@curiosity-inc
Movie Curiosities: Calvary
August 18, 2014 in Curiosity Inc., Uncategorized
Calvary begins in a confessional, as a sinister male voice tells Father James (Brendan Gleeson) that he first tasted semen at the age of seven. The unseen man goes on to talk about how he was orally and anally raped as a child by a Catholic priest, but justice is now beyond reach because the priest in question is dead. So he’s going to take vengeance by killing Father James instead, even though James is a perfectly good priest who’s done nothing wrong. The logic goes that killing an innocent priest is fair retribution for the rape of an innocent young boy. So James is given precisely one week to set his affairs in order before the death sentence is carried out.
As Father James himself puts it, “Certainly a startling opening line.”
I mean… WOW. Right off the bat, the movie hits us with child rape in the Catholic Church, which is enough of a heavy issue for a story to try and deal with. But this intro tells us immediately that the film will also address issues of religion, guilt, and death, all of which are good thick meat for any character drama to chew on. Even the visuals are oppressively dark, since the entire scene is a single static shot of Father James sitting in shadow. Last but not least, we’re given one hell of a ticking clock, complete with subtitles that count down the days of the week throughout the film until that fateful Sunday.
And we get all of this in a single two-minute scene before the opening credits have rolled. DAMN. Talk about hitting the ground running!
I’ve heard reviews that call this film a “whodunit,” but that’s not entirely accurate. For one thing, the murder in question isn’t even “dun” until the end of the film, and it’s entirely possible that the murder may not even be carried out at all when the whole affair is over. For another thing, Father James actually knows (or claims to know, at least) who it is that’s threatening to kill him. This leads us to wonder what he knows and why he isn’t sharing that information with anyone else.
The rest of the film sees Father James wandering through a wide variety of subplots in the small Irish town he calls home. This serves two purposes. First, it shows a week in the life of this respected priest. Second, it presents us with a list of suspects, encouraging us to wonder who may eventually be our killer.
First and foremost is the case of Veronica Brennan (Orla O’Rourke), who’s apparently been beaten by some man in her life. Yet Veronica has such a notorious sexual appetite that it’s anyone’s guess whether the beating was consensual or which man actually hit her. Though the two most likely culprits in that case are her husband (Jack Brennan, played by Chris O’Dowd in a rare dramatic turn) and her boyfriend (Simon, played by Isaac De Bankole).
There’s also Michael Fitzgerald (Dylan Moran), a consummate asshole who fled from criminal charges when the economy tanked. He’s now living in an enormous mansion that’s been empty ever since his wife and kids (and even the maid!) left him. The other prominent dickweed is Frank Harte (Aiden Gillen), an atheist who somehow became a doctor even though he doesn’t seem to have a shred of human decency. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention Father Leary (David Wilmot), a fellow priest with a disturbing lack of spine; Leo (Owen Sharpe), a flamboyantly gay man often seen in the company of Inspector Stanton (Gary Lydon); and Milo Herlihy (Killian Scott), a young man who is so lonely and socially awkward that he’s thinking about joining the army just to legally kill people.
Moving on, not everyone in this movie is a potential suspect. Probably the least likely character to murder Father James is his daughter (played by Kelly Reilly, who’s always a pleasure to see onscreen). Fiona recently botched a suicide attempt, so she’s come up to see what spiritual/parental advice her Father can offer. We’ve also got M. Emmett Walsh playing a character known only as “The Writer,” providing Father James with some insights into aging and death. Then there’s Teresa (Marie-Josee Croze), an Italian woman whose husband was killed in a car accident while they were vacationing in Ireland. Father James is called in to perform the Last Rites and console Teresa in her time of grieving.
Gleeson even gets a scene to act against his own son (prominent up-and-comer Domhnall Gleeson), who appears as an imprisoned serial killer/cannibal. Freddie Joyce claims to want forgiveness, though his sincerity is in question and it’s uncertain whether someone who’s committed so many awful crimes is even capable of receiving absolution. What makes it even worse is that there’s no capital punishment in Ireland, so Freddie can’t die for his crimes no matter how badly he may want to.
As for Father James himself, of course Brendan Gleeson plays him brilliantly. The guy has an outrageously underrated talent at playing so much passion and rage behind a stoic demeanor. The character goes through most of the film with an imperturbable calm, but Gleeson plays it in such a way that you can feel the emotional baggage, with a hint that anything could happen if and when the dam breaks.
