Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Release Date: August 1, 2014

Last time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier changed everything. Okay, not everything, the sky is still blue and the Berlin Wall hasn’t been rebuilt, but it did change the status quo in a significant way. The more light-hearted Guardians of the Galaxy provides a welcome breather for the audience, as well as representing the first step into a new frontier.

Bringing this back for fun and profit.

Before the space stuff though, there’s a prologue in which young Peter Quill is at the bedside of his mother, who is dying of a terminal disease, and because of that, he is too frightened to grant her last wish and hold her hand as she dies. Just when I was starting to think I put the wrong film on by mistake, Peter runs outside and gets beamed up on to a passing spaceship.

Fast forward to the present day, and the film quickly settles into the space adventure we were expecting. The now adult Quill, or Star Lord as he is referred to by himself and nobody else, finds a valuable orb and is able to keep hold of it even after forces working for the nefarious space terrorist Ronan try to seize it, but is unfortunately unable to sell it for that reason. As a consequence, a bounty is put on Quill’s head, which is pursued by bounty hunter duo Rocket and Groot, and Ronan’s minion Gamora. The resulting chase between the four gets them arrested and thrown in prison together. Perhaps anticipating that someone would try to trade him for a cigarette, Rocket helps the four escape the prison, along with new tagalong Drax the Destroyer, who doesn’t get along with Gamora because Ronan killed his wife and daughter.

Quill tries to sell the orb to the Collector, who reveals that inside the orb is one of the Infinity Stones, six extremely powerful artefacts, but before they can seal the deal, the Collector’s assistant uses the stone to destroy the building, killing herself in the process. The Guardians get over their loss of 4 billion units by getting drunk and gambling on space cockfighting instead, until Drax drunkdials Ronan and challenges him to 1v1 on Rust m8. Ronan isn’t one to turn down a challenge, so he beats up Drax after telling him that for Drax, the death of family was the most important day of his life, but for Ronan it was Tuesday, leaves Gamora to almost die in space, requiring Quill to hand himself in to a group of space pirates lead by his mentor Yondu to save her, and taking the Infinity Stone, which will allow him to destroy planet Xandar. The last one leads Ronan to realise that he doesn’t need his boss Thanos anymore, and promptly turns on him.

Upon reuniting, the Guardians convince Yondu’s crew and the Nova Corps, space law enforcement, to help them stop Ronan and save Xandar. They succeed in protecting Xandar’s surface from Ronan’s forces, and destroying the boss ship when Rocket drives his ship into Ronan to run him over. Groot sacrifices himself to protect his new friends from the boss ship’s crash, proving that Vin Diesel can still make grown men cry with a single innocent utterance before giving his life to save another. 

 That missile was aimed right at the feels.

However, in a shock reveal, Ronan survived the crash too! Quill reveals that the time has come for him to Step Up and Stomp the Yard, because he was able to Save the Last Dance and leave Ronan Footloose with his Dirty Dancing. Street Dance 3D. The distraction allows Drax to destroy Ronan’s hammer so that Quill can retrieve the Infinity Stone. The other Guardians hold on to Quill so that the Infinity Stone’s power is shared between them by the Power of Friendship, allowing them to survive the stone’s power and destroy Ronan. For good measure, Groot starts to grow back too and starts dancing to 80s music. He has good taste in music.

Once again, Guardians of the Galaxy is very different in tone to previous Marvel films. Though most of the other films have had humorous moments or scenes, this is arguably the first full-on comedy to come from the stable. The tone is more laid-back and light-hearted, and the group dynamic is quite different from the Avengers, in that the Guardians run primarily on greed, fun times or a desire to kill things, whereas the goals of the Avengers are a bit more altruistic. Groot serves as the token good teammate, but only in the sense that he’s less of a dick than everyone else. This makes it clear that, after the prologue, the film doesn’t take itself too seriously, and there are plenty of laughs to be had. My picks for the funniest moments are Rocket’s habit of stealing prosthetic limbs, the discussion of whether people can be 100% a dick,  and the climactic dance battle. Hopefully the next Avengers film will end with Tony Stark challenging Ultron to throw down.

