Guardians of the Galaxy: Indiana Jones + Star Wars + Comic Books = Awesome!

While I knew very little of the current Guardians of the Galaxy team before seeing the trailer, I have had very high hopes for this film and it somehow managed to exceed them.  In a way, that is to be expected; it is a team of comic book heroes that combines Star Wars with Raiders of the Lost Ark. There is no better recipe for a film that Scott will love! On the other hand, many lesser films have tried and failed in the past  to create this formula and the results are usually a dismal failure(Ice Pirates, anyone?). Fortunately, James Gunn is just the mad genius to pull this off.

Chris Pratt's Star-Lord manages to successfully merge Luke Skywalker and Han Solo into one character (which would actually make his most direct cinematic predecessor Bill Pullman's Lone Star from Mel Brooks' Spaceballs). Pratt is the perfect mix of comic charm and wide-eyed enthusiasm to make this character work.  Rocket could very easily have fallen into being mere comic-relief (unintentionally if not done well) but Gunn goes deeper with the character.  He doesn't even waste time doing this; all the depth Rocket needs is established by allowing us to linger for a few seconds on the character's bare-back to see the remnants of the experiments that made him what he is.  Sure, the character makes you laugh but you're always laughing with him or because of him, never at him. Zoe Saldana's Gamora successfully passes the Sexy Lamp Test ... even if only barely (maybe she'll get a bit more development in the sequel).  At first, Dave Bautista's performance as Drax the Destroyer may seem bit wooden  but, as we soon learn that his species is one that sees the world only in the most literal sense, it actually makes sense in a way.  And Groot, well, Groot is probably the most lovable sidekick to grace a space opera since R2-D2.

What more can I say other than the film manages to work on every level: it moves at a lightning pace but still manages to give us enough character development for us to be emotionally invested.  It's fun and funny and never takes itself too seriously.  It might be the best movie yet from the Marvel Cinematic Universe but, it doesn't even need to exist in that world; it's great on its own merits.

Also: Best. Soundtrack. Ever! (well, maybe not EVER but... still... pretty damned good).  American Hustle drew songs from roughly the same era but Guardians' soundtrack crushes them like a grape: David Bowie's "Moonage Daydream" played over the team touching down in KNOWHERE (the decapitated head of an ancient 'Celestial' giant)?  Yes, please! The Runaways' "Cherry Bomb" as the team suits up for the climactic battle?  I'll take two!  And just wait until you see how "Ooh, Child" is used!

Sure, Guardians of the Galaxy may have been conceived as a way to introduce the cosmic elements of the Marvel universe to movie-goers, but the film manages to do so much more.  In fact, this might be the finest Space Opera to hit since a little story that took place a "A Long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...."  I've said it before, I'll say it again, JJ Abrams had best be taking notes; THIS is your competition.

MAJOR SPOILER: So, does the post-credit scene mean we finally might get a good Howard the Duck movie?

Captain America: The Darkest Avenger

In truth, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is just as much a Nick Fury/SHIELD/Black Widow movie as it is a Captain America movie. As such, it is basically a a political espionage thriller and draws heavily from the Bourne Identity series and the more recent Bond films.  As a result, it is possibly the most violent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies yet.  Sure, there's been plenty of action in the previous films of the franchise but it was all more fantastic. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a film full of assassins, soldiers, and spies; we are in combat conditions and, because of this, people are bound to get shot, stabbed and thrown into the occasional Quinjet turbine.

While some may be uncomfortable with the film's level of violence, it's part of what makes the film work.  In fact, many times I forgot that it was a superhero movie that I was watching.  However, whenever I forgot, I was quickly reminded when Steve Rogers would use his shield to dispatch somebody or when the disembodied consciousness of Armin Zola (you may remember him as the Red Skull's sidekick from the first Captain America movie) is living in a room full of ancient pre-PC (as in personal computer) super-computers.  The effect is less jarring than you might think and, in many ways, it is a tribute to some of the more bizarre elements of Cap's comic book mythos.  After all, it was within pages of Captain America that we first encountered M.O.D.O.K. (Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing) who is, quite possibly, the most ridiculous comic book villain of all time.