What makes Father James an even stronger protagonist is that he wasn’t always a priest. The guy was married, he had a kid, his wife died, he picked up a crippling alcohol addiction, and a whole bunch of other stuff probably happened before he took his vows. And all of that long sad history is clearly visible in every grey hair on James’ ample beard. This means that even if James is devout in his faith, it’s plainly obvious that he’s spent enough time on the other side as well. When others express doubt in their faith, or even their complete lack of faith, James understands where they’re coming from completely. He also knows how to speak with people of all faiths, talking in common sense and tough love rather than platitudes.
The guy’s not perfect, but he’s a good man with a very good sense of what people need to hear, and his bullshit meter is perfectly on point. In short, Father James is a very effective protagonist and it’s clear to see why he’s such a revered reverend. That said, James has a nasty tendency to detach himself from his work. It’s a necessary step, he argues, to listen to confessionals week after week and still maintain a sense of self. Even so, staying detached often means that it’s much harder for James to empathize with his flock, and that comes back to bite him in a big way.
(Side note: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the film was written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, who previously collaborated with Gleeson on an underappreciated little dramedy called The Guard. That film was quite good, but nothing on the level of McDonagh’s or Gleeson’s work here.)
Naturally, the character is made even stronger by the dialogue he has to work with. Though this may be a very heavy movie with a lot of dark and tragic issues, the comic relief is nicely dark as well. Pretty much every character in this movie can hold their own in a verbal throwdown. In particular, James has more than his share of blunt rejoinders and snarky comments, which helps make him even more endearing.
Speaking of dark, let’s talk about the visuals. Nearly every shot in this movie (aside from the dazzling panoramas of Irish countryside) uses black colors and dark shadows in a very striking way. The most prominent example is James himself, who always dresses in black flowing clothes from head to toe. It makes the character look more distinctive, especially since the black clothes often contrast sharply against the bright colors and lighting around him. Speaking of which, it’s worth noting that when the murderer finally shows up, he’s wearing white and Father James is wearing black. A clever and very effective reversal, that.
This brings me back to the various plotlines. The way the narrative stumbles from one unrelated storyline to another, you could almost be forgiven for thinking that the plot is rambling and nonexistent. But take a closer look at my descriptions of the different side characters and their subplots. Especially the latter half. You may notice that many of them focus quite heavily on themes regarding death, exploring the subject from different angles. Other characters have to grapple with their sins, temptations, imperfections, and the various consequences thereof.
It’s the ending that really ties it all together, implicitly encouraging the audience to think about what we leave behind. The film is all about how our actions, particularly our sins and what we do to repent for them (if anything), can leave a deceptively huge impact that lasts long after we’re gone. Then the movie goes a step further and argues that we focus too much on our sins, suggesting that virtues — particularly forgiveness — are highly underrated. So even a film as dark and heavy as this one goes out on a glimmer of hope.
Calvary is a powerful film. It takes on some heady issues in bold ways, completely unafraid to let the plot ramble as the characters find themselves before the ending ties it all together in a neat bow. The visuals are fantastic, the central mystery is presented with some novel twists, the actors (particularly Brendan Gleeson, of course) are extraordinary across the board, and they’re reading from a script that’s deliciously dark without being a morose drag.
It’s a movie that deals with death and religion in a daring and direct manner, yet it’s just funny enough to stay entertaining and made with enough intelligence to provoke an emotional reaction. This is absolutely a film to look for.
—
For more Movie Curiosities, check out my blog. I’m also on Facebook and Twitter.
Movie Curiosities: The Hundred-Foot Journey
August 17, 2014 in Curiosity Inc.
I confess that I had brushed this one off at first. Between the producing credits from Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, the directing credit from the guy who made Chocolat, and the reviews that described this one as a total mediocrity, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. But a colleague of mine told me to take a closer look. I did, and I found that this screenplay was written by Steven Knight. If that name doesn’t sound familiar, then you really need to see Locke — one of the best films I’ve seen this year so far — which was written and directed by Knight. The guy directed Tom Hardy in a one-man show shot entirely in a car, and he wrote this movie that was supposed to be so much uninspired fluff? No, there had to be more to it than that.
The Hundred-Foot Journey tells the story of Hassan (Manish Dayal), who started learning to cook at an early age while growing up in Mumbai. Unfortunately, his family gets caught in the middle of some political riot, in which the family’s restaurant is burned down and Hassan’s mother is killed. A short while later, the family heads west, driving through Europe in search of a place to start over. Their car breaks down just outside a French town, and the patriarch (known only as Papa, played by Om Puri) finds an abandoned restaurant on sale for cheap. The bad news is that it’s cheap because the previous owners were run out of business.