The soundtrack adds to the fun. The film is backed by an extensive collection of cheesy 70s and 80s hits, which again give the film a distinct identity, and continue to convey the breezy tone. The selection of tracks gives the film a pulpy matinee feel, as if it’s paying homage in its own way to the period that saw Star Wars, which this film owes a lot of inspiration to, become a global phenomenon and cultural juggernaut. For the record, yes, Hooked on a Feeling is still stuck in my head. Ooga chaka intensifies!

The film’s best quality is its ability to transport you to a completely different universe and manage to make it so convincing. One of the reasons for this is the excellent costume and make-up work that makes all the various alien races stand out and immediately draw attention to themselves. The effect is further sold by the incredible amount of detail that goes into the designs. Characters that have implants or intricate designs on their multi-coloured bodies blend together seamlessly, which makes it easy to forget that these are actors, and people aren’t really blue or green. The best designs are arguably the tattoos that adorn Drax’s body, and the black markings on Ronan’s face that strike a big contrast with his blue skin and makes him look quite intimidating. On a set design note, the Collector’s collection of the strange is also a cool area for showing off all sorts of strange alien iconography to achieve a similar effect.

Guardians of the Galaxy is very fun to watch, and the tone and setting invoke the feel of a modern day Star Wars. In fact, Guardians of the Galaxy is a better modern Star Wars than the actual modern Star Wars.

Stan Lee Spotter: Stan Lee continues to flirt with pretty women. This time, Rocket sees him doing his stuff on planet Xandar. At this point, I would like to see Stanny Bravo, in which Stan Lee tries to seduce every woman in the Marvel universe.

Bonus: This trailer mashup uses footage and dialogue from Star Wars, but edits it in such a way to make it feel like this film. It’s an even better trailer edit than the one that made Mary Poppins look like a horror film.

Next Time: I’ve already told you what it is.

Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell

Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell

In recent days, my worldview has completely changed. Superhero films are done, and because of that, I won’t be finishing the Marvel project. Instead, I have discovered the glory that is My Little Pony. I realise now that there is no fighting the Bronies. Resistance is futile, so I join their ranks in order to create a new world order. My role in this effort is to use this blog to inform readers of all the goings on relating to My Little Pony. I shall begin by discussing the life changing book that prompted my epiphany, Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell by G.M. Berrow.

In this wondrous tale, Twilight Sparkle has been appointed a princess. After celebrating with delicious cake, poor Twilight Sparkle realises that she does not know how a princess should behave, so she asks her sister-in-law Princess Cadance for advice. Princess Cadance explains that the key is the Crystal Heart Spell, which will be revealed to Twilight Sparkle if she stays true to her heart. To aid in this quest, Cadance gives Twilight Sparkle a necklace with a magic gemstone that amplifies the wearer’s emotions. Positive emotions will reveal the Crystal Heart Spell sooner, but negative emotions will make the wearer’s heart turn to darkness, which happened to the necklace’s previous owner, an evil sorceress who was defeated by Cadance.

Twilight Sparkle asks her friends to help to reveal the Crystal Heart Spell, but they’re too busy mucking around and making silly suggestions, prompting Twilight Sparkle to get angry with them. This has the unfortunate effect of strengthening the necklace’s curse, causing Twilight Sparkle to push her friends further away, further exacerbated by the efforts of resident jerkass Gilda the Griffon, who was listening in on the meeting despite not being invited, and encourages Twilight Sparkle to be selfish and do whatever she wants because she’s a princess now. Fortunately, Twilight Sparkle’s friends are able to stop a scam run by Gilda and her accomplice Trixie, which brings Twilight Sparkle back to her senses, and the reaffirmation of her friendship with the other ponies reveals the Crystal Heart Spell. The message here acts as a welcome reminder for followers of the creed that friendship is indeed magic.