 Other aspects of the film keep it firmly in the realm of super-heroic fantasy as well: in addition to the Falcon's high-tech flying gear and a small fleet of heli-carriers, the film's central MacGuffin is an 'algorithm'  developed by Zola to weed out the worst of humanity before it has a chance to cause any trouble.  Whenever any of the more absurd elements of the film stretch beyond the limitations of what one would expect from a Spy-Thriller, you can just remind yourself that Captain America: The Winter Soldier takes place within a universe that is also home Asgardians and aliens.


For the most part, however, the film manages to play the story pretty straight.  Once again, they keep Evans out of the costume for most of the film and, even then, for the first two-thirds of the film, it is the modified SHIELD/Super-Soldier version of the costume which is a little less garish than the full on stars and stripes gear.  And when Cap finally does suit up, they decide to put him in his old-school WWII threads which always seemed a bit more functional to me than the outfit he sported in Avengers.

The cast is firing on all cylinders this time out and, once again, Evans manages to do earnest without being naive; he understands why SHIELD operates the way it does, he even understands the times he came from weren't as innocent as they seem, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. In his sixth time out in the role (seventh if you count his appearance on Agents of SHIELD), Samuel L. Jackson finally gets to show us a bit more depth to his Nick Fury rather than just simply being the epitome of cool and general badassery.  Meanwhile, Scarlett Johanssen steals the show and gets the best lines of the film playing the foil to Evans' uber-earnest Cap.

In the end, Captain America: The First Avenger was about a simpler, more innocent time.  The good guys were good and the bad guys were bad and one couldn't be more different from the other.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier is about a loss of innocence; this story exists in a time post-JFK, post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-9/11, where the lines between who is good and who is bad have become far more blurred.  It's about how many bad things we can do for the right reasons before we start doing them for the wrong reasons.  The aforementioned violence only serves to emphasize this much more brutal world that Cap finds himself in. Ultimately, Cap manages to rise above it, Black Widow questions a system that she had put her faith in and, more than anyone, Nick Fury learns that there is a price to pay when you cross one too many lines.

Iron Man 3 Revisited!

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 In anticipation of the next installment of 'Phase 2' of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I thought I would revisit the first film in that cycle. Also check out my thoughts on the last installment Thor: The Dark World  here
 and my predictions for The Winter Soldier here 

 At first, I was somewhat disappointed with Iron Man 3 but, every time I re-watch it, I end up liking it a little bit more.  I finally realized that my problem was that I had been trying to view it as a stand alone movie; it's not.  When viewed in the context of, not only the first two films, but the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe (which now includes Agents of SHIELD) it works much better.

This was not meant to be a stand alone work or even the latest installment of a film franchise; it is the final 3 episode story arc of Iron Man season one (or, for you anglophiles, and probably a bit more accurately, series one). The movie even breaks up pretty much evenly into three 40-45 minute segments; you can pretty much pinpoint where the 'To be continued....' would have come up at the end of the first two episodes.Granted, this is basically a three-act structure which is not at all unusual for a big budget action movie (or any movie) to follow, however, the more in-depth exploration of the character of Tony Stark and the plot's dependence on the developments from other films in the MCU makes it feel like it belongs part of a larger whole as well.

The first 'episode' sets up the events that are to follow and sets the stage for the resolution of the final act.  In fact, if we are now to consider Iron Man the first story arc in this series, then the flashback of a pre-Iron Man Tony Stark at the beginning of the film is an appropriate callback that allows the final story arc to bookend nicely with the first.  Also, we have Tony Stark dealing with the fall out from the previous story arc which would have, of course, been The Avengers.

Having had to truly risk his own life for the first time, he has become traumatized.  He is suffering from a sort of PTSD and it all goes back to a conversation he has with Captain America in The Avengers:

Captain America:  You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.

Tony Stark: I think I would just cut the wire.

However, at the end of The Avengers Tony finds himself, for the first time, unable to "cut the wire"; if he wants to be the hero, he has to lay down his own life.  He couldn't outsmart the situation. At the start of Iron Man 3, we learn that he has been busy trying to make it so that he never finds himself in this situation again.

He has been building armor, after armor, suitable for every imaginable scenario so that he never finds himself without a way out again.  In fact, his latest project, the Mark 42, is a direct response to the dilemma of The Avengers; he doesn't even need to be in the suit to control it. Thus, he can save the day without having to actually put his own life on the line. However, the problem with this is that he has become too dependent on his armor; he retreats into it whenever he feels the least bit insecure.

