Guardians of the Galaxy

I may start to sound fickle, but I think that Days of Future Past’s primacy in my affections may have been short-lived, and I may have a new favourite superhero film. Guardians of the Galaxy was always the underdog in the Marvel cinematic universe, but its monstrous success is testament to just how good it is.

I’m not overly familiar with the characters, brought together like this only in 2008. I saw the in a couple of random Avengers comics, and of course Rocket Raccoon makes an impact just for being such a striking idea – and for appearing in on of the Marvel vs Capcom iterations. But I honestly didn’t expect to be quite as impressed as I was. The best thing about Guardians of the Galaxy was that it mixed action, glib humour and emotional gravitas perfectly – considerably better than The Avengers did, and that film did it extremely well. If this sort of humour is Whedon’s lasting legacy, I have to grudgingly admit that’s a very good thing – when done right, as it was here, and not patting itself on the back for it.

The plot is a solid, simple one with a MacGuffin at its centre and lots of interesting parties vying for it. As has been teased in previous films, infinity gems are on offer in the Marvel universe, and they make excellent MacGuffins. One falls into the hand of Han Solo type Peter Quill, who likes to call himself Starlord and is affiliated with the roguish Ravagers. Trying to sell it, he gets in a fight with one of Thanos’ adopted daughters, Gamora, who is in league with Ronan the Accuser – and also draws the attention of bounty hunters Rocket Raccoon and Groot. They all end up arrested and have to bust out of jail with the help of Drax the Destroyer. And with that, a new and brilliant team is assembled. They try to sell the gem to the Collector, but things go wrong and Ronan seizes it – planning to use it to destroy the planet Xandar, before going for Thanos. The rest of the multiverse’s heroes aren’t around, clearly, so it falls to the Guardians of the Galaxy to save the day.

The film is just so goddamn good-looking. Ronan the Accuser in particular they’ve made to look amazing. The CG used for Rocket and Groot is superb, good enough that I could forget they were CG creations – and Rocket turns out to be one of the most emotionally convincing characters in the piece, in a film full of characters damaged by their pasts. I really like how they did Quill’s mask, and the makeup on Gamora, Drax and Karen Gillen’s awesome-looking Nebula character is Oscar-worthy. I had no idea she could look so amazingly stylish from her largely goofy Doctor Who role. While it was slightly bizarre seeing the Millennium Bridge on the lovely peaceful world run by Glenn Close (not Meryl Streep: dammit they can be hard to tell apart) and John C. Reilly, it and all the spacecrafts associated with it are beautifully-rendered. They even made Thanos look awesome and not goofy – which, as with his DC inspiration Darkseid, is something pretty hard to pull off.

The acting is also just right, helped by the fact that not only do all these comic characters have enough backstory to have a little depth – for this sort of action film – they all also have their comic sides. Quill is obviously far goofier than he’d like to be, Gamora is kinda naive, Drax is wonderfully literal – undercutting several of his scenes yet not his own personal gravitas – Groot’s comic timing, delivered by Vin Diesel in Iron Giant mode, is impeccable and of course Rocket Raccoon is an inherently funny mix of cuteness, street smarts and grizzly sarcasm. Benicio Del Toro has more to do as the Collector here, though I confess I didn’t spot any Easter Eggs behind him (I hear some might be references to the Guardians who didn’t make it into the film), but there were a couple of foregrounded things in the collection. One I won’t mention – but the other, the cosmonaut dog, was pretty hilarious.

The soundtrack, of course, was exquisite – a narrative point was made of that – and I can’t complain about the cinematography or snappy directing. I would’ve preferred an exciting mid-credits scene, but that’s extremely minor. Can’t wait for a sequel – and hopefully these guys getting involved in the larger Cinematic Universe!

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Leaving aside Tom Felton not managing to kick-start a proper post-Potter film career, the first Apes film was a pleasant surprise. It dealt sensitively with Alzheimer’s and pretty cleverly got me engaged with ape characters.

But the sequel was certainly better. It did exactly what a sequel should do – take advantage of the first film having set the scene and go for something altogether grander in scale, more emotionally involved and more intelligent.

Ten years on, the lab-developed virus that became simian flu has wiped out most of the world’s population. Thus we can have this film set in the currently-fashionable gritty post-apocalyptic world familiar from many zombie properties. Indeed, the main thrust of the story reminded me of one section of The Last of Us – a fairly small human colony can get power from a hydroelectric dam, but getting the power back on is not without difficulties.

The dam, of course, is in ape territory. Caesar and co have set up a self-sustaining little colony, where not only do the apes hunt on horseback and craft tools, but they even learn the rudiments of English – written and, on occasion, spoken. Caesar has a wife and two sons, now, one the somewhat difficult adolescent Blue Eyes and one an adorable newborn. After over two years without any human sightings, he begins to feel that they have died out. However, a human expedition and one idiot with an itchy trigger finger soon shows they have not. When our leading man, played by Jason Clarke – who I don’t think I’ve seen in anything before this – reaches out a hand of friendship, Caesar gives him a chance, allowing him, his medically-trained wife, his weedy son and a dam engineer access to the dam. But the engineer is the one who shot the first ape he met, and likely isn’t to be trusted. If Caesar doesn’t start a conflict with the humans, maybe his more aggressive second-in-command Koba will. Maybe he’ll even be prepared to do so with a false flag attack.

