Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
August 8, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Matthew Huntley: Even though it's the obvious choice, I think the biggest benefactor of Guardians' success will be Chris Pratt, not least because he's the only one in the movie without makeup and therefore he'd be the most recognizable in other movies, which therefore translates to bigger box-office appeal/a higher salary, etc. I think this is a good thing, though, as Pratt is quite likable and talented.
Edwin Davies: Chris Pratt definitely for the reasons Matthew said. Not only was he the lead and the character that acted as the audience's gateway into this odd world, he was also the only main actor whose face appeared on screen completely free of makeup or without being filtered through a CGI creation. Pratt's built a sizable fan base through his work on Parks & Recreation and has established his dramatic chops with supporting roles in Moneyball and Zero Dark Thirty, but for many audiences this will be their first exposure to his particular brand of confident goofiness. (Unless you count The LEGO Movie, but obviously he wasn't the visible star of the film.) This raises his profile considerably and bodes very well for next year's Jurassic World.
Bruce Hall: Chris Pratt. This may have ostensibly been an ensemble piece, but in reality it was Pratt's vehicle and he nailed it. Prepare to see him in a lot more stuff.
Jay Barney: Zoe Saldana. If she wasn't an A-lister before, she is now thanks to her involvement in projects like Avatar, Star Trek, and now this. Yes, some of her smaller roles have been nearly forgotten, but the successes can't be ignored. Her appeal is broadening.
Pete Kilmer: No question it's Chris Pratt; this was all on his shoulders. If we didn't like him, the movie would fall apart. And with Jurassic Park 4 on the way, he's going to be the next Harrison Ford with that one-two punch.
Zoe Saldana has cemented her A-list status for science-fiction/Aation films as well. I would have liked to have seen more of her character wise in this, but as always she nailed it.
Dave Bautista really surprised me. I mean it. He *nailed* it. I'm a huge WWE fan and I've always loved to hate and boo him because he's a great bad guy in that world. In this movie, he had a few scenes that shows he's capable of more than that and wasn't there just there to recite a line with no feeling. I really hope he gets into some projects where he can develop more as an actor, I'm interested in what he can do
Max Braden: I agree with those who have picked Chris Pratt. And I really didn't want to root for him, but by the end I was convinced that he absolutely deserved to be the star of this movie (and I actually think the movie let him down). Pratt may have just vaulted over where Ryan Reynolds has been trying to be during his much longer career.
Kim Hollis: What did you think of Guardians of the Galaxy? SPOILER ALERT – we are really discussing the movie here. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading now.
Matthew Huntley: It's amusing and sassy superhero movie fare, which makes it fun and entertaining enough, but as David alluded to in Topic #1, it's easily a Firefly/Serenity/Star Wars wannabe and, as a result, not terribly distinct as far as its story, characters and production are concerned. Luckily, though, it has a cheeky attitude, and that makes it worth seeing.
Edwin Davies: I enjoyed it a lot once it settled down and relaxed a little bit. The first half an hour felt scattered and strained since it was trying to tell jokes and unload a lot of plot and background information in a very short space of time. It's times like that when I think that the Star Wars crawl would have been a real benefit since it stops the characters from having to awkwardly explain all the politics that ends up driving the story. Once they got to the prison, though, I thought that it really started to cohere into an enjoyably goofy space opera that had a keen awareness of its own ridiculousness, but could still deliver on sentiment and spectacle when it was required. I'd probably say it was a mid-tier Marvel film, a solid B, but with a lot of potential for further storytelling in the sequel and the spin-off animated series that was just announced.
Bruce Hall: I enjoyed it. It was fun, colorful, quirky, and unexpectedly amusing. I do not regret seeing it one bit. But I'm about 48 hours away from completely forgetting what it was about. As I've said before, there is a sameness to the Marvel catalog that bothers me whether I enjoy the film or not.
There's a Villain, often with some kind of ironic connection to the hero. The Villain is trying to obtain some MacGuffin of Ultimate Horribleness, and an unlikely/reluctant hero/rag-tag group of dysfunctional pricks has to stop the Villain from destroying either the world, the universe, or a small town in rural New Mexico. Villain gets his hands on said MacGuffin by the beginning of Act 3, and then there's a massive chase/intergalactic space battle/flattening of Metropolis. Cue final confrontation, poignant twist/hint at the return of any major character who may have died, and then everything pretty much goes back to the way it was before the movie started.
As I've said before, I do feel like the strategy here is to build the brand universe and then fill it with revenue generating properties. There's no reason to take dramatic risks with the individual films when audiences have shown time and again that they're willing to watch pretty much the same story over and over again. The only people it bothers are people like me, who actually enjoy the rare occasion when a superhero flick actually has a little weight behind it.
So while I did enjoy Guardians, I also am tiring of the Marvel formula, and watching the exact same story beats and plot devices all over again, for the 117th time. I have no idea when or if general audiences will become equally bored with it but if of when they do, everyone can finally write that big "superhero fatigue" they've been carrying around in their back pocket for ten years.
Pete Kilmer: It was the most fun I've had a movie theater in a LONG time. It had charm, heart, and Marvel sass. No question it's the child of Serenity/Star Wars, no question. We haven't had a something like that in YEARS and man, we needed it.
