GUARDIANS of the GALAXY - Grading & Discussion

[Reverend]

Can't remember what I first saw him in. Looking at his filmography probably 'Days of Thunder' or 'JFK'. Didn't get around to seeing 'Mallrats' or 'Cliffhanger' until years later. Like I said though, never thought to learn his name until recently. That's just the way it is with a lot of character actors.

 

[Set Harth]

Huh, I forgot he was in JFK until just now.

He was also the killer in Sea of Love.

 

[Aldo]

Can't remember what I first saw him in. Looking at his filmography probably 'Days of Thunder' or 'JFK'. Didn't get around to seeing 'Mallrats' or 'Cliffhanger' until years later. Like I said though, never thought to learn his name until recently. That's just the way it is with a lot of character actors.

I totally forgot he was in 'Days of Thunder!" I suppose technically I could say that was the first movie I saw with him in it, but Mallrats is really the first one where I actively remember him.

 

[Klaus]

I knew I knew him from somewhere, he was Chick Gandil in Eight Men Out! Never seen anything else he's done except JFK, and I've tried to burn the memories of that evil, evil piece of historical perversion out of my brain since I made the mistake of paying to see it, so it's not surprising that I didn't remember him from that.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was rather a big deal in the 80s when censorship was a hot topic.

 

[Magellan]

Well Mississippi Burning is pretty well known. Not a starring role but he's there

 

[Enterprise1701]

I just thought of something. The Collector showed the Guardians video footage of a Celestial using the Power Stone to destroy an inhabited planet's surface. How is it even possible that the camera survived? The movie clearly showed that the Power Stone's energy could devastate objects comprised of organic and inorganic matter.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

It was a live feed and just the recording survived?

 

[theenglish]

I just thought of something. The Collector showed the Guardians video footage of a Celestial using the Power Stone to destroy an inhabited planet's surface. How is it even possible that the camera survived? The movie clearly showed that the Power Stone's energy could devastate objects comprised of organic and inorganic matter.

It was just a computerized re-enactment.

I just saw it over the weekend.

Overall I really enjoyed the film. The plot was a touch formulaic and it didn't really feel like the spirit of the actual comic book but it worked.

 

[Reverend]

Or the image was captured using something other than a camera, some form of technology we wouldn't even understand. Aside from being alien and *very* ancient, The Collector specialises in the rare and the exotic. Presumably that extends to technology and information as well as lifeforms and artefacts from the pre-universe.

 

[DWF]

I just thought of something. The Collector showed the Guardians video footage of a Celestial using the Power Stone to destroy an inhabited planet's surface. How is it even possible that the camera survived? The movie clearly showed that the Power Stone's energy could devastate objects comprised of organic and inorganic matter.

It might've been CGI since the whole thing was a projection anyway.

 

[Reverend]

Or the image was captured years after the fact by simply travelling "X" number of light-years from the incident and observing the light cone. OR it was captured though some sort of time window thingy. Possibilities abound!

 

[Starbreaker]

I finally got a chance to see the film today and I LOVED it. I haven't laughed out loud like that in a movie in a long time. The interactions between Groot and Rocket and Drax had me practically in tears at times. I can't wait for GotG 2 and 3!

 

[Hypaspist]

Great movie. It isn't surprising that what could have been a throwaway comic movie was willing to take the most risks and ended up being really good.

 

[BigJake]

Really fun movie. If I could have rated it an A+ based on the character interactions alone I would have.

Spoiler: Are we still in spoiler country?

All of the Guardians were brilliant -- Drax, Groot and Rocket especially... and I think Groot most especially of all -- and not a few of the secondary characters made the most of their onscreen time, too. Starlord had a really fun Indiana Jones-in-space-schtick going on and Gamora got some neat moments, too ("You're just like Kevin Bacon!" ).