Across the street, a mere hundred feet away (hence the title), is a highly lauded French restaurant with a prestigious Michelin star. The restaurant is run by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), who’s hell-bent on earning a second Michelin star. Thus we have a battle of cultures (between India and France), an underdog story (the small family business against the established juggernaut), a coming-of-age story in which our young protagonist (Hassan) learns to hone his gift at the possible expense of his heritage… you get the idea.
To address the elephant in the room, it bears mentioning that we’ve already had an ethnically charged dramedy about food this year, referring of course to Chef. The movies are absolutely more different than they are alike, but there are still a couple of comparisons worth making. For example, the Indian culture permeating Journey is pretty much exclusively used as part of the ongoing culture war. The movie is overwhelmingly blunt in its use of Indian spices and methods in traditionally French dishes as an illustration of how the two restaurants are beginning to collaborate to create something new and fantastic. Compare that to Chef, which uses Latin culture more like a spice in itself. Jon Favreau could have used any culture in the context of his film and very little difference would’ve been made, but the Central American cuisine gave the film a distinct flavor (for lack of a better term), and that Latin music made me want to get up and dance.
As to which approach is better, that’s obviously a matter of opinion. But for my part, the Mexican aspect of Chef put a smile on my face like the Indian aspect of Journey never did.
Then of course we have the movies’ approach to food. In Journey, the characters tend to talk about food in painstaking terms and flowery descriptions. Through emotions, actions, and words, the characters describe their feelings toward food and precisely why they choose to make a recipe just so. If anyone out there has seen Chocolat, it’s very much more of the same from director Lasse Hallstrom. The approach works far better than I could possibly describe, but still not nearly as well as what I saw in Chef. Don’t get me wrong, the camerawork in Journey has some nice shots of food and I could easily understand why the characters were passionate about their craft. Even so, the movie could never make my mouth water like Chef did without a single line of dialogue.
(Side note: Hell, even The Lunchbox — another Indian-themed movie about food released earlier this year — did a better job of letting me smell and taste the heavenly cuisine on display.)
Judging the film on its own merit, I must say that the visuals didn’t impress me on the whole. The shots were very colorful and gorgeous, make no mistake, but the camera movements were uninspired and Hallstrom shows a distracting preference for unnecessary close-ups. Then again, it should be little surprise that the camerawork is as cliched as the storytelling.
I’m sorry to say that the critics’ accusations of being tired and predictable are not unfounded. I’ve already implied that the film cycles through at least half a dozen storylines that we’ve already seen umpteen times before, and every single expected beat is hit precisely on cue. Though there are a few exceptions here and there, and this is what makes a crucial difference.
Madame Mallory is a key example. In a basic underdog story, she would be a one-dimensional villain out to crush the competition at any cost just because she’s a soulless bitch. And that’s exactly how it is at first. Even forgiving her impossibly snooty attitude (she is French, after all), Mallory is shown to be the kind of person who wants to make everyone else just as miserable as she is. She sinks to some egregious depths in the name of competition, and she flatly humiliates anyone who tries to approach with an olive branch. Yet the character is redeemed because there are some lines she won’t cross. It takes a while for her to discover it, but she does eventually learn that there are some things she will not tolerate in pursuing the upper hand. This prompts her to take a step back and try to set things right, which begins a development arc that Helen Mirren plays with aplomb.
Then we have Papa and Hassan, both of whom have development arcs that could be traced with a ruler. Papa is stubborn to a fault, but his familial love is palpable and his dialogue is very endearing in a cranky sort of way. As for Hassan, it’s always made blatantly clear that he’s being positioned as the bridge between cultures. Still, his curious and sincere nature are enough to win audience sympathy. It also helps that the film clearly shows Hassan working and studying hard to perfect his craft, which always makes for a far more interesting protagonist than someone’s who’s simply born gifted. Last but not least, both roles are portrayed with actors who radiate enough energy and passion to dominate their roles.
The weak link of the main cast is unquestionably Marguerite, the love interest played by Charlotte Le Bon. The character makes a strong impression early on, but the plot visibly struggles to find reasons for keeping her involved as the narrative progresses. There are times when she’s Hassan’s bitter rival, there are times when she’s his lover, and she constantly switches from one to the other with no reason aside from “because the plot said so.” There’s even one scene in which we clearly see Marguerite going out with someone else, and the matter is never raised again. Pretty much the only reason why this character even remotely works is because of the casting. Le Bon has a face that lights up the screen, and her chemistry with Dayal is more than strong enough to power the romance. Le Bon may be a relative newcomer, but she certainly has a ton of potential star power. Can’t wait to see more from her.
