Guardians of the Galaxy Vol: 2 review

How does Marvel Studios and writer/director James Gunn follow up their idiosyncratic space-opera send up, “Guardians of the Galaxy?” Despite its undeniable success, the pressure to live up the ever-growing reputation of their 2014 blockbuster had be daunting, considering the specific tone and aesthetic approach these creators allowed for the project.  I am happy to say that while “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol: 2” doesn’t capture the same lightning in a bottle, I-can’t-believe-they’re-getting-away-with-this quality of its predecessor, Gunn still brings his subversive sensibilities to the table with enthusiasm.

After botching a trade deal with a race of golden, elitist aliens called The Sovereign, the Guardians hightail it to the other side of the galaxy to find safety. Peter Quill/Starlord (Chris Pratt), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) find refuge on a heavenly planet manned by a glowing, bearded celestial named Ego (Kurt Russell) who’s claiming to be Peter’s father.  Separated from the group, Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and the baby tree elemental Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) are crash landed on a forest planet with Gamora’s violent sister Nebula (Karen Gillan), hiding from Peter’s old clan of space pirates led by the vengeful Yandu (Michael Rooker).  Making things all the more complicated, the pirates are staging a mutiny, believing that Yandu himself has been too soft on Peter’s betrayal.

Gunn’s love for the character’s is evident throughout the plot, which, unlike a lot of Marvel’s on-screen adaptations, is rooted in pathos. Every scene and set-piece advances a character’s role in the story and has a overall goal towards supporting the theme of outsiders looking to form new families. While there are plenty of expensive special effects to gawk at and many visual gags and quips in the dialog to laugh at, the whole thing is held together by Gunn’s strength in character-driven, emotional storytelling. That said, the special effects are at times overwhelmingly glossy, sometimes losing a true sense of tactility, and the humor occasionally slips into try-hard territory.

While the previous film found it’s humor in the on-screen interactions and the outlandish circumstances of the plot, along with moments of sarcastic dialogue, this script feels a more punched-up with a joke-per-page quota that has to be met. This expectation for comedy leaves some quips and gags falling flat while other jokes and setups feel more naturally integrated. Overall, the storytelling and the conviction of the actors in their roles supports even the film’s weaker attempts at humor.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol:2” can’t surprise us like it did the first time around and one can find faults in its minutia but the takeaway is still the same—this is a fun group of weirdos to follow and even if you don’t know where things are going in the plot, you’re always invested in their colorful antics. Gunn’s themes about fatherhood and legacy ring true, even as they are heavily dressed in neon, arcade-game production design and delivered through jokey dialogue. Marvel fans and movie fans alike should treasure this weird little niche that Gunn and his cohorts have carved out for themselves.

Grade: B+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/May-2017

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The Hateful Eight review

Quentin Tarantino is a writer/director whose best work finds a harmony between both disciplines. His work is often stylish and idiosyncratic and brings attention to the process of whatever it is that distinguishes his filmmaking from everyone else. His scripts are often talky and verbose, with many extended dialogue sequences and as a director he dresses up his screenplays with quirky music choices, active camera work and shuffled, non-linear editing. In short, he doesn’t mind reminding his audience that they are watching a movie with a capital M. Quentin’s latest film “The Hateful Eight” is an ultra-violent, Agatha Christy-esq mystery masquerading as a western, and while it contains elements of his most patient and deliberate work as a filmmaker, it awkwardly struggles to negotiate between Tarantino the writer and Tarantino the director.

Currently there are two different versions of “The Hateful Eight” playing in theaters, a theatrical cut that plays continuously and a limited version that’s projected from 70 millimeter film stock with a five minute overture and a ten minute intermission. Both versions run pretty close to three hours, and most of the film’s running time is devoted to flowery dialogue set-pieces that build to a blood splattered third act.

Its post-civil war 19^th century America and Hangman John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is transporting a wanted murdurer named Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Red Rock where she is to be killed by the state for her crimes. While traveling through the snow-covered mountains of Wyoming, he picks up black bounty hunter named Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and an ex-rebel soldier named Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). Both Warren and Mannix have a war-time reputation that precedes them and has followed them into Ruth’s carriage. Together, they seek shelter from an unforgiving blizzard at a remote cabin supply shop known as Minnie’s Haberdashery.  There they meet a another motley crew of character’s that includes a British born hangman named Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), a Southern General named Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) and an all-too-quiet cowboy named Joe Gage (Michael Madsen).

Many things about this situation seem strange to Ruth and Warren, as Minnie is nowhere to be found, the door is broken from the inside and the man running the haberdashery is an unknown Mexican who goes by the name Bob (Damian Birchir). The two conclude the one or more of these men are secretly working for Daisy Domergue and that an attack on their group is eminent, and because this is a Tarantino film, that’s exactly what happens.

Like his debut feature “Reservoir Dogs,” “The Hateful Eight” is essentially a chamber play in which a small cast of characters are trying to weed out a mole within the group. But this film is twice the length and bejeweled in a number of indulgent cinematic fetishes. The movie was shot by Bob Richardson in an ultra-wide cinemascope frame, and during the opening sequences through the snowy mountains the establishing vistas are magnificent to look at. This choice makes less sense when the other two thirds of the film enclosed in a single interior setting, where close-ups and quick edits are more widely utilized for the storytelling.  Legendary composer Ennio Marconi’s original score for the film is memorable and used to good effect in building tension and creating a mood for the film's sense of snowbound isolation and paranoia, and yet Tarantino still insists on dropping in moments of contemporary rock and pop music, which often clangs against Marconi’s compositions.  There’s a tonally jarring flashback sequence in the middle that could have been cut all together and at one point, for no other reason than he likes to hear himself talk, Quentin provides needless narration that overlays competently shot visual exposition.

Despite these issues, I appreciate the minimal approach to the story and setting and there's a subversive edge to how the narrative eventually escalates into a full-on gore-fest by its end.  The movie mediates Tarantino’s classical influences with his exploitation irony, acting as bridge somewhere between Howard Hawk’s “Rio Bravo” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” The script's many discussions about race and civil war allegiances are fascinating and politically messy in way that other films usually try hard to avoid and they play out within the character arcs in unexpected ways. As you can expect from this filmmaker, the dialogue is well written as pros and contains thorny quotables, but it’s the stagey monologues and constant speechifying that gets in the way of the story, causing the film’s tension as a thriller to relax.

“The Hateful Eight” undeniably entertaining and its by far Tarantino’s darkest and meanest film to date. As a formally experimental piece of pop cinema it’s commendable, but it’s too overwritten and undisciplined to work as the crackling mystery it needs to be.

Grade: C+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Jan-2016

Listen to more discussion about "The Hateful Eight" and the films of Tarantino on this week's Jabber and the Drone podcast.