However, the fun does not stop there. In an unprecedented display of generosity, Twilight Sparkle rewards the reader for their faith with a number of puzzles and activities in the back of the book. Perhaps this offering is an attempt from Twilight Sparkle to atone for her behaviour, in which case, I am more than willing to forgive her. These include quizzes testing the reader’s knowledge of My Little Pony characters and locales, a wordsearch, and a cutout Twilight Sparkle stand. The highlight of these is the opportunity to write your own adventure for Daring Do, a pony who does on adventures reminiscent of Indiana Jones, that exceed the master when it comes to excitement and danger. The written adventure is sure to stand proudly in the Daring Do canon of tales. Alternatively, those of baser instincts may instead write Daring Do into the most vile and tasteless account of the Aristocrats joke that they can come up with. Simply bear in mind that this sort of behaviour is highly frowned upon in the new world order.

The story focuses on Twilight Sparkle, and the reader is given a good understanding of her character. She is determined to be good and always tries her best. This makes her an endearing and likeable protagonist who serves as a focal point for those unfamiliar with the world and concepts of My Little Pony. An unfortunate drawback of this approach however, is that Twilight Sparkle’s friends do not get a lot of time to be present, which means their personalities are reduced to more basic characteristics than the nuanced development Twilight Sparkle gets. For example, Pinkie Pie has an obsession with parties and is easily excitable. Bearing this in mind though, this approach could be a conscious decision, with a number of books each focusing on one of the ponies. The back cover advertises a book titled Pinkie Pie and the Rockin’ Pony Party, which lends credibility to my theory.

The book has a user friendly layout, with large text and double spacing which makes the book easy to read and aids visibility. There are also occasional illustrations of the characters to give a visual aid for readers unfamiliar with the cast, allowing them to join in without being lost. Veteran My Little Pony fans are also rewarded for their knowledge with references to past events that will be familiar to them. References to horse-themed locations and concepts such as San Franciscolt, Manehattan, and the Princess Bridle also help to create the impression that Ponyville is a real living, breathing world.

Nevertheless, I greatly enjoyed this book. It truly is an eye-opener, and I’m glad that I got to experience it and discover a whole world of possibilities that I had never considered previously. Needless to say, I will be sure to acquire a copy of Pinkie Pie and the Rockin’ Pony Party to feature here very soon.

This is Pinkie Pie's theme song.

 

Just in case you haven’t realised by now, (though you probably have) this is a joke, and anyone holding their breath for a review of Pinkie Pie and the Rockin’ Pony Party should probably stop, since I don’t want to get into trouble with the law. Happy April Foals Day, everyone!

Yes, I did just go to all that effort for a bad pun.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Release Date: May 22, 2014

In Days of Future Past, the X-Men face their biggest threat yet, requiring not one, but two teams to thwart it. This film uses the famous comic arc as a starting point, but since it only lasted two issues, there’s a fair bit of expansion here.

This spoiler buffer is the greatest thing, seriously.

This time, we pick up an unspecified period of time after X-Men: The Last Stand, in a world where both mutants and humans have been hunted to the verge of extinction by the Sentinels, nigh-indestructible robots that can adapt to their surroundings and targets. The last of the X-Men, as well as Magneto, who has now switched sides, plan on sending one of their number back in time to the 1970s to stop Mystique from assassinating Bolivar Trask, creator of the Sentinels, whose death persuaded the US government to put them into production. Wolverine is the only person whose mind could survive the trip, so he’s chosen to go on the adventure to stop the Skynet-esque uprising.

When Wolverine gets to the 1970s, he finds that following the events of First Class, Xavier has become a recluse and become an alcoholic, as well as getting addicted to Beast’s mutant suppression drugs, which allow Xavier to walk again. Wolverine recruits him and Beast to get Magneto out of prison, recruiting Quicksilver for the rescue since he’s gotta go fast.

Mystique finds out that Trask has been experimenting on mutants, including most of the First Class cast, and plans on killing him to avenge their deaths, but Wolverine’s group are able to stop her, though she flees. But the future refused to change, as Richard Nixon is convinced by Trask to put the Sentinels into production due to the attempt on Trask’s life. From analysing Mystique’s blood (it’s not magic this time), Trask finds out that it will allow his Sentinels to adapt to their opponents because they’re given the powers of dead mutants, though more is needed for the Sentinels to get Mystique’s power. Meanwhile, Past Xavier is convinced to stop suppressing his powers and become the leader he’s destined to be after talking to his future self.