On a final miscellaneous note, it should come as little surprise that the movie with French and Indian characters has a lot of foreign-language dialogue. The characters speak primarily in English, and the foreign-language lines are very brief, but there were still enough of them that I wished for the occasional subtitle.
The Hundred-Foot Journey is a movie that gets by entirely on charm. The plot is absolutely predictable and cliched (with wonky pacing in the third act, I might add), but I have a hard time holding it against a movie with this much passion. It’s clearly obvious that everyone on both sides of the camera wanted to make a deeply enjoyable movie, and that sense of fun is infectious. Of course, it also helps that the cast is exceedingly good and they have some punchy dialogue to work with. The story may hit every single prescribed story beat like clockwork, but it hits those beats so admirably well that I couldn’t help having a good time.
In short, it’s a feel-good movie that actually made me feel good. If that sounds like something you’re in the mood for… then go watch Chef. And The Lunchbox. And then this one. In that order.
For more Movie Curiosities, check out my blog. I’m also on Facebook and Twitter.
Movie Curiosities: Magic in the Moonlight
August 11, 2014 in Curiosity Inc., Uncategorized
This is another one of those weekends when I refuse to dignify the new releases in any way. Things are so bad that between two CGI disaster films — one directed by Jonathan Liebesman with Michael Bay producing, and the other directed by some Roland Emmerich wannabe — I’m forsaking both to see a film directed by a semi-incestuous pedophile. Yes, it’s time for another Woody Allen film.
Magic in the Moonlight is set primarily in the south of France, during the summer of 1928. Colin Firth plays Stanley, a world-famous magician who operates under the faux Asian persona of Wei Ling Soo. You see, Stanley is also a top-notch magic debunker who finds that magicians are much more likely to reveal their secrets if they don’t know who he is. And also, casual racism could be brushed off as mere theatrics back in the day.
Movie Curiosities: Boyhood
August 5, 2014 in Blogs, Curiosity Inc.
I’ve said in the past that one good strong gimmick is all that a film really needs. It would be an understatement to say that today’s movie is a fine case in point. In fact, I don’t think it would be hyperbole to say that this particular gimmick is one for the history books.
Boyhood has a premise that’s simple enough: It’s a coming-of-age story that follows a young boy from age 6 to age 18. The gimmick? It was actually shot over twelve years. Writer/director Richard Linklater made the film in short bursts between projects, wrangling together the same cast of actors to play the same characters in real time. This baffles me. I’ve heard of films spending a decade in development, and that’s generally not a good sign, but for a film to spend over a decade in production? And it actually got completed and released? Well, goddamn. Read the rest of this entry →
Movie Curiosities: Guardians of the Galaxy
August 3, 2014 in Blogs, Curiosity Inc.
Just when it seems like Marvel has everything down to a science, they spring Guardians of the Galaxy on us. As a space opera, a film based on a comic series that’s completely unheard of in the mainstream, and the only Phase 2 film that isn’t a sequel, this one is very unusual among its Marvel peers in many ways. It’s also a film directed and co-written by James Gunn, who seems to have made “unusual” the defining word of his career. Even after Gunn directed the underrated superhero satire of Super, the guy who made Slither, “PG Porn,” and a segment of Movie 43 isn’t exactly the first name that springs to mind for the job of directing a summer action comic book tentpole set in space.
Still, the reception for Guardians has been positively glowing with praise. I went into this film expecting an absolute slam-dunk, and that’s not exactly what happened. It’s a very good film, don’t get me wrong, but it still has a few very prominent flaws.
Let’s start with the tone. The film is absolutely a space opera, with intergalactic dogfights between armies of strange alien creatures and a plot that constantly hops from one planet to another. But this tale of science fiction is refreshingly unique in that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. This can be seen in the film’s approach to technobabble, which is to pretty much do away with it entirely. Another great example is the soundtrack, provided by Peter Quill’s Walkman (we’ll get back to him in a minute). The songs give an earthly emotional hook to all the extraterrestrial happenings, they work wonders as comic relief, and the classic rock selection helps sell the film as a story about renegades as unlikely heroes. Good stuff.
