Marvel's seemingly endless string of hits will not get derailed with "Guardians of the Galaxy." In a move that made some scratch their heads, Marvel decided to flex it's movie muscle and see how it would do with a group of misfits that didn't have a huge fan base in place. Guess what Marvel (& Disney - by extension) found out - the formula that made Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America works just fine for "new" superhero's.
Guardians of the Galaxy brings together a misfit band of outlaws who manage to get past their initial impulse to kill each other five seconds after meeting. Peter Quill - an outlaw cut out of the Han Solo mold, befriends Rocket (a bioengineered racoon - but don't tell him that), Groot (a treeman for lack of better description), blue strongman Drax (who can only take things literally), and gorgeous green Gamora. Well, befriend might be too strong of a word.
Circumstances dictate that they all work together to save the very same people who locked them up together in prison. Throw in a supercool bad guy, awesome dialogue, plenty of inside jokes, and some awesome mix tapes - and BAM - you have a new franchise for Marvel.
I won't go into the plot except to say that to me the plot was almost secondary. I could have watched this group of characters just sitting around a bar betting on some alien version of a cock fight and been happy. Oh wait - I did watch that.
There were times while watching this movie that I thought - "this is what Han Solo would have been like if a movie was done on just him and without all the stuffiness of Luke and Obi Wan." And I loved it! You see, Han did shoot first - and that's what we loved about that character. This was before Lucas went all crazy and felt that Greedo HAD to shoot first, because Han Solo would never do such a thing.
I have a feeling that Stan Lee is not going to reshoot this movie and try and tone done the "scoundrel" that Peter Quill is. People love the good guy who really isn't that good and is a huge believer of situational ethics. It works for Peter Quill's gang - and it worked for me!
The best thing about this movie? Original. Sure good guy / bad guy action films aren't exactly groundbreaking - but in a Hollywood that seems hellbent to remake everything from "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Escape from New York" because the younger generation never heard of them and you can make an easy buck with no creativity - originality is a dying concept.
The other thing I really appreciated was that the film didn't feel the need to delve into everyone's background and explain every alien race and world. In spite of this, you really did find the characters fun to follow and root for.
I remember thinking when "Iron Man" first came out - "this is really a stretch and I can't see myself liking this at all." I left the theater in amazed that I not only loved the film, but a fan all things Marvel. Same with Thor. Same with Captain America.
Guardians of the Galaxy has just pushed the already "can't miss" Marvel Studios into a whole new stratosphere. It's Stan Lee's world - and we are all
just living in it right now.
I broke a rule that I had made for myself tonight. Never watch a movie that your dad picked up for a buck at a yard sale. I suppose there is an off chance that my father could have inadvertently picked up a copy of "Time Bandits" and at least I could have enjoyed some nostalgia of my youth.
But, as my luck usually turns out, my dad picked up a copy of "Devil's Pass" instead. I have to admit, the cover was intriguing. "Based on a true story" is across the bottom, and I am always up for learning something new. I had never heard of the Dyatlov Pass Incident in which 9 hikers died under mysterious circumstances in 1959. There was a picture on monster on the cover - so I figured the movie was going to use that incident and then go into some Yeti theory of the deaths.
Well, saying this movie is based on a true story is like me saying that I had a beer with Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth (from what I read on wikipedia) was a real person - so I can say anything after that and say it was based on a true story. I really, really, really try to stay positive in my reviews - because I know that someone put their heart and soul into the effort. Well, maybe just time and no heart and soul into this venture, because I don't see how anyone could have this "vision" of this movie and convince others to actually follow through with it and create a film. Astonishing.
I am going to venture from my policy of trying to be positive, mainly because I feel like I was deceived by the "true story" aspect and can not get the time back that I invested in sitting through the entire movie just to write this review.
Instead of talking about the nine hikers that died (which is a true event), the film goes all Blair Witch Project on the unwitting audience to follow 5 college yuppies who decide to travel to the Ural Mountains to try and determine what happened to the hikers on some super extra credit project. Seriously, I can't suspend my belief here - kids in college are trying to dig through couches to get enough change for a 40 oz beer and bag of Dorito's. Oh, these kids won a grant to go on this trip - my bad. They were obviously better grant writers than hikers, because they were seen wearing very little for a place that was -22 degrees Fahrenheit when the original 9 hikers died.
So, through the lens of a shaky camera, the audience is taken on the trip from their point of view. I am going to cut to the chase on the plot. The five students climb the mountain, and after a avalanche (which may not have been started by natural causes) one of their members goes missing and another suffers a horrible broken leg. They spend exactly zero effort trying to locate the missing hiker, and after setting the broken leg, find enough emotion to remark on the lack of cell phone reception one of the hikers has even though they were told that their plan would have the coverage. I wish I were making that up. I guess he was taken in by misrepresentation as well - hard to feel sorry for you, dude.
During the night, two of the campers find a door in the middle of the mountain, but the lock is on the outside which means that the metal door was meant to hold something inside. The door is open - and big footprints start to appear mysteriously with a starting point that looks like the creature was dropped out of the sky and disappeared with the path ending abruptly.