What is great about the Marvel heroes, not just in the movies but in the comics as well, is that it's always about the guy underneath the mask not the mask itself.  Iron Man 2 demonstrated this by showing us that Tony Stark might not be the best guy to be in the suit--- at least in objective terms--- but, for better or worse, he is the guy in the suit and Iron Man is more than just the suit.  However, it would seem, that in Iron Man 3 Tony seems to have forgotten this. This paves the way for the second act of the film where Tony finds himself unable to use, not only his suits, but any of his sizable resources.

The second 'episode' in this story arc is, perhaps, the most successful.  If we are viewing it as a single 'episode' of the Iron Man series, it might be my favorite episode. Also, it would probably  be titled simply, "The Mechanic".  In it, Tony must learn to function without a suit and most of his technology; hell, the best watch he can conjure is a child's Dora the Explorer watch.  He must learn to remember that what makes him Iron Man is not his suit or even his resources but his brain. He is "the Mechanic"; he can always build.  That is his gift.  That is his 'super-power'.

Note: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the relationship with the kid in the second act.  Not only does it make for some of the funniest exchanges in the film, but it is handled in a way that manages to both have heart and avoid being overly sentimental.  Not an easy combination to pull of in this type of film.

The final act has always been the most problematic for me but, the more I watch it, the more I end up liking it. After a second act which saw Iron Man out of his armor, you would expect the final act to consist of Tony and Rhodey suited up and fighting side by side, right?  Yet, Tony still spends most of the final act out of the armor.  Oh, sure, we see a lot of armor--- about 40 different suits to be exact--- but Tony spends very little time in them. The final action sequence involves him jumping from one suit to the next without spending much time in any of them with most being controlled remotely by JARVIS.

While I still feel the ending is a bit overblown in terms of the action (Director, Shane Black, is perhaps best known for scripting the original Lethal Weapon and developed a reputation in the late 80s and early 90s for writing big-budget action scripts that were fun to read; particularly if you were a coked up studio exec.... and some moments--- James Rhodes rolling and jumping through a glass window, guns blazing; the final showdown at 'the docks'--- feel a bit cliche), it actually manages to distinguish itself from the previous Iron Man movies.

Most of the solo Marvel films have followed a similar approach for the final act:  the hero has a final showdown with an evil counterpart--- in both the first two Iron Man films and Captain America: The First Avenger these counterparts are, quite literally, evil versions of the protagonist: The Red Skull is a product of the same formula that produced Cap and both the Iron Monger and Whiplash are variations of Iron Man's own suit.  If the 3rd film had Stark, yet again, going mano a mano with another guy in a suit of armor, it would have been redundant.

In Aldrich Killian, we have a very different kind of villain; yet, one who still serves as reflection of sorts for Stark.  Killian is another brilliant mind but, unlike Stark who hides inside a suit of armor, he has transformed himself, his very body, into a weapon.  As the Extremis formula gives him a very different set of powers, it requires a very different solution. Tony can't just go armor to armor; he has to find a different solution.

That solution takes the form of the Mark 42 armor and it's unique ability to shift, piece by piece, to someone other than Stark.  In the film's climactic moment, the Mark 42, believed to be destroyed, enters the fray late.  The audience is set up to believe that this will finally be the moment that the glitchy armor proves itself but, instead of triumphantly merging with Tony, it crashes and, once again, falls to pieces.  It is actually unclear whether this was a legitimate malfunction or a misdirection play by Stark since his next move is to have the armor attach itself to Killian before self-destructing.  Once again, it is Tony's mind that saves the day--- the technology itself isn't important, it's knowing how to use it (it is also worth noting that it is a powered up Pepper Potts who, ultimately, finishes of Killian).

A final word on The Mandarin; I loved the twist!  Kingsley was brilliant! Mandarin is a fairly problematic character to bring into the 21st century anyway; he's very much a relic of "yellow terror" fears from the Cold War.  Besides, if you weren't happy with what the film did with him, the latest Marvel One-Shot with the Thor: The Dark World DVD drops some hints that there might be more to "The Mandarin" than we are seeing here (after all, the '10 Rings' was a legitimate terrorist organization in the first film).