”

It’s also a movie about real people with real emotions… except not all of them are actually human. There are some genuine raw “human” emotions that catch us off guard as we are shown moments of real tenderness and hurt from some characters. “Rocket Raccoon” who has a stomach full of hurt and rejection with a broken heart under his tough exterior. His humor and sarcasm is just a shield from others calling him a mere rodent despite all of his modifications and cleverness. While Bradley Cooper (who voices Rocket) has some of the best lines in the movie, some of them are set-ups for other funny lines for other characters.

Dave Bautista’s “Drax The Destroyer” the man who takes everything literally… “NOTHING goes over my head!... My reflexes are too fast, I would catch it.” Drax is suffering from a world of hurt after his wife and daughter are killed by one of the villains of this film. Granted, this guy is a big dumb ox at times and goes to ridiculous ends to get revenge (even making a mess of things and ruining a great plan while almost getting his friends killed) but he’s responsible for his own share of tender moments that help add more dimension to his character. His incredible violent nature and inability to understand metaphors is the source of the audience’s belly laughs.

It’s hard to believe that Zoe Saldana could actually take another role that will make us forget about Avatar and 2008’s Star Trek. As Gamora, she’s another solder-of-fortune who body has been tampered with to make her a lethal weapon and shares some of Rocket’s thirst for revenge towards those who made her who she is.

It’s hard to imagine that a character who has only one line (which is repeated over and over and over again) can steal your heart, especially if that character is also a piece of wood. The CGI animators and Vin Diesel take subtly to new heights with Groot and will cause our eyes to water up a couple of times throughout the whole experience. Pinocchio can shove it!

We’re left with Chris Pratt and his role as Peter Quill/Star Lord, upon the whole movie hangs upon his competent and capable shoulders. There are some amazing action packed scenes and some incredibly funny moments that make us realize that he’s just like us, just a bit over his head and the deeply flawed hero. Couple this with some fish-out-of-watter aspects of his character who was abducted as a child with nothing except the contents of his backpack and Walkman to remind him of home. He’s just like the rest of us who grew up with the music and movies of the 1980’s and it shows… his fondness for classic pop and constant references to the pop culture of our own coming of age era makes him the perfect audience advocate into this strange world beyond our own.

The real sweetness of this movie comes from taking genuine characters in extrodanary circumstances and giving them real reactions and emotions to this… how else would you expect anyone else to behave after enduring what they’ve gone through. You would be pretty pissed off too if you were abducted and modified to fit someone else’s needs or curiosity.

From start to finish this movie is ever SF and Comic Book fan’s dream. The locations are well established and flushed out wonderfully and don’t seem like they were created by mere Hollywood artists, the costumes look like what real people would wear in space, and the space craft themselves have style and personality that mimics their owners or pilots. For two hours and ten minutes we’re transplanted that seems just as real as our own planet earth, taking George Lucas’s original concept of a “well-used universe” that we saw in the original Star Wars movies and went a few steps further.

And speaking of George Lucas – just as a brief aside this feels like what the prequels should have been.

For the rest of Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry – this is a perfect example of what happens when you give time and money to talented people and tell them to do their thing. This doesn’t feel like it’s a product of industries movie-making machine and the plot doesn’t feel like it’s “by the numbers.” It’s an engaging movie that sucks you in and doesn’t let you go while you laugh out loud at itself, other movies and pop culture. It’s a testament to what happens when you allow creative people do what they do best without accountants and buisness exceutives breathing down their necks. This movie was a huge risk and it paid off extremely well. This was the best time I had in a theater since “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Wait… does that mean that this is actually better than “Temple Of Doom,” “Return Of The Jedi” and the other Marvel movies? Given time and after the afterglow has faded we’ll see if that statement stands the test of time. One thing is for sure, though, is that via the success of this movie we have a lot more creative and innovative movies to look forward to in the future.

And yes... if I was in Peter Quill's place, I would have found a great fedora to go with that jacket!