Add in a couple of Russian soldiers shooting at them, running into the door for protection and getting shut in, the Philadelphia Experiment, UFO theories, wormholes, and creatures that look like the Russian Youtube monster in the woods and insert your own ending. The most unbelievable part - that the freaking camera battery never dies and subjects us to watching the filming.
Guys, if you have an urge to film everything - even when monsters are chasing you into a room with a wormhole and you let a woman do the dirty work of fighting off the monsters so you can keep filming - I would like to offer this bit of advice. JUST STOP IT! PUT THE CAMERA DOWN! You will never get a prom date by sitting back filming girls kick monsters butts with only "chain whips" as weapons. I know - I tried - didn't work (based on a true story).
One last note - don't panic and think the tube on your TV went bad, there is about 20 minutes of pitch black with audio only throughout the movie. Now that I think of it, the scariest thing about the DVD was thinking "Ah crap! I just bought this TV!"
"There is enough potatoes here to choke a donkey," is the one line that sticks out in my mind. Other than that, there was enough poor dialogue to choke a reviewer.
I need to quit writing and find enough change for beer and Dorito's now.
I went to see Monuments Men the other night with my wife. I had high hopes for the movie when I first went in - I figured with George Clooney and Matt Damon, that it would be very well done. I thought it would be a serious film, my wife expected something like National Treasure. We got neither. If it was a serious movie, the inclusion of John Goodman and Bill Murray made it that much more difficult to find as serious. Seriously, John Goodman going through boot camp? Why??? And that caterpillar that was stuck on Clooney's face was more distracting than anything.
If it was trying to be funny, it had moments, but they seemed forced and awkward.
If it was trying to be a tear jerker, it didn't really succeed there either.
This is another George Clooney "All-Star Band" get togethers with all of his other high paid acting buddies. When this occurs the outcome in my eyes is usually "Hey, let's make a movie and have some fun. People are going to see it cause we are in it - so it really doesn't matter about plot development."
I never really felt like I "cared" about the characters, which is a shame - because I think the subject matter really had a lot of potential. All in all - skip the theater's and just rent it if you are really bored and just need something to waste your time.
Or better yet - read the book that it was based off of. I haven't, but I am willing to bet it is better than the movie.
Not really a fan - 3 / 5 stars.
8:46 is a brief story that follows the everyday lives of people the day before and leading right up to the time when the towers were hit and when they fell. The movie states that the stories were fictional, but were intended to show how "every day" people were involved and how their loved ones were affected.
I had reservations about watching this film, as that day and images of it still bring up multiple emotions for me. In the end, I am glad I watched it. The closing credits state that the movie was made to show how that day was more than terrorists, buildings, and planes - and on that point I think the movie succeeded. However, I will say that there were some flaws in it. First, the acting was flat at many points of this fictional documentary. One could tell that some of the people may not have ever acted or had speaking lines in a film before. Second, the film jumped around so often and to so many different people that it was hard to feel a connection to the people or their stories.
I think this film might have been better served focusing on fewer peoples stories and spending more time on each one instead of three or four minutes on multiple stories.
The one thing about this film that did stand out is that it still managed to affect me on some level. Watching some of the brief stories and knowing what was going to happen to them still didn't lesson the emotions from seeing the images again. Anything dealing with September 11, 2001 is difficult to watch, but in the end, no matter how difficult it is - as a country and a people, we can never forget what happened.
The movie does state that some of the proceeds of the film were directed to "Tuesday's Children." Tuesday's Children "was founded to promote long-term healing in all those
directly impacted by the events of September 11, 2001. Our mission
today is to keep the promise to those children and families while
serving and supporting communities affected by acts of terror worldwide"
The IMDb rating for the film at the time of this review was a 6.2 / 10. I am giving it an 7 based on capturing the emotion and the cause.
This movie is currently available on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
I rented this movie because my wife wanted to see it. I really didn't see how they could have turned this one event into a movie that would hold my attention. How wrong I was!
Tom Hanks delivers an outstanding performance as Captain Phillip, which was a more complicated role than I anticipated. Trying to act calm in front of his crew, while he is nervous about the severity of the situation, wasn't something an amateur could pull off. Hanks filled the part perfectly.
I was very surprised by the performance turned in by Barkhad Abdi. For having been his first acting role, he pulled off the role of a conflicted pirate in very convincing fashion. His role was complex in the sense that he was stuck between trying to do his job as a pirate, not harming the captain, but at the same time showing his crew that he wasn't a coward while maintain control of his small group.
Since it was based on a true story, and already knowing how it turned out (which I won't spoil here in case you don't follow the news), I also didn't think that they could pull off any suspense. But the movie not only kept me on the edge of my seat - I learned a few things about the incident with Captain Phillip that I wasn't aware of. One question that I had before the movie was - "How in the world do these pirates take over these huge shipping vessels?" Well, these third world pirates managed to do it with only four people. How? Well, for that you'll have to watch the movie!
5 / 5 stars rating by Nate!