Magneto uses his X-Men 2 trick of turning mutant-killers against humans by controlling the Sentinels to attack ordinary humans, and easily defeating Wolverine since in the past he doesn’t have his adamantium skeleton yet and can’t damage the Sentinels. Mystique is able to stop Magneto by shooting him with a plastic gun, saving the lives of Richard Nixon and his cabinet. Thus, the Sentinel program is shut down, mutants are respected and no longer feared, Trask is sent to prison, and the bad future never happens, even erasing most of X-Men 3 for good measure by bringing back Jean Grey and Cyclops for the first unambiguously happy ending of the series. Hooray!

The film does an admirable job of balancing both the original and First Class-era casts. Despite the bulk of the film’s events taking place in the past, the original cast don’t get shafted in terms of screen time or relevance and manage to hold their own. Wolverine’s presence is used as a bridge to connect the two eras, which works well. Another method used to connect the two eras is to introduce past incarnations of older characters such as Toad and Stryker with hints towards how they would end up in the future (No wonder Stryker hates mutants, considering how much he gets humiliated here, but it’s hard to feel sorry for him since he’s a jerk.) These appearances are able to avoid feeling gratuitous since attention isn’t drawn to most of them, meaning that those who haven’t seen the earlier films don’t feel left out.

Another element of the film that gets balanced successfully is the impact of characters on the plot. Wolverine isn’t the centre of attention here, which is a pleasant surprise for those who feared that would happen since he was the one to time travel. The complicated relationship between Past Xavier and Past Magneto is built on from First Class and offers a contrast to the present day, where they’re friends, in an inversion of their relationship in the past films. Mystique also gets more character development to build on what was introduced in First Class, which helps it feel less like it comes out of nowhere, which was a nagging feeling in First Class at times.

A lot of new characters are introduced here, but fortunately they’re all well-handled. Trask makes for an effective racist human villain, who is shown to exert power over ordinary humans as well as mutants. His willingness to exercise his influence, as well as his depraved experiments combine aspects from both Senator Kelly and Stryker to make a villain that can compare to them, as well as be more dastardly in their acts. The new recruits to the X-Men in the bad future fit in smoothly and feel as if they’ve always been there, making the most of their screen time. However, the standout is Quicksilver. He never fails to be entertaining to watch, managing to steal all the best lines despite only being in the film for about 10 minutes. His big running set-piece is a contender for the most creative action sequence of the entire series, and is definitely the funniest. Hopefully, he’ll get a bigger role in the next film, as I suspect he wouldn’t wear out his welcome as happens sometimes when scene-stealing minor characters have their role expanded. Either way, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has its work cut out if their Quicksilver is to compete with this one.

With Days of Future Past, the X-Men’s wilderness years are officially over, with the franchise finally clawing its way back to the level of quality the first two films established. The next film is set to adapt the Age of Apocalypse, which this film announces with a suitably ominous post-credits tease, and given the good health of the franchise, that couldn’t have come at a better time. Considering how the film ends, this could well be the last time we see the original cast, and the balanced focus between the two eras works as a way of passing the torch to the current First Class cast and saying goodbye to the old cast.

Bonus: X-Men: The Last Stand featured a minor character called Trask, who was previously thought to be the film version of Bolivar Trask. Fortunately, that character could be explained as having the same surname, but no relation to Bolivar Trask, because he was never referred to by his first name, or did anything relating to the Sentinels. This Trask was played by a tall black actor, whereas Peter Dinklage is white and has dwarfism, so they wouldn’t have been able to get away with claiming it as a recast due to the two actors looking nothing alike each other. (Then again, the Harry Potter films did it at least once…)

Next Time: I’ve already done this one in a spoiler-free capacity.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Release Date: May 2, 2014

Andrew Garfield returns as Peter Parker in the Amazing Spider-Man 2. Now that the original has established this new universe, the sequel can go to town filling it up with characters for potential spin-offs. Yay, I guess.

Spoderman acts as a spoiler buffer here for the sake of those who haven't seen the film yet but want to.

