{"id":16090,"date":"2014-08-10T17:13:24","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T07:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=16090"},"modified":"2014-08-10T17:31:42","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T07:31:42","slug":"guardians-of-the-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=16090","title":{"rendered":"Guardians of the Galaxy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Director: \u00a0<\/strong>James Gunn
\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>James Gun and Nicole Perlman
\nCast:\u00a0 <\/strong>Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel<\/p>\n

A<\/span>s the Marvel Cinematic Universe rolls into its tenth installment in six years, it has finally begun to expand its source material beyond the super heroes of The Avengers.\u00a0 And whilst it looks like a super hero film helmed by a female lead still looks like a bridge too far for the House of M (Marvel Studios president: “we’re too busy for that”<\/strong><\/a>), the Guardians of the Galaxy <\/em>is a welcome new direction for the super hero genre.\u00a0 It’s\u00a0a far more interesting proposition than, say, Iron Man 4<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Guardians of the Galaxy are an intergalactic motley crew comprised of a space pirate, a warrior princess, a pro wrestler, a raccoon and a talking tree.\u00a0 The fivesome do not start the film as allies but they are brought together by a mutual goal to hunt down the film’s MacGuffin – an all-power space crystal coveted by Thanos, a space titan, who wants to use it to destroy and rule the planet Xandar.<\/p>\n

There’s Peter Quill, a human who was abducted by aliens as a boy, who takes the alias Star-Lord.\u00a0 Quill is played by Chris Pratt, an actor who seems to be having one of those star-making years where everything he touches is box office gold.\u00a0 He currently has the momentum that other young actors kill for and Shia Lebouf wishes he hadn’t squandered.\u00a0 Zoe Saldana plays the spirited and tenacious Gamora, a green skinned bad ass who goes to great lengths to avoid turning into Star Lord’s token love interest.\u00a0 Pro wrestler Dave Bautista plays the part of Drax the Destroyer with surprising wit and guile.\u00a0 His character has a Python-esque quirk where he takes every statement literally and at face value.\u00a0 Plenty of the film’s laughs are derived from his angry and overblown reactions to misunderstood remarks made about him.\u00a0 Then there’s Groot, a tree voiced by Vin Diesel.\u00a0 Although Groot is only capable of saying the phrase ‘I am Groot’, he is given the R2D2 treatment where another character can interpret the different meanings of his speech to the audience.\u00a0 There’s actually an emotionally touching scene involving Groot near the film’s end which is some of Vin Diesel’s best voice acting work since The Iron Giant<\/em>.\u00a0 Lastly, there’s Rocket, a genetically modified raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper, who is an aggressive little trooper that has a chip on his shoulder about his appearance and has a love of heavy weaponry.<\/p>\n

\"guardiansofthegalaxy2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What separates Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> from other sci-fi blockbusters of its ilk is its light-hearted tone and acerbic sense of humour.\u00a0 When I recommended the film to a friend and told him it was a sci-fi comedy, he replied “you mean like Spaceballs?”<\/em> which tells you just how often films of this style come along.\u00a0 I like to think that Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> is a cut above Spaceballs<\/em> and instead I would put it up there with Galaxy Quest<\/em>.\u00a0 It’s funny, full of affection for its source material and not afraid to poke fun at its genre conventions.<\/p>\n

Observing the positive feedback for this film on social media, I noticed a repeated sentiment that people wanted Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> to be an influence on the next Star Wars<\/em> and\u00a0Mass Effect<\/em> titles.\u00a0 I don’t think they’re just talking about the humour either.\u00a0 The imaginative alien characters, the colourful spaceship and planetary designs and the endearingly quirky tone of the film are all a breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n

Eight years ago, I watched the terrific remake of Dawn of the Dead<\/em> and marked director Zack Synder as someone to watch out for.\u00a0 After many subsequent disappointments – Suckerpunch, Watchmen, Man of Steel<\/em> etc -I was left wondering where the promise that was shown in Dawn of the Dead<\/em> had gone.\u00a0 It turns out that maybe the person that made Dawn of the Dead<\/em> so good was James Gunn.\u00a0 Gunn’s stock and trade in Hollywood has been as a writer where he has penned the screenplays of a number of indy cult classics that I have enjoyed including Tromeo and Juliet, Sgt Kabukiman, Slither<\/em> and of course, Dawn of the Dead.\u00a0 Guardians of the Galaxy <\/em>isn’t Gunn’s directorial debut but it is certainly his most high profile production and he handles it with aplomb.\u00a0 Most of the negative Marvel Cinematic Universe tropes – marginal roles for women reduced to being love interests, bloated third acts that feature lengthy battle scenes – are mercifully restrained here. \u00a0Guardians<\/em> is fast on its feet, full of laughs and leaves you wanting more.<\/p>\n

Today’s super hero movie market is a billion dollar industry.\u00a0 Warner has announced that they will produce eleven<\/em> super hero films between now and 2020.\u00a0 Unlicensed super hero films such as Jumper, Chronicle<\/em> and Lucy<\/em> are also increasingly common.\u00a0 Marvel are likely to continue pumping out two films per year and expand their super hero tv programming also.\u00a0 This kind of market saturation is doomed to eventual failure unless they are able to maintain a certain threshold for quality and original content. \u00a0Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> is a promising sign that it doesn’t have to be the same old, same old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unexpectedly entertaining sci-fi comedy about the adventures of a space pirate, a warrior princess, a wrestler, a raccoon and a talking tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2055,874,2054,1024],"class_list":["post-16090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-guardians-of-the-galaxy","tag-marvel","tag-marvel-cinematic-universe","tag-stan-lee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16090"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16102,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16090\/revisions\/16102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}