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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American Sniper review

              Like any movie that embraces the moral ambiguities of a particularly controversial war, Clint Eastwood's “American Sniper” is a difficult film to discuss without drifting into reactionary politics or blame-game finger pointing. It becomes all the more difficult when the movie breaks all kinds of records for a January release—infamously understood as an seasonal lull for Hollywood economics—and the public figure who inspired the story, U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle, had an equally divisive past that challenges the very ethics of the film's supposed hero. An easier admission to make is that on a technical and aesthetic level this is Eastwood's sharpest and most accomplished film in almost ten years and contains hair-raising sequences that rivals just about anything from his past catalog.

            Based on his autobiography, this movie recounts the life of Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), a good ol' boy from Texas who was raised on God, guns and girls, and was personally drawn into military life in 1999 after witnessing on the news the loss of American soldiers overseas. Because his daddy taught him that there are only three types of men, the sheep (the weak and the stupid), the predators (the aggressors) and the sheep dogs (protectors of the weak), Kyle makes it his personal mission to keep his fellow soldiers on the battle field safe, creating a superman complex that would increasingly haunt his psyche once America was called to action in the middle-east. His wife Taya (Sienna Miller) does her best to raise their children alone while Chris does four successive tours in the war-torn streets of Iraq, leaving the bulk of their relationship attended over voice mails and the occasional phone call.

            Locked within a distinctly American depiction of a troubled war started on shaky reasoning and based on a book that was written by a man who posthumously lost a defamation case against a blow-hard Minnesota wrestler turned governor, this film struggles to be everything for everyone. It wants to do right by the now deceased soldier, who, while protecting the lives of his fellow troops was responsible for the deaths of over 160 enemies, including women and children. At the same time, while never showing his duties as anything but well-intended and heroic, the film also surrounds Kyle with multiple characters who question the logic of the war their fighting and their value within it.

            During the emotional climax, when Kyle finally faces off against an Iraqi sniper who killed many of his best friends, the battle field is struck by a blinding sand storm, which seems to suggest a divine or natural dissension over the mounting violence justified by earthly ideologies... Or maybe it doesn't mean that at all, but because of the movie's vague and waffling point of view it only augments the individual viewer's political leanings. Whether you walk into this thinking it's a pro-war propaganda piece, an anti-war character study, or a patriotic tribute to a lost American folk hero, you'll ultimately leave with your original judgments and expectations intact.

            Questionable thematics aside, nobody should deny Eastwood's return to form here, as he demonstrates that he can carefully and sensitively build tension within each high-stakes shootout and create a palpable haze of paranoia over the final scenes where Chris Kyle can barely make sense of his civilian life after returning home to raise his family. Likewise, Bradley Cooper is fully committed to the role and plays the charismatic sniper without any apology and bravely lets the audience into the mind of his character's fractured world-view. Unfortunately we can never truly know if the internal struggle that complicates the ideological mine field exists outside of the dramatic padding of this movie universe.

Grade: B-

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Jan-2015

Guardians of the Galaxy review

                  Marvel studios (ever heard of them?) gambled the entire summer on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” a movie based on one of their C-list comic book titles. Not only is this property obscure by fanboy standards, but the film’s two biggest stars, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, are used only to voice a CGI raccoon and a talking tree, while the physically present lead characters are cast from sit-coms and televised wrestling. But it’s the against-all-odds weirdness of this concoction and the risk the studio was willing take on it that kind of gives the entire movie its anarchistic charge and underdog illusion. I say illusion of course because what the success of Guardians really proves is the apparent indestructibility of Marvel’s box-office brand and the strength of their classic studio approach.

                What writer/director James Gunn understands about this material is that the plot can be as simple and as unambitious as it is here, so long as we are on board with the characters and their journey.  Having come from the world of cult-horror and exploitation cinema, such as “Tromeo and Juliet” and “Slither,” as well as low-budget superhero parodies such as “Super” and “The Specials,” he knows exactly where to pitch the difficult tone of this idiosyncratic genre-meld.  As a fan, Gunn celebrates all of the movie’s disparate components—space-opera, buddy-comedy, superhero blockbuster—and weaves them together seamlessly, keeping everything anchored by his love for the characters and the individual comedic textures brought by the movie’s diverse cast.

                Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill/Starlord, a human abducted from earth at the age of nine and raised in space by a group of criminals. While attempting to steal a magic crystal to sell on the intergalactic black market he inadvertently gets thrown into the middle of a political war between the space military and an evil zealot named Ronan (Lee Pace), working for a purple giant called Thanos. Defiant daughter of Thanos, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a vengeance-seeking warrior named Drax (Dave Batista) and the aforementioned tree Groot (Deisel) and his partner Rocket Raccoon (Cooper) also come along on the adventure to capture the powerful stone, with the hopes to find closure, make some money, and maybe save the galaxy from the god-like tyrant. 

                 Though ripped and 60 pounds lighter, “Parks and Recreation” actor Chris Pratt uses his familiar loveable bone-head shtick and applies it to a type of Han Solo charisma, with very appealing results. Likewise, Batista juxtaposes his stone-faced wrestler physicality with the script’s brilliant dry humor and the kids will no doubt respond to Cooper’s loud-mouth Rocket Raccoon and his amorphous bodyguard Groot who is only able to say the words “I AM GROOT,” while Rocket translates his limited language to the rest of the misfits.  Every actor has a scene or two to steal and the movie breaths enough between the set-pieces to build on their relationships. Unfortunately, Zoe Saldana as the green-painted, super-assassin Gamora doesn’t get  as much of a chance to fool-around as the other boys, and having seen her in space more than we haven’t her inclusion feels considerably less inspired. But by no means does this slow the momentum of this wildly imaginative comedy. 

       The plot of “Guardians of the Galaxy” is elementary, the climax is too big and overly drawn-out for its own good, losing some focus in its overreaching for epic-ness, but the majority of this multi-million dollar oddity is overwhelmingly entertaining; the take away being the ensemble, their interactions and the humor that comes from their uncanny chemistry. Like any competent summer movie, the special effects do their job and most of the action is character-driven, but it’s the movie’s ‘70s soft-rock soundtrack and brightly colored look that perfectly mirrors the enthusiastic energy exhibited by the wickedly talented James Gunn and his weirdo cast.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Aug-2014