The film opens with an extended version of the first film’s prologue. This time, Peter’s father is shown destroying his research before he and his wife get on a plane to hide, but an Oscorp assassin succeeds in crashing the plane, with no survivors. In the present day, Peter Parker is late to Gwen Stacy’s graduation because he was busy fighting Paul Giamatti’s barely intelligible, yet hilarious Russian accent, so he missed out on listening to Gwen make a speech about how she is going to die at the end of this movie. That night, Gwen dumps Peter because he wants to dump her because he’s being haunted by the ghost of Captain Stacey, and she’s sick of telling him “It’s not your fault.”

Meanwhile, Oscorp employee and Spider-Man obsessive Max Dillon is made to stay overtime at work to do electrical maintenance. Because he is the chew toy of the universe, he is electrocuted and falls into a tank of electric eels, but because this is a superhero movie, he survives and is reborn with electricity powers. Spider-Man tries to calm Max down, but when the police continue to shoot him after Spidey told them not to, Max snaps and becomes the villainous Electro. Spidey stops Electro, Peter and Gwen get back together and the police send Electro to Ravencroft Asylum, where he is tortured by Herr Doktor, a living German stereotype.

After the Electro business is sorted out, Harry Osborne comes back from boarding school because his father Norman is dying. Norman also tells Harry that because the terminal disease that he’s dying from is genetic, Harry will get it too, which sucks for him. At least the Devil Gene could have given him wings and laser eyes. Peter and Harry are old friends and rekindle their friendship once Peter remembers the new guy, only to screw it up when Harry begs Peter for Spider-Man’s blood, which can cure the disease, but Peter goes to Harry in costume as Spider-Man and says “Lol no, if I give you magic blood you will die of death, and then you will be dead.” (Between this and Stark Trek: Into Darkness, Hollywood seems to have a thing for magic blood recently.)

Harry fails to make Peter realise that he’s going to die either way, so there’s no harm in trying the magic blood, but he doesn’t need to anyway, because his secretary Felicia tells him that Peter’s father drained his experimented spiders of their venom before killing them in his escape from Oscorp and hid the venom in the basement. Harry then gets framed by Oscorp’s board of directors for Max Dillon’s electrocution (Bet you’d forgotten Electro was in this movie, hadn’t you?), so Harry decides to break Electro out of Ravencroft and then wreck Oscorp before finding the venom and chugging on it. However, because the venom only works with the blood of Peter’s father and Peter, Harry mutates into Green Goblin. Electro goes to fight Spider-Man and kicks his ass until Spidey is able to catch Electro in magnetic web and overload him with electricity until he explodes, then Harry shows up and Gwen falls to her death during the battle between Goblin and Spider-Man. In his grief, Peter Parker quits being Spider-Man, but on the plus side, he does find out his dad wasn’t a traitor as he’d thought after Aunt May told him that Oscorp had told her he was a traitor.  I don’t know about you, but Oscorp isn’t the most trustworthy group to be making that claim. “Oscorp has investigated Oscorp, and Oscorp has found that Oscorp has done no wrong.”

But wait! That’s still not the end, as the film is gunning for the Return of the King’s record for most endings. The bowler hat guy comes back and tells Harry he’s putting together a group of super-villains, some kind of sinister six if you will, and they shall be called the Suicide Squad… oh wait, that’s DC. Anyway, the first member is Paul Giamatti’s Russian accent, which is terrorising New York while wearing a rhino-themed mech suit when Spidey comes out of retirement to challenge it. Alas, we’ll never find out who won, but unless Iron Man showed up out of nowhere to blow the Rhino to kingdom come, my money’s on Paul Giamatti’s Russian accent.

My main criticism of both Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand was that there was too much going on, and the various plots and characters didn’t get the breathing room they deserved. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 falls into the same trap a film early. The Electro and Harry Osborne halves don’t join together very organically, as the two are quite different in tone and, with the exception of about five minutes at the start of the third act, they don’t share any screen time. Notice how one kindly drops out of the film when the other shows up, allowing them to come in and do their bit. They feel like two shorter films combined into one to hit feature length so that they could introduce as many characters as possible at once and get to the spin-offs sooner. Rhino’s brief appearances at the beginning and end serve the same purpose.

