Guardians of the Galaxy Review

Based on a Marvel comic from the ‘60s and directed by James Gunn (who has a weird, almost B Movie background, writing credits including Slither, Scooby Doo and the Dawn of the Dead remake), Guardians of the Galaxy is the strangest, and by far the best Marvel film yet. Chris Pratt, known for playing the tubby, naïve and lovable Andy from Parks and Recreation plays Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, a roguish space thief who comes into the possession of a mysterious orb. He’s still naïve and lovable but now he’s absolutely ripped. With help from a team of space weirdoes, he must stop the evil Ronan (Lee Pace), who’s a bit like The Emperor from Star Wars from getting the orb, or shits gonna kick off.

It’s easy to compare it to Star Wars; there aren’t that many space operas. You’ve got a host of different aliens (most characters are made up with prosthetics, a few entirely CGI), space ships, evil guys with hoods and lasers going off everywhere. This is fine; Star Wars is great obviously, and the tone of GOTG is very different.

There are a lot of jokes, and Chris Pratt is absolutely hilarious. If you’ve seen Parks and Recreation it’s easy to imagine the whole film is going on inside Andy’s (Chris Pratt’s character) head, like he’s written a movie in which he plays a Han Solo type character but still having Andy’s boyish naivety. You also have a lot of comedy actors; Peter Serafinowicz and John C. Reilly play two army official types. I love Peter Serafinowicz and so everything he did I found funny, and having gotten used to seeing him almost exclusively in comedy I found myself giggling at everything he said even if it wasn’t a joke, as if he’s still in Spaced.

 The whole thing is grounded by a fantastic pop soundtrack, bringing familiarity to strange alien locations. Quill carries around a cassette player, and dances across the galaxy to his only tape: ‘awesome mix volume 1’. He sees this as part of his identity, his past on Earth, and serves to remind that he’s one of us. It also makes the film a delight to hear; one of the best parts of the film is the surprise when a great song starts playing. They’re almost all joyous, and all pre 1985. Blue Swede's ‘Hooked On A Feeling’, featuring prominently in the trailers perfectly captures the playfulness of the film.

The casting and the chemistry between the characters make the film. Peter Quill and Gamora (Star Trek’s Zoe Saldana) are constantly bickering, and have this will they-won’t they thing going on. He’s kind of goofy and cocky but she’s all business. Then you have the double act of Rocket (an unrecognisable Bradley Cooper doing a New York accent) who’s a smartass talking racoon weapons expert, and his mate Groot, a talking tree played by Vin Diesel (though he can only say ‘I am Groot’). Like Han and Chewie, Rocket translates for Groot. They also meet Drax (played by ex-wrestler Dave Bautista), a really muscly blue guy who wants to get revenge on Ronan, and takes everything literally like a hate-filled, body-building Vulcan. Chris Pratt is just perfect though; nobody could have played the role the same. He manages to pull off boyish goofiness while convincingly captaining a space ship or escaping from space prison. He makes you feel like you could do all of this, and his cited influences of Marty McFly and Han Solo perfectly sum him up.

Although part of the Disney Marvel universe it has none of the boredom that usually comes in the last third of a Marvel film, and the tone, partly due to the pre ‘80s soundtrack made it stand out. Sure there’s a big CGI ending but there’s enough interesting characters involved to keep you excited. While being hilarious it’s not all a big joke like the Pirates of The Carribean movies, and there’s a lot at stake. It manages to combine comedy, action and adventure in perfect proportions, all with plenty of retro heart.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 Review

The first How to Train your Dragon was fantastic, a pleasant surprise that charmed everyone and stood way above the rest of Dreamworks’ films; it was funny without lazily referencing pop culture, the soundtrack and gorgeous animation (especially in the flying scenes) were about as good as spectacle gets in films, and the plot was unabashedly heart-warming (without being mawkish) and perfectly constructed (the ending just gets me). It had the quality that Pixar is renowned for (without showing off), but was still appealing to kids.

So 5 years after uniting Vikings and dragons Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) discovers an island home to thousands of dragons, and must protect them and his home Berk from the scary Drogo, who is building a dragon army. He meets his long lost mother, played by Cate Blanchett doing a really strange accent (vaguely Celtic) who’s been looking after Dragon Island.

 It’s really more of the same; lots of flying around on dragons, laughs from the supporting characters’ squabbles (Jonah Hill’s Snotlout and Chirstopher Mintz-Plasse’s Fishlegs getting lots of the best lines), a lovely relationship between a boy and his cat-like dragon, and a huge war at the end with massive dragon dogfights. It does go slightly darker though, as do lots of sequels. Hiccup has to confront his past, deal with loss, and betrayal.  The bad guy Drago (Djimon Hounsou) is very scary, as are his dragons, and he wants to take over the world, so there’s more at stake this time.

In the screening I saw there were about ten kids in the cinema and twice as many adults (most of them accompanying children, a few on their own). Most of the laughs I heard came from the adults; the film didn’t reference things that would go over children’s heads like Shrek, but much of the humour comes from relationships and dialogue rather than slapstick and farts. One of the best scenes in the film shows Astrid (America Ferrera) mocking Hiccup. Weirdly, it all goes a bit Judd Apatow and you feel like it’s really mocking Jay Baruchel; she’s poking fun at how he talks and moves. It’s a lovely moment showing how close and comfortable the young couple are, but it does feel strange. Maybe I’ve just seen too many Judd Apatow films and find it hard to think about Jay Baruchel outside of the lovable stoner context. It gets away with it though; there's plenty of childish humour; I went with a nine year old though, who loved it.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 has most of what made the first film great, and to say it’s not as good as the first is doing it a disservice. It’s still gorgeous, funny and not afraid to make you feel things.