Search found 3 matches: James Gunn

mattorama12

I had more or less decided not to see any more super hero movies in theaters other than the X-Men franchise. But, between the general consensus on this film, the reviews of a few trusted critics, and James Gunn's involvement (not that I'm a huge fan of his work, but his involvement led me to believe this would at least be different), I decided to check it out. I did the same thing with Avengers, and was pleasantly surprised. This time, unfortunately, I was wildly disappointed and consider it one of the weakest super hero films I've seen. And these kinds of films usually get a slight inflation in score/rank when you see them in theaters.

JLFM wrote:Guardians of the Galaxy attempts to be an action-comedy, which proves fairly problematic. This is not an issue of balance, but rather that the action is messy and tedious, and the comedy is flat and humorless. The action includes your run-of-the-mill chase sequence, some hand-to-hand combat, and a great, big, destruction-packed battle at the end. In addition to feeling totally static and bland, the action sequences are edited offensively poorly, with characters randomly jumping from place to place without explanation or flow (akin to some of the awkward editing in last year's The Lone Ranger).

The comedy is not much of an improvement. While some of the visual gags work (primarily those involving a tree-like character named Groot - more on him later), the dialogue is often embarrassingly bad. The film throws in random 70's and 80's references with absolutely zero context, and expects the audience to laugh anyway. Other gags seem to be recycled from other films, meaning that almost none of the humor feels fresh or especially funny. And others still are just obnoxiously immature in a way that only a child could truly appreciate. Sophistication was never the goal of Guardians of the Galaxy, but that doesn't mean that the humor should target the 12 and under crowd exclusively.

These two paragraphs are really all that needs to be said about the movie. There were probably more laughs in it than most other super hero movies, but that's because they tried for so many. I don't think a full minute of film went by without a joke (barring the opening scene with the death of the mother). And very few of those jokes worked, unfortunately.

ShogunRua wrote:The only elements that matter for big budget superhero flicks are

1. How good are the action scenes?
2. Are the scenes outside of those entertaining in some manner?
3. Is it well-edited?
4. Is it funny?
5. Does it avoid pretentiousness?

I don't really agree with applying different sets of criteria to different types of movies, but I'll play along:

1. Between bad and passable.
2. Generally, no.
3. No.
4. Sort of, but see above.
5. Yes.

On your scale, it only passes one of the tests.

Guest

ShogunRua wrote:I don't know whether the movie is any good or not, but it's amusing that you wrote an entire review, repeatedly mentioned Marvel Studios (thus assuming they had significant involvement) and named every single actor, yet somehow omitted writing "James Gunn" entirely.

Huh, weird. I probably should have caught that. Oh well.

ShogunRua wrote:Anyways, 80% of the review is irrelevant to whether a superhero movie is good or not. The vast majority of your criticism could be perfectly applied to The Dark Knight, for instance. Shitty, shallow characters. Boring, predictable story which follows a lot of cliches and formulas. Yet, that movie was excellent for what it was.

The only elements that matter for big budget superhero flicks are

1. How good are the action scenes?
2. Are the scenes outside of those entertaining in some manner?
3. Is it well-edited?
4. Is it funny?
5. Does it avoid pretentiousness?

Everything else about story, plot, dialogue, characters, etc. is besides the point. If people wanted to watch that, they would be seeing a different picture.

I would be quick to point out that this is not a super hero movie, but since its primary audience is fans of Marvel films, your argument still applies.

In my opinion, yes, audiences generally only care about those five things in super hero films. But I don't think there's anything stopping super hero films from satisfying those five things, and providing excellent characters, dialogue, etc. Even though I know you disagree, I consider The Incredibles to be a great example of a super hero film that satisfies every necessary requirement. It's just a shame at how lazy films have gotten these days. :/

Thanks for reading!

ShogunRua

I don't know whether the movie is any good or not, but it's amusing that you wrote an entire review, repeatedly mentioned Marvel Studios (thus assuming they had significant involvement) and named every single actor, yet somehow omitted writing "James Gunn" entirely.

Anyways, 80% of the review is irrelevant to whether a superhero movie is good or not. The vast majority of your criticism could be perfectly applied to The Dark Knight, for instance. Shitty, shallow characters. Boring, predictable story which follows a lot of cliches and formulas. Yet, that movie was excellent for what it was.

The only elements that matter for big budget superhero flicks are

1. How good are the action scenes?
2. Are the scenes outside of those entertaining in some manner?
3. Is it well-edited?
4. Is it funny?
5. Does it avoid pretentiousness?

Everything else about story, plot, dialogue, characters, etc. is besides the point. If people wanted to watch that, they would be seeing a different picture.

Search found 3 matches: James Gunn

Re: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Re: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Re: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)