Guardians of the Galaxy
Reviewed by Tony Keen 04-Aug-14
Tony Keen finds himself – gasp! – out of step with the popular zeitgeist regarding the Guardians of the Galaxy movie…
I may not win friends here, but whilst this is a likeable, fun movie, it has serious flaws that undermine it.
Once the concept of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was embraced, the steps through it were pretty predictable. Phase 1 was establishing movies for all the original Avengers who had shown themselves capable of sustaining their own books over long periods of time (so no Ant-Man and the Wasp).* Phase 2 was repeat movies for all of those from Phase I whose movies had worked (so no Hulk) – and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Guardians of the Galaxy came pretty much out of left field. One might have thought that the MCU would spend more time expanding its Earthbound creation, perhaps through, here’s an idea, a female (Black Widow, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, etc.) or POC (Black Panther, Iron Patriot) solo movie, but no, they choose to go into space. (As an aside, sorry fanboys, featuring a talking raccoon and a walking tree does not make Marvel more radical than a Warner Brothers that won’t make Wonder Woman – if anything, it shows how inherently conservative Hollywood is, where they would put talking animals, largely devoid of any political connotations, up on screen, rather than focus on women or POCs).
Okay, so the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe has always been important, perhaps more so than to the DC Universe, and indeed the end of Avengers is a pretty clear indication that this is one direction in which the team stories are heading. But if the MCU is going to explore that, it’s slightly surprising that they choose to do so though the Guardians. Yes, I appreciate that the Silver Surfer is probably still bound up in the rights for the Fantastic Four, which Fox still have. But why not Adam Warlock? Or Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell or Carol Danvers)? Or Quasar? Okay, so some nice things (rightly) got said about Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s 2008 reboot of the group, on which this movie draws (and they are certainly more interesting characters than the 31st century originals), but that comic got cancelled after two years, halfway through some story threads. It seemed like an odd choice for a cinematic series that was riding high.
Yes, I’m sure it’s not hip to like this any more, but it’s good.
The trailers (which are, by the way, deliberately misleading, to the point of including footage with contradicts the actual movie) didn’t exactly inspire confidence. I will admit some prejudice here, as I grew up with an affection for the 1970s Star-Lord (especially the Claremont-Byrne story in Marvel Preview 11), who was many things, but not a dick. The Peter Quill/Star-Lord in the trailers evidently was a dick. And also, it all looked a bit derivative of previous sf movies. I had been worrying for some time that, sooner or later, Marvel Studios were going to fuck up. Could this be the moment?
As it turns out, no, not really. I’m not as enthusiastic about Guardians as, say, Hazel Robinson, who I think gives the movie a psychological weight that it can’t really bear. But it’s certainly okay – by no means is this Phase 2’s Incredible Hulk. Yes, it is true, it’s derivative – as the Evening Standard reviewer, among others, notes, the shadow of other movies and tv falls long over this one, in particular Firefly/Serenity, from which GotG borrows the whole “space western” theme, with the clash between the lawless frontier and the civilizing centre (and there’s also a Nathan Fillion cameo). But one can also see the influence of Star Wars, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (Chris Pine’s Jim Kirk seems to have heavily influenced Chris Pratt’s Quill), Farscape, Blade Runner and even The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This, however, all comes across as affectionate homage rather than blatant rip-off.
The overall Marvel plot is advanced a little, with the appearance of another Infinity Stone, and some scenes with Thanos (who actually loses a little of his menace once he starts talking).
And there are good bits. It is interesting to see what they have done with the Nova Corps, who seem to have become the Kree’s main antagonist (the Skrulls again presumably being tied up with the FF). Getting Glenn Close is almost as big a casting coup as getting Redford for Winter Soldier. Groot is probably Vin Diesel’s finest screen performance, and the Rocket-Groot relationship is beautifully portrayed, especially towards the end. There’s a nice hat-tip towards the original Guardians.