Speaking of which, the movie has a nicely self-deprecating attitude toward its lead characters. There are multiple occasions when the characters joke about themselves and each other as a bunch of individuals who thoroughly suck at doing anything noble. This could easily have backfired in so many ways, but it’s used to reinforce the notion that these guys have no business being heroes. These guys are not the Avengers, a bunch of demigods playing with the unlimited resources of SHIELD. They’re underdogs. Misfits. As Quill himself puts it, they’re losers. They’re a ragtag crew of good-for-nothings who have to rise above their baggage because they’re the only ones who can grow to face an unstoppable evil. It’s a classic story, sure, but the characters’ self-aware nature puts a poignant spin on the concept. Moreover, even if the characters lose faith in themselves, the film itself never does. We see on multiple occasions that these characters are all very good at what they do, entirely capable of surprising everyone around them. Even themselves.
James Gunn himself once said that if the Avengers are like the Beatles, the Guardians would be like the Rolling Stones. Personally, I don’t think the analogy is accurate. The Guardians would be like a kind of small punk rock band who deliberately goes against the grain and still turns in some good work, flying below the radar even though they probably deserve better. Dexy’s Midnight Runners, maybe? I digress.
Moving on to the characters themselves, I must say that Chris Pratt thoroughly proves himself as a true star in this picture. The guy does a fantastic job of playing Peter “Star Lord” Quill as a consummate trickster, quick on his feet and with his wit. Though to be clear, Peter Quill and Tony Stark are both completely different brands of slippery. Stark tends to escape trouble by cobbling together whatever scrap pieces are within arm’s reach, and Quill isn’t that kind of smart. No, Quill is far more adept at using intuition, sleight of hand, and tact to get himself out of trouble. Basically, Quill is the de facto leader of the group because he’s the only one with any skill at diplomacy. The main characters are all either greedy or revenge-driven, but Quill is the only one who can see the long run past his own desires. In short, this is a character who lives and dies on his charisma, and Pratt clearly has charm to spare.
The other big highlight is Rocket Raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper. It couldn’t have been easy to sell such a small and goofy creature as a towering force of personality (he’s a walking raccoon, for God’s sake), but Cooper and the VFX team nail it. This character is positively bursting with energy through every second of screen time, and Cooper’s voice work does a lot to help with that. As a crude smartass with some very funny lines of dialogue and a shitkicker who can gun, hack, and fly his way out of any situation, Rocket completely works. Even in the softer moments, when Rocket briefly mourns over his tragic backstory or the possibility of losing a friend, Cooper does a phenomenal job of selling it.
Next up is Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel. This character is simply adorable. Groot may not have much for brains (rather like a Pokemon, he can only say his own name), but he’s a very gentle giant with some delightfully endearing moments. Until he’s provoked and a dozen guys get impaled on a very large vine-like branch before getting the fuck whipped out of them. Between his unstoppable rage and his host of plant-based powers, Groot is probably one of the few characters out there who could go ten rounds with Hulk. Guy’s amazing to watch in a fight, though some of his abilities have a “deus ex machina” tinge to them.
Then we have Gamora, played by Zoe Saldana. An assassin who was raised as the surrogate daughter of Thanos (now played by Josh Brolin after the character’s mid-credits Avengers introduction), I’m sure this character seemed like a better idea in theory than in practice. Saldana has enough screen presence to add an illusion of depth to the character, but her motivations tend to get muddled in all the exposition flying around. Gamora also has a kind of romance arc going on with Quill, which — for want of plot relevance and chemistry between the characters — was a bad idea all around. I don’t know what it is with Saldana and useless romance arcs, but between this and Star Trek (and Pirates of the Caribbean, if you’d care to count that), Saldana really should stick to the strong female characters without love interests. Does Hollywood even make those?
Still, the weak link of the cast is unquestionably Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer. His backstory is that Ronan (the villain, whom we’ll discuss shortly) killed his wife and daughter. His quirk is that Drax takes everything literally to the point where he probably couldn’t even spell the word “metaphor.” That is very thin substance to weave a character out of, and it sure as hell isn’t enough for such an inexperienced actor as Bautista. The guy is fantastic at action sequences, don’t get me wrong, but when it comes to being funny or sympathetic, Bautista just can’t make it work.
This is only one example of the various times when the tonal balancing act stumbles. Another key example comes in the roaring epic climax, which stops to a dead halt so that Groot can treat us all to a forced scene of fantastic whimsy. We’ve also got the themes of friendship and teamwork, which this film expresses far too often and with a distressing lack of subtlety.
Still, in terms of script deficiencies, I’d say that the heroes got off way better than the villains did.
