Guardians of the Galaxy (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, PG-13)

Not all superhero movies have to be dour and self-serious, after all, so the comedic tone here made me like it all the more.

 

There are certain kinds of independent directors who, at some point in their career, prove their sensibility both works and brings much to the table when they cross over into mainstream cinema. Of course everyone’s favorite example of this is Chris Nolan, who came to attention with the small-budgeted Memento, but proved a deft hand at directing Batman films later on. Another is Steven Soderbergh, who started the American independent film boom in 1989 with sex, lies, and videotape, and went on to make all manner of good stuff in the mainstream, such as Out of Sight, the Ocean’s trilogy, Traffic, and Erin Brockovich, among others.

We can add James Gunn to this list, I’m happy to say. I’ve been following his career closely for some time—apart from being a native St. Louisan not too far off in age from me, he began his career by writing my favorite Troma movie, Tromeo & Juliet, in 1996. Despite my faith in him, I was somewhat surprised to hear that he’s landed the co-writer/director gig on the big Disney/Marvel tentpole summer movie release Guardians of the Galaxy. This isn’t without precedent—of course, about 15 years ago the then-unknown Peter Jackson, with mostly super-gory underground pictures under his belt, landed a huge contract to make the Lord of the Rings trilogy with New Line—but it is surprising all the same. Less surprising, to me at least, is that Gunn was able to pull it off and make this a good, fun movie. It still feels like a James Gunn film, but one that’s better suited to viewing from average moviegoers than most of the stuff in his back catalog.

Guardians of the Galaxy is about one of the few teams of Marvel superheroes who haven’t been granted a movie in the past 15 or so years. The nearest thing that the group has to a leader is Peter Quill (Parks & Recreation’s Chris Pratt, who’s much better here than he is on that show), a goofball relic of 1980s America who gets zapped to a different world at a young age, and who cherishes the soundtrack, not unlike the device used in Morvern Callar. Quill never tries to get a group together or to be a leader, and is debatably not suited to it, but at the beginning of the film he gets his hands on a very powerful, much-wanted orb, which makes him the target of good guys and bad guys alike.

An early encounter of this sort pits him against both the machine-like killer Gamora (Zoe Saldana, yet again doing a good job of playing an alien form with primary-colored skin [this time she’s green]) and the team of Rocket and Groot (CGI, both; voiced by Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, respectively, with Diesel reprising his Iron Giant shtick to good effect), who, after settling their differences, form the core of our group of heroes. Later, they’re joined by the thuggish and literal-minded Drax (Dave Bautista), and together they team up against bad guy Ronan (Lee Pace) and, to a lesser extent, Thanos (Josh Brolin), both of who look kind of like a cross between Darkseid and Mr. Boogedy.

One thing that Guardians of the Galaxy gets exactly right is its strong ’80s tone; this feels like a great superhero movie from that decade that you’ve just somehow never seen before, but which makes use of modern special effects. The film is funny in a way that recent superhero movies haven’t been; Guardians bears more similarities to the original 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie (Quill even name-checks the Turtles at one point) than it does to Marvel’s The Avengers. Not all superhero movies have to be dour and self-serious, after all, so the comedic tone here made me like it all the more. Much of the comic relief comes in the form of Rocket, a wise-cracking talking raccoon, who, judging by the big balls the film implies he has in at least one crotch-adjustment scene, maybe was a castoff from Pom Poko. (If you think a movie with a talking raccoon sounds too childish, you’re on the wrong side of the fence; if anything, this is the type of movie parents might regret bringing small children to.)

Plenty of other little things are done right, too. The supporting cast is a lot of fun; in addition to all of those named above, Michael Rooker, James’ brother Sean Gunn; Benicio Del Toro; John C. Reilly; and Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan turn in memorable performances. Also, Ben Davis’ cinematography does a good job of mimicking the layout of comic book panels; perhaps that’s why he was hired to shoot Avengers: Age of Ultron after Guardians wrapped.

I don’t mean to imply that this is a perfect movie, as a number of jokes fall flat, and from time to time Rocket gets grating (though he’s usually appropriately enjoyable). But Guardians of the Galaxy is the best and most fun comic book movie so far this year, and it’s a good example of the type of film people tend to look for in the summer blockbuster season. Hopefully, it marks the first of many instances of Gunn directing big, successful mainstream fare. | Pete Timmermann