For some reason the “Obscene Gesture Alert” overlay seen in the trailer is dropped in the final movie.
Above all, this is a funny movie, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. It’s light-hearted, and enjoyable in a leave-your-brain-at-home sort of way. In that, it reflects Abnett and Lanning’s original comics (though those were a little grimmer).
And the soundtrack, based around radio hits of the 1970s, is terrific. Peter Quill’s mother evidently had astoundingly broad, eclectic and catholic tastes. (“Cherry Bomb” next to “The Piña Colada Song”? Really?) But it’s nice that it forms part of Quill’s defence against a galaxy in which he starts off largely friendless (and where mp3s have apparently yet to be invented). Entering a spaceport to the strains of “Moonage Daydream” is a fine moment. And fans of 10cc will appreciate the poignancy of a boy waiting for his mother to die listening to “I’m Not In Love”, even if the movie never gets to “Big boys don’t cry…” This use of pop music is something that is pretty much GotG‘s own, and gives the movie an individual feel of its own that it might otherwise lack. If you can manage to get “Hooked On A Feeling” out of your head within a week, you’re a better person than I am.
The trouble comes if you allow your brain back on; then the flaws start to appear. This is not as good a movie as Serenity, by any stretch of the imagination. The plot (starship commander refuses to accept peace between his race and another, and sets out to destroy it) is a touch hackneyed – it’s been used for at least two Star Trek movies. There are bits of the movie that flat-out contradict others. The death of Quill’s mother is set-up as a formative psychological experience for the young Peter, but the movie never really goes anywhere with it. There’s not enough of Peter Serafinowicz, in a role that the trailers suggest has been cut down quite a lot. One might say the same of Karen Gillen’s Nebula, though she presumably is slated for a return in the sequel. Pratt’s Quill shares with Pine’s Kirk the same lack of projected authority that means the viewer is never convinced by him as a leader.
Two women out of six isn’t a great ratio, but it’s better than one out of five.
Worst of all, under the fun, flashy surface, there’s some rather retrogressive sexual and racial politics – it isn’t just the soundtrack that harks back to the seventies. Another quality Quill and the Abrams movies’ Kirk share is that both are sexist assholes, and this is something that GotG never calls Quill on (so, not like Firefly there). Whittling Abnett and Lanning’s cast down to something more manageable has resulted in the loss of Quasar and Mantis, leaving Gamora as the only female (again, not like Firefly) – the Smurfette trope asserts itself again (though at least some posters place her at the front of the group, and she doesn’t actually end up in Quill’s bed). Gamora is a kick-ass superheroine, except when she has to be feeble and rescued by Quill. And she gets called a whore in order to set up a joke. (But at least the scene of her topless from the trailer has been cut, and her outfits are neither Jim Starlin’s bodystocking, nor the Boris Vallejo-style creations some recent comics have lumbered her with.) And despite the casting of Zoe Saldana as Gamora and Djimon Honsou as a henchman for Ronan, it appears as if, in the wider MCU beyond Earth, “people of colour” means white people in blue, green or red make-up.
So, yes, I liked this movie. It’s fun. But there aren’t many scenes I’m still thinking about a couple of days later. And there are flaws that mean I can’t really wholly endorse it. Not that this matters – I’m clearly in a minority, even amongst my friends, many of whom are happy enough with the surface shine, and the movie has already taken so much money (some of which, rightly, is going in the direction of Bill Mantlo) that anything I might say is irrelevant. Nevertheless, I will say that this is not the movie where the MCU goes down the pan. That’ll be Ant-Man.
(And [potential spoiler] there is is post-credits scene that implies that the MCU may be planning on bringing back another character, which I very sincerely hope they don’t, for several reasons. Some readers may need to leave early.)
* And yes, I know Cap doesn’t turn up until Avengers 4, but everyone always acts as if he were there from the start.