Lee Pace plays Ronan the Accuser, the film’s primary bad guy. He’s part of an alien race called the Kree, which recently signed into a very reluctant peace agreement with their lifelong enemies, the Xandarians. Except that Ronan is a terrorist fanatic who wants to keep the war going until Xandar is obliterated. In theory, this could have been a fascinating window into the backstory of these alien beings, developing the Kree as a whole and our villain in particular at the same time.
(Side note: If you’ve been paying attention to “Agents of SHIELD,” you’ll know that the Kree are probably going to show up again before long. As such, it seems like taking this opportunity to establish the Kree sooner than later might have been a smart move.)
In practice, however, virtually no backstory is given to the Kree, the Xandarians, why the two of them ever started fighting, or why they agreed to stop. Without that information, Ronan is reduced to a cardboard villain out to commit planetary genocide just because he’s evil. It’s nothing but Lee Pace mugging for the camera through impenetrable makeup, biding time until his character is defeated in anti-climactic fashion. He’s a retread of Malekith from Thor: The Dark World, is what I’m trying to say.
The rest of the villains don’t fare much better, I’m sorry to say. Djimon Hounsou and Benicio Del Toro are both effectively wasted, using their screen presence to elevate a couple of roles that would otherwise be thankless and disposable. Karen Gillan does much better as the kickass Nebula, though she — much like adoptive sister Gamora, I’m afraid — suffers from inconsistent motivations determined more by plot than character. By far the best “villain” of the film was Yondu, an amoral savage played by Gunn regular Michael Rooker, who seems to be having the time of his life.
As for miscellaneous cast notes, Glenn Close is another actor who elevates an otherwise forgettable character just by showing up. John C. Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz both get a much better chance to show their comedic talents, though their screen time is regrettably scarce. I was told that Nathan Fillion got an uncredited cameo somewhere, but I couldn’t find him. Though Gregg Henry (another Gunn regular, like Fillion) makes a much more notable appearance, and Henry is one of those woefully underrated talents whose appearance can instantly make any project better.
(Side note: The stingers this time are unremarkable, aside from a couple of nods to some characters that will surely make die-hard Marvel fans very happy. If you’re curious, one of them was reportedly voiced by Seth Green. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know which one I’m talking about.)
Regarding the visuals, the movie has a few moments of dodgy CG and the 3D effects were sadly underwhelming. That aside, the movie looked just fine. The production design is really quite impressive throughout, which is of course a crucial factor for a story that goes through so many alien places, vehicles, and cultures. But that brings me to another huge problem with the film.
The film is paced in such a way that there were obviously a few scenes missing. More to the point, it feels like some moments of exposition were missing. They had to have been. As it is, the film is already flooded with expository dialogue about the five lead characters, the villain, the various locations we’re brought to see, who wants to do what and why, etc. With all of that going on, it feels inevitable that something either got lost in the shuffle or got left out entirely. This means a lot of empty spaces that are either glossed over or left open as plot holes. The film was quite wise to focus on its very simple plot — everyone’s after a MacGuffin, and bad things will happen if the bad guy gets it — because things start to get unwieldy when the film goes off on tangents and shifts away from the plot to focus on bigger things.
Finally, there’s the matter of connections to the greater MCU. Put simply, this movie is so far removed from anything happening on Earth that I can’t imagine any part of this coming into play with Avengers 2. However, we do get some new information on Thanos and part of an origin story for the Infinity Stones, both of which will assuredly come into play later on, either in Avengers 3 or in Guardians 2. And there will totally be a Guardians 2 — the sequel-baiting at the end of this movie was positively shameless. All of that said, the movie’s progress with regard to the Infinity Stones is very “two steps forward, one step back” in that for everything we learn about them, a previously secured Stone appears to have gone missing. Though I could be wrong about that.
If Guardians of the Galaxy has any fault, it’s in taking on too much. The task of establishing five lead characters, plus a villain, plus Thanos and the Infinity Stones, plus two alien races and the various politics between them, in addition to everything else in this corner of the MCU, proved way too difficult for the filmmakers to accomplish in a mere two hours’ running time. I’d be very interested to see the deleted scenes (or maybe rewatch the theatrical cut again) just to see if there was any vital exposition I missed regarding the characters’ motivations.
But I want to be absolutely clear in saying that this is not a bad movie. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable film that delivers epic spacefaring adventure, anchored by (at least three out of five) solid lead characters and the sharp humor of James Gunn. I probably wouldn’t recommend the premiums, but I would definitely recommend a theatrical viewing.
—
For more Movie Curiosities, check out my blog. I’m also on Facebook and Twitter.