Gary Oldman pitches his weak-leader figure just right, though his grand final gesture is almost ridiculously pointless, and the main cast of humans fill their rolls well, but once again this is really much more about the apes than the human beings. The main lesson to learn here is not to judge entire groups, because any group might have the bad apple who ruins it for everybody – and any group might have the guys willing to work for a better world, too.

Let’s not fool ourselves that this isn’t classic, tried-and-tested cinema, only with apes for the savage tribe / mysterious aliens / noble natives. But that’s okay, because it’s done well, and spectacularly. Some of the action sequences get a bit absurd, especially when there’s an ape on horseback leaping through flames with a fully automatic in each hand, or when a tank is commandeered to ram some doors – though the latter is in a remarkably beautiful and well-done action shot. I also found the whole ‘apes follow the strongest’ line slightly dubious when there are goddamn gorillas in the pack – surely they’re the strongest, and surely they sometimes come into conflict with the leaders?

Planet of the Apes continues to provide good surprises – I’ve not particularly wanted to see either of the films, but when I’ve gone to see them, I’ve ended up enjoying them. And what’s more – respecting them. 

Transformers: Age of Extinction

So, then...what did I like about the newest Transformers film? Well, hearing Peter Cullen’s voice work is always good, especially since his performance here came over as very genuine. Having him opposite Frank Welker again was a joy. There were some stunning location shots, especially out in the American desert and in Hong Kong – plus a nice Giger-esque spaceship interior. The cars chosen looked rather awesome, even if I’m no gearhead, and the 3D was some of the best-executed I’ve yet seen. Hound as a grizzled, overweight Autobot with a plentiful supply of guns and John Goodman’s voice was a good decision. There was some iffy CG, especially when the ‘transformium’ was being demonstrated, but towards the end when it was great boats being dropped onto the heads of giant robots, it was extremely well-done. Sometimes the humour worked well, like when three silly old Chinese ladies got in the way. The Dinobots were cool when they finally showed up. Oh, and I enjoyed the fact that there was no Shia LeBoeuf to be seen, as like most people, I am fed up of him.

That’s quite a list of positives. But they really don’t redeem this tedious, badly-made, vastly over-long blockbuster. It’s been critically panned, and that’s no surprise. It’s thrown together sloppily, too much goes on at once, and there’s very little sense of resolution.

There’s a hint at an attempt at a reboot here. There’s a hint at those pseudo-gritty superhero films where the hero is in hiding and has grown a scruffy beard – which we saw in Wolverine and Superman films lately. Instead of the beard, Optimus Prime has gone into hiding as a beaten-up, filthy truck, barely functional now after narrowly escaping bounty hunter Lockdown, who is in cahoots with the CIA to hunt down transformers. Why? Well, the now-ubiquitous Stanley Tucci plays a tech guru and inventor who is fairly obviously meant to be Steve Jobs. He is harvesting ‘transformium’ (right up there with ‘Gundanium’ and ‘Unobtainium’ for the cringe factor) to make Transformers that humans control – but of course using Megatron’s semi-active mind for this is a terrible idea. Lockdown, meanwhile, is in league with the transformers’ original creators – presumably the Quintessons – and wants to bring Prime back to them. He has made a deal with Kelsey Grammar’s CIA operative – and the old ham is having a marvellous time here – to be able to take Prime back in exchange for a ‘seed’, which will create a large amount of Transformium in what is essentially a terraforming nuke, and Megatron plots to set it off in a populated city.

And all of that complexity? Yeah, it’s all subplots. The main plot follows Marky Mark, who still looks a bit too young to be the father of a 17-year-old model, as he gets caught up with the Transformers. He has an incredibly cliched background – he is a strugging single father who can’t quite make ends meet, because he is following his passion for invention. His daughter, meanwhile, has started a relationship with a dishy Irish racing driver – and admittedly, the trite old comedy dynamic of young couple and disapproving father actually works pretty well, especially given that the human characters are otherwise so completely cardboard. There is also a comedy sidekick, but his dorky sub-Buffy dialogue is atrocious and he soon gets offed anyway.

It’s all too much, especially as none of it is very interesting, and it all becomes so clumsy at the end. Giving the humans something to actually do towards the end is incredibly awkward, and we have to buy that Megatron – now Galvatron – just stands about watching the final Prime/Lockdown confrontation without swooping in to take victory. The issue of Galvatron and that of the creators get left for yet another sequel, and there’s very little sense at the end of just how many lives have been lost. The women in this film are even flimsier than the men, and it’s a shame the dinobots get no dialogue at all.