Tags: Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Groot, Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nebula, Rocket Raccoon, Ronan the Accuser, Star-Lord
The similarity you note between Pratt’s Quill and Pine’s Jim Kirk is apt, but I think it also underlines the differences between the two characters, and the reason that Quill is so much more tolerable and sympathetic despite his sexism and immaturity. Unlike Abrams’s Trek films, Guardians doesn’t try to bully us into recognizing Quill’s awesomeness. His abilities lie less in “leadership” (which in Abrams’s hands means yelling overwrought dialogue at people while they pretend to be awed) and more in the soft skills of negotiation and conflict resolution. He ends up the leader of the Guardians less because of his awesomeness and more because he’s the only one who can convince these fractious, antagonistic people to stop trying to kill each other, and he often achieves this by making himself the butt of jokes. You’re not wrong that Quill’s big hero moments often don’t land (in particular, I still don’t buy that he would sacrifice himself to save Gamora’s life). But just as many of them are deliberately undermined by the script by making Quill goofy (distracting Ronan by doing a ridiculous dance, for example), something that the self-serious Trek films would never do to Kirk, and which helps to sell the idea that Quill may not be a great hero, but he’s just enough of a hero for the moment.
(Also, a slight correction: Djimon Honsou plays Ronan’s chief lackey, not Ronan himself.)
Thanks for that comment – very interesting. I can see the argument that you’re making, and I agree that Quill is a more likable character than Pine’s Kirk. I am probably a bit unfair about the issue of his leadership – the script doesn’t have people constantly banging on about how great a leader he is, in spite of the utter lack of evidence that this is the case, which is what happens in the Abrams Trek movies.
I should make a couple of things clear. I’m not advocating Firefly as a series that did race and gender particularly well on any absolute scale. But I do think that it did race and gender a bit better than Guardians – certainly on the two specific points that I made. I do think that Mal gets called on his bullshit more than Quill does (which doesn’t mean he gets called on it enough). And it’s a simple fact that Firefly has more women in the central crew than Guardians, whatever issues there might be with how those characters were portrayed.
And I do think that Firefly is a central touchstone for the concepts of Guardians. They both share the idea of the team of outlaws wandering through space, who are basically on the side of the angels, which I think can be traced to Firefly rather than directly to Star Wars, and certainly doesn’t come from Abnett and Lanning’s comic – the comics Star-Lord is a rather different figure. And there are lots of aesthetic touches, such as Quill’s long coat, and the depiction of Xandar and the Nova Corps, which resembles the Alliance, a state which is authoritarian, but not wholly evil in the way that the Empire of Star Wars is (albeit the Alliance are further along that scale than Xandar). The city on Xandar has a lot of echoes with those that are seen of the Alliance (though there’s obviously something of Caprica to it as well – and a bit, though not very much, of Corsucant). Certainly, there are also a lot of homages to 1970s and 1980s sf, but the debt to Firefly seems patently obvious to me. And I think Marvel know it’s patently obvious, hence the Fillion cameo, which acknowledges this.
Actually, it’s interesting to see how the movie has divided commentary, all the way from Amanda Marcotte’s piece on The Slate, which argues that Guardians is really centred around Gamora, if only by accident, to Gavia Baker-Whitelaw on The Daily Dot, who takes it to task for its sexist approaches. (Unsurprisingly, I incline more towards Gavia’s view.)
Now, it appears that Guardians had the largest percentage of its audience being female of any Marvel movie so far. But I’d argue that this is very much the result of previous movies in the franchise putting good female characters on screen (especially the portrayal of the Black Widow in Winter Soldier), not word-of-mouth about Guardians itself.
I enjoyed GotG rather a lot, despite the sexism. I found it objectified both the guys and the gals – and was impressed that a lot of the reasons for this was a lack of understanding/communication between people and not due to malice. It was the lack of malice that let me accept the movie as it was and enjoy it. Not great Art – but fun. (And I’m female FWIW.)