I’ll admit, I’m unsure whether killing off Gwen Stacey was a smart move. On one hand, I applaud the film for having the balls to go through with it, when the romance between her and Peter Parker is arguably the main selling point. On the other hand, I’m not sure if it was a smart move in the long run, and it’s possible the filmmakers felt they had to kill her off because she’s famous for dying in the comics, thus it’s expected of them. It could be argued that if you like these films, the romance is the best thing in them, and if you dislike these films, the romance is the one saving grace. This may be a case of the source material constraining the adaptation when they had an opportunity to do new things with the character that wouldn’t have put the series at a disadvantage.

It’s not all doom and gloom however. The portrayal of Spider-Man in this film is the best one yet, frequently making jokes and trolling his opponents, as well as having a softer side he shows to the people he saves from harm. The Sam Raimi films focused too much on the latter, while The Amazing Spider-Man leaned more towards the trolling, with the compassion being left to Peter Parker. This film manages to balance the two sides. Peter Parker is also a nicer guy out of the costume, having grown up a bit from the first film’s 2kool4skool edgelord, though he still has a way to go. Showing up at Harry’s house in costume as Spider-Man to toy with the dying young man’s emotions is a dick move, and serves only to extend Harry’s suffering. Harry’s dying anyway, so the worst the magic blood could do is kill him sooner if it doesn’t work, thus putting Harry out of his misery. True, the magic blood is later revealed not to work anyway, but Peter didn’t know that at the time. I’m going to be forgiving and say this stupidity happened because the plot needed some kind of conflict to drive it with Electro gone for the time being, but it does mean that Tobey Maguire remains the better Peter Parker. If a film could combine Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker with Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, we’d have the perfect combination. Now we just need to convince them to do the fusion dance.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a complicated film for me. I’m really not sure what to think about it, as for everything the film improves on from the original, there are an equal amount of mistakes that aren’t rectified and are instead made worse. I’d argue that the blame for at least some of that should go to the desperation to make Spider-Man into a new massive crossover universe to compete with Marvel, but as his recruitment into the Marvel Cinematic Universe proves, it didn’t pan out. (“Now we’ll never get to see Spider-Man Origins: Aunt May!” said no one ever.) This series is the biggest case of what could have been yet, as there is some potential here, as evidenced by the improvements that were made, but based on the flaws from the original that worsened here, there’s only a 50/50 chance that potential could have been successfully achieved. I guess we’ll never know either way.

Bonus: Instead of trivia, I figured I’d do something different this time around. Because this continuity is done now, I’ll make up my own headcanon for some of the unsolved mysteries surrounding Peter’s parents and Oscorp.

Peter Parker’s parents were rank and file employees of Oscorp, but one day Peter’s father accidentally found out that Oscorp is a front company for HYDRA, and that Norman Osborne, the board of directors (with the exception of Felicia), Dr Curt Connors (who was assassinated by HYDRA after the whole turning everyone in New York into lizards thing drew unwelcome publicity to Oscorp, and rejecting the bowler hat guy’s offer to join the Sinister Six) and the bowler hat guy are all members of HYDRA. Peter’s father took this information and fled to somewhere he could upload that information to the internet safely, but a HYDRA agent assassinated him and his wife by crashing the plane they were escaping on. (Because the Parkers were successfully assassinated after the first attempt, there was no need to defrost Winter Soldier and sic him on them.) The board of directors infiltrated Oscorp and recruited Norman Osborne to their cause after Harry was sent to boarding school, which is why Harry isn’t in HYDRA, and they chose to betray Harry instead of recruiting him because he was young, angry and dying. This made him unpredictable and too risky to recruit, as he would waste millions of HYDRA’s money on Wolf of Wall Street style parties at best, and mistakenly reveal the existence of HYDRA at worst. The bowler hat guy’s Sinister Six is an initiative by HYDRA to gather superpowered individuals to their side to strengthen HYDRA’s ranks against any superheroes it could face, such as Spider-Man.

Stan Lee Spotter: Stan Lee appears as a guest at the graduation at the start of the film. Pretty low key cameo this time around.

Next Time: Can global Xtinction be averted?