This is also the worst example of product placing I have ever, ever seen. So much of it is so graceless that it effectively made me hostile to the products shown. Though one cameo from another Hasbro property did raise a chuckle...

Monty Python Live (Mostly): One Down, Five to Go

I had a marvellous time watching Monty Python, though probably predictably, that enjoyment was coupled with an understanding that this was a long way from seeing Python in their prime. Undoubtedly, there was a heavy dose of the joy of being able to say I saw them perform, rather than pure, simple, objective pleasure. I’m a lifelong Python fan, and I was amongst thousands of others like me, though most where a few decades older than me, and whiter too!

The mixed reviews this show got are reflective of this situation: the show was ropey and its performers very advanced in years now. One of them, of course, has passed away and way represented only via projections that typically had a reverent set-up and then undercut it. Others looked like they genuinely might pass away on the stage where they stood. There was a lot of padding, including underwhelming dance routines, playback of classic sketches and a decidedly overlong interval. And it was a little sad to me that it took about half the show for the selection of classic sketches to start focusing on the clever and the absurd rather than the cheeky and scatological, perhaps the area of Python humour that has aged least well, and is not enhanced by penis canons and extra verses of the Penis song that were about vaginas and bottoms. The intent to make a musical extravaganza of the show – Idle’s distinctive stamp, after the success of Spamalot – also provides some clunkers: ‘I Like Chinese’ just isn’t funny or clever enough, and ‘Sit On My Face’ deserves to be short and silly. That’s why Gilliam doing ‘I’ve Got Two Legs’ works wonderfully. You need something on the scale of ‘The Universe Song’ to really work here, and it does, marvellously – especially with a silly filmed cameo from Professors Cox and Hawking afterwards.

But for all that the show could have been better, it was still incredibly good fun – and frequently moving. I will never regret having had seen Python on likely their last-ever outing together, under that name. And there’s a degree of thrill to seeing these men as they have become – two film directors, one of them legendary; perhaps the most respected and grumpiest living comedian; an endlessly likeable travel documentary maker; and an aging darling of broadway who crops up in a remarkable number of animated films. Carol Cleveland herself is there, too, in the flesh – and remarkably sprightly. Strangely, it’s the least visible Python from their original incarnation – Terry Gilliam – who it’s most strange and thrilling to see doing such silly things now. He’s a highly respected and brilliant film director – and there he is in horrible corsets and suspenders! There he is rather awkwardly having to fit an overlong and unnecessary fart gag into the brilliant Crunchy Frog sketch! There he is taking over Michael Palin’s role in ‘Gumby Flower Arranging’. How strange and hilarious!

This was a greatest hits show – nobody should really have been expecting anything different. There’s not really anything new here, only slight expansions and the extended songs – plus an original, catchy but not very comedic song about money being the root of evil. Otherwise, the sketches are all classics from the series – dead parrots, spam, inquisitions, paid-for arguments, penguins on TVs, albatrosses, lumberjacks, Bruces and Yorkshiremen are all present and correct. Up on the screen, we get not only classic animations (some of which I think should’ve been the And Now for Something Completely Different versions, especially the killer pram) but some great sketches – philosophers’ football, fish-slapping and the silly olympics raise laughs, and not just because the laugh track was intact. 

These are well-loved sketches and seeing them performed by their writers is something special. Cleese is wheezing throughout and poor Terry Jones can’t quite remember his lines – which he gets ribbed for by Cleese in ‘Crunchy Frog’ and Idle in ‘Nudge Nudge’ – but they are still very silly and very funny. Nobody should have been expecting new material – but there are little flourishes that are draped onto the sketches that make it all seem more personal. Palin seems determined to get the audience to notice that he’s doing a tribute to Morecambe and Wise’s skip dance every time he exits. Cleese still corpses a lot, forgetting his lines (or pretending to) during ‘Crunchy Frog’ and snatching Jones’ cue card: he also throws Palin during ‘Dead Parrot’ by coming out with a random account of Isaac Newton inventing the cat flap (urban legend). Idle is a little less likeable these days, the put-on smarm becoming a bit too believable, but his voice is actually superb. All the cracks, that on the surface are very unprofessional, actually fall within the remit of the allowances we as an audience seemed prepared to make. They were charming and made it seem like we were seeing something genuine.

If ever there were really awkward moments, it was when the Pythons brought someone else into the fold. People donated to charity to be allowed to join the Pythons onstage in the Bruce sketch, but it was mostly awkward. There seem to have been a variety of celeb guests for the ‘blackmail’ portion, coming on and admitting something embarrassing, and ours was Simon Pegg – but his introduction brought the already sub-par sketch grinding to a halt (though there was a funny moment with a still of Top Gear to modernise it).

Overall, though, this was precisely what I hoped for – and with a much better view than I had thought I’d get! If I could have added anything more, it would have been Mr. Creosote, and maybe more nods to Grail than God and mooses.