Max Braden: I'm impressed by the numbers, I applaud Chris Pratt, but here's where my cheerleading stops. I had so many problems with the movie. From the start, the Jello just fails to set. You have lots of people doing things but no real sense of cohesion. None of the characters live up to their movie counterparts: Capt. Kirk, Han Solo, and Mal are all more fun and believable buccaneers than Quill. A Klingon would have been a more interesting substitute for Drax. Is he supposed to be that dimwitted in the comics? Bautista's performance didn't help any (though his delivery on the "Nothing gets over my head!" joke was the second best dialogue in the movie), and it looked like the costume designers just doused him in glitter paint and called him it job done. That and some of the scenes reminded me of mid 1990s movies like Total Recall, The Final Frontier, and Joel Schumacher's Batman films.
Drax was almost as campy as Mr. Freeze, and Schwarzenegger could have sat in for Thanos. And Thanos - nowhere near as intimidating as Emperor Palpatine, and lording over a remote section of space rubble? He's the Big Bad? I was just about to compare Ronan to some of Star Trek's villains, but I had a funny thought just now comparing him to the evil Ko-Dan Armada leader in The Last Starfighter (amusing, but not a strong point for this movie). Rocket had the most potential as a stone-hearted badass (like Mal shooting as soon as he learns his opponent is unarmed; Logan/Wolverine slashing first and asking questions later...) but then flips on his whole persona at the end. Gamora's character core too seems pretty flimsy. I know that's supposed to indicate character arc but it all felt rushed and not authentic. Advertising Vin Diesel as Groot was about as pointless as advertising the name of the dudes who voiced Jabba the Hutt. And again, if Groot can Hulk smash everyone, what's the point of having a muscle-bound weakling in Drax around? Who else is there...Glenn Close: a poor stand-in for Lando Calrissian or even Admiral Akbar.
Sure, it's a fun movie, it's better than average, but I believe those who are praising it with A grades will be downgrading it after multiple viewings and/or multiple years. I do think though that Guardians 2 will be better.
Kim Hollis: I found it amusing in parts, but I thought the movie was disappointing overall. I had no idea why any of the characters were doing the things they were doing – and worse, I didn’t really care about them much. They give us an early set up of Star-Lord’s back story, but then don’t follow it up with any sort of development to indicate why he would become the man he is at the beginning of the film. Rocket and Groot are fun characters and yet I don’t know why I’m supposed to feel like their friendship is something special. Dave Bautista is terrific as Drax – something I never expected to say – and yet I didn’t particularly feel any empathy or sympathy for his character.
Then we come to the Thanos family tree. Ronan wants to avenge his family, but apparently this makes him evil even though at least two of the good guys have the same motivation. Gamora’s face turn happens too quickly, and we never have the slightest idea why she hates Thanos while her sister Nebula is his most loyal foot soldier. I suppose they should at least be happy that their characters were even slightly developed, though, because Glenn Close, John C. Reilly, Benicio Del Toro and Djimon Hounsou could almost be lifted right out of the movie and never missed for all we understand their role in the story.
Finally, I was really bothered that a motivated villain like Ronan would be distracted by Quill dancing. There’s no reason he wouldn’t have just scoffed at Star-Lord and used the warhammer to destroy Xandar. I feel like I’m a big party pooper with regards to my feelings about this movie, but I just can’t get past the negatives.
Kim Hollis: Get on Up, a biopic of James Brown, debuted with $13.6 million this weekend. What do you think of this result?
Matthew Huntley: To be honest, I wasn't even aware this movie was coming out this weekend until I saw it being heavily advertised on Fandango.com last Thursday. With its low-profile marketing campaign in mind, I think this is a fine debut for an adult-driven biopic in the middle of summer, although I'm curious as to why the studio didn't wait until later in the year to release it. Perhaps they were banking on it having the same success as the director's last movie, The Help, but that's a long shot at this point. Either way, its good reviews and low budget should help Get On Up eventually climb into the black.
Edwin Davies: I think the studio might have been banking on it acting as counter-programming to such a high-profile blockbuster, which it probably did to an extent, but they underestimated how broadly appealing Guardians of the Galaxy proved to be. With titles like this and the aforementioned The Help, which opened higher but wound up having a tremendous run outside of its opening weekend, the key to success lies in being the adult-oriented alternative to blockbusters and comedies (in which case its bigger concern might not be Star-Lord, but next week's Disney offering, The Hundred-Foot Journey), and I could imagine that audiences who opted to go see Guardians this weekend with their families might check it out in the weeks ahead. Its ace in the hole might prove to be Chadwick Boseman's performance, since biopics like this tend to live and die based on how strong the impressions are.
Max Braden: That's an okay opening, and one that I think just indicates that some people who would have seen it put it on hold while they made Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend's priority. It's too bad that this movie won't earn as much as Ray or Walk the Line, as I think James Brown deserves as much attention as his musical colleagues. It must be partially due to the star power Chadwick Boseman, who did a great job playing Jackie Robinson but somehow failed to earn any significant acting awards. I could see the same fate for this movie. Boseman seems to melt into his roles rather than hold the camera, which may become detrimental to his career.