Guardians of the Galaxy Review

A thief, two thugs, an assassin, and a maniac team together to fight evil in the galaxy. Sounds like a great premise for a movie. Now, what if I told you one is a tree that can only say three words and another is a talking raccoon that loves guns? Crazy, right? Well, that tree and raccoon steal the show in Guardians of the Galaxy, the newest installment in the Marvel cinematic universe. Not only is Guardians the funniest Marvel movie to date, it’s also one of my favorites of the year.

Chris Pratt headlines as Peter Quill, or as he would like to be called, Star Lord, a human from Earth that was picked up by Yondu (Michael Rooker) and brought to space as a junker. Junkers are sent around the galaxy gathering valuables to sell to the highest bidder. At the beginning of the movie, he steals an orb of unknown value and origin and finds that it’s of greater significance than first thought.

Peter Quill, along with the supporting cast of Gamora(Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), are all given enough back-story to understand their motivations yet the exposition doesn’t hold the film down. Instead, it soars though humor and one of the best soundtracks in years. Some of the songs used will forever be linked to moments in the film. They are almost the sixth member of the group and show how music is the universal language.

Pratt was perfectly cast as Peter Quill. He brings a loose, cool vibe to the team, not unlike Hans Solo did for Star Wars. But he is not the star of the film. As ridiculous as it sounds to non comic book readers, Rocket and Groot are the best part of the movie. Every time they are on screen, they are funny, doing something hilarious, or being badass. Groot also creates some of the most beautiful scenes in the movie. Every kid that sees Guardians will want all the Rocket and Groot merchandise their parents will buy them.

The antagonist, Ronan (Lee Pace), gives a good performance. He is menacing and looks great on screen. However, I did feel he was a bit underdeveloped and didn’t explain his motivations well. He did too much talking through exposition and not enough showing the audience his role in the galaxy. I also felt that Nebula (Karen Gillan), the daughter of Thanos and Gamora’ssister, was not used enough in the movie.

These are minor issues for a spectacular film. It has giant scope and even though most of the characters are aliens, they all have humanity to them. While Guardians probably won’t win many awards, I have not had a better time at the theatre this year. And sometimes that is what is most valuable. Guardians will make you smile, laugh, and feel. Take the family and get ‘Hooked on a Feeling’. You won’t regret it.

X-Men Days of Future Past Review

14 years ago, Bryan Singer directed the original X-Men movie  and followed it in 2003 with X2. Both movies launched X-Men into cinema and were mostly loved by audiences and critics alike. He left after X2 and since then the X-Men franchise has floundered until the most recent movie, X-Men: First Class, which was a reboot of sorts with all the X-Men being played by younger actors. Bryan Singer is back for X-Men: Days of Future Past and while it mostly succeeds, it's not as good as First Class or X2.

The main plot of Days of Future Past involves time traveling back to the 1970s through the powers of Kitty Pryde, played by Ellen Page.  Acting on Professor Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) suggestion, Kitty Page uses her powers on Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to send his conscious back in time to him in the past to stop Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing Dr. Boliver Trask (Peter Dinklage). Dr. Trask is creating weapons that are able to kill mutants called Sentinels. By stopping her from killing Dr. Trask, she is never captured and her genes are never used to help create the Sentinels. With the past, present, and future all being represented in the film, the writer, Simon Kinberg, did a great job weaving all these together without confusing the audience.

Along with the X-Men we are all familiar with from the previous films, a few new ones are introduced in this movie. Most are done successfully with some cool new powers such as Blink (Bingbing Fan) who opens two portals, one that creates an entry and the other an exit, much like the game Portal. The best new character is Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who gets about 20 minutes in the movie and steals the show. His time on screen is the most fun during the movie. Seeing Quicksilver makes me want a Flash movie with the same effects used in this movie. Singer was able to capture the sense of speed not only visually but also with sound design.

This is were my biggest problem with the lies. After the escape scene that Quicksilver helps with, the movie loses its sense of fun. In First Class and other Marvel movies, they are able to tackle serious issues while still maintaining the sense of fun. Once Quicksilver disappears, this sense is never regained.  I wish there were more scenes with the mutants playing with their powers and seeing how they can combine them in inventive ways. We see this in the opening of the movie and never see it again.

It was great to see Wolverine interact with the new cast and Hugh Jackman delivers. Michael Fassbender (young Magneto) and James McAvoy (young Charles Xavier) also give great performances. Jennifer Lawrence (Raven/Mystique) has some good action sequences which are a lot of fun although she gets little else to do in the movie. It will be interesting to see how she is handled going forward now that she's a major Hollywood star. You would have to believe she will get more of a major role in the next film.

Overall, I really enjoyed Days of Future Past. It mostly delivers what it tries to accomplish; although, in my opinion, doesn't reach the fun of X-Men: First Class.  I believe it is my favorite Wolverine movie and definitely worth seeing.