Unfortunately the action in today's action movie is just, I find, palling for me more and more. Aside from a few welcome flourishes -- like Groot laying the smackdown on a whole corridor full of hapless mooks and then smiling shyly at his buds -- I found myself feeling like I was waiting through the action stuff for the good stuff to happen. The Villain with his Generic Revenge Plot against Generic Good-Guy Planet didn't feel very menacing or interesting; his having to share his time with Thanos, who presumably was there for the fanboys and foreshadowing the next movie, didn't help. All the beats are predictable by now, from when the Low Moment / Dark Night of the Soul is going to happen (check) to whether a member of the team is going to sacrifice themselves (check) to whether there's gonna be a big-assed ship-crashing-into-a-city-scene (so check) to whether they'll find a way to worm out of the character sacrifice beat (check again); Guardians sells it all with as much verve as it can muster but under the paint it's getting to be pretty samey-samey.

There's also something, I think, specific to MCU action that's coming to grate on me. It's very hard to make visual sense of how actions scenes work and what should or could happen. In terms of physical mass, Drax looks like he should be able to crush Ronan the Accuser like a wicker statue. He can't, Because Ronan Is The Big Bad, but it's hard to tell why this is beyond just being writer/director fiat rather than anything the movie visually cues or sets up. I noticed this in Thor: The Dark World, too, which was the last MCU movie I saw on the big screen before this one. There are no rules, and about the only thing I can reliably tell about a fight in the MCU is that anything in badass-looking chitinous alien armour is a useless mook that everybody else can whoop by the dozen.

Given that, I voted it a B+. I'll definitely check out a Guardian sequel but probably not on the big screen. That said, Dancing Baby Groot really was fabulous.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

There's also something, I think, specific to MCU action that's coming to grate on me. It's very hard to make visual sense of how actions scenes work and what should or could happen. In terms of physical mass, Drax looks like he should be able to crush Ronan the Accuser like a wicker statue. He can't, Because Ronan Is The Big Bad, but it's hard to tell why this is beyond just being writer/director fiat rather than anything the movie visually cues or sets up. I noticed this in Thor: The Dark World, too, which was the last MCU movie I saw on the big screen before this one. There are no rules, and about the only thing I can reliably tell about a fight in the MCU is that anything in badass-looking chitinous alien armour is a useless mook that

Isn't that a comicbook thing you're complaining about as well, then?

Namor can hold his own against the massive Hulk, just as Silver Surfer won't budge from a punch from Giant Man. It's not about physical mass and really has never been. Tiny Superman up against the much larger Bane has the same results.

We never saw Ronin bench-press space pod, but judging from the fight from Drax, he obviously could. I'm not sure how (or why) that would be set up earlier in the movie, except to have Ronan look at the camera and exposition us what class his strength level is at and maybe showing us the graph at the back of one of those old Marvel universe trading cards.

 

[Klaus]

...that was how they did show us how strong Ronan was, by having him swat Drax away so easily.

 

[BigJake]

Isn't that a comicbook thing you're complaining about as well, then?

I guess that's pretty much what it comes down to, yeah.

 

[Hypaspist]

Ronan is actually the only character I recognize from reading comics, and he is always up against the strongest in the Marvel universe. He's more of a main villain for Nova, and Iron Man can only stand against him when he is wearing some sort of advanced armor.

I think they did a good job establishing Ronan as a supreme badass early on in the film.

Maybe it took the movie to make me realize it, but Marvel comics usually are better when they take place in more far-out locations. The Savage Land is a good start, but nobody liked the X-men because of the messages it had nearly as much as they liked seeing them go to the Shiar Empire. Planet Hulk is seriously one of the best comics I've ever read.

 

[Reverend]

I was actually thinking the other day that Planet Hulk would be a great Hulk solo movie. All they need to set it up is have Hulk fall into some wormhole during Avengers 3. No need to have them forcibly exile him since they can use it to echo Tony's scene from Avengers, just that he doesn't make it back in time.