“Guardians proves that Marvel is unstoppable, taking everything that worked about
their earth-bound adventures and applying that to space.”
It’s the Cinderella success story of this summer blockbuster
season, and for good reason. Guardians, like Iron Man 3 before it, demonstrates Marvel’s unique ability to blend
distinctive directorial voice with the studio’s unique house style. More importantly, though, Guardians is an accomplishment for
presenting a veritable cast of unknown characters to an audience for the very
first time and succeeding wildly.
Granted, it’s tough to resist the lure of a talking, gun-toting raccoon,
but how many filmgoers (diehards aside) knew a Groot from a Gamora? They sure do now; box office numbers rightly
made this one a winner. Under the
capable hand of James Gunn, C-list characters get the A-list treatment – compelling
narrative arcs, infectiously fun personalities, and an impressive sense of
scope without overwhelming the audience.
To boot, it’s impossible to undersell just how fun the film is, leaving
me with a wide grin in the face of such improbabilities as an opening credits
sequence scored to Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.” More of this, please.
“This is a phenomenal
picture, at once an accomplishment on celluloid and an exhilarating breeze of a
picture - in total, the perfect summer blockbuster.”
Iron Man earns its
place on the countdown for many reasons, but one of the big ones is
innovation. This is the fun uncle of the
modern comic book superhero film, and without it you wouldn’t have something as
zany, original, and enjoyable as the aforementioned Guardians. Iron Man presents an astoundingly deft
origin story for Tony Stark, brought quite literally to life by Robert Downey,
Jr. A two-hour montage of RDJ’s
in-character riffing and improvisation would have been just fine, but director
Jon Favreau also gives us an immensely engaging character arc, from weaponer to
weapon, from war-monger to penitent man.
It follows the classic format established by the Christopher Reeve Superman – origin, adventures, character
development, big showdown – but in bringing the genre back to its heretofore
finest hour, Iron Man reinvents the
wheel but makes it lightyears better by creating a breezy and seemingly
effortless expert work. It’s no wonder
that the mere post-credits mention of “The Avengers Initiative” had audiences
salivating – the promise of more to come never tasted sweeter than at the end
of Iron Man.True believers know what's left on the list, but come back on Wednesday for the final two, in an order that may surprise you...!
1 comment:
Iron Man belongs near the top. I'd put it at #2 overall.
As for Guardians, I'd put it way, way lower, like 8 or 9. The story was very convoluted and only makes sense if you know everything about Marvel's universe (not to mention inherently quite ridiculous), whereas the previous characters' films all took the time to establish everything for new viewers. And between all the bright colors and rapid visual effects (plus the fact that much of it seemed made for 3D and was over-packed in every shot), it felt like sensory overload. And I was not impressed with the soundtrack. I really liked the characters, and it might actually be worth watching for them, but they're good people in a bad movie. As I said before, I call this the "Armageddon effect," as that's the quintessential awful movie that's entirely watchable because of the people in it.
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