Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
For New Year's Day I finally watched Guardians of the Galaxy with friends in the North Bay. It was much less immature than I'd braced for. Granted that my expectations started at rock bottom, which may have aided in clearing the bar.
GotG did a better than expected job balancing the tonal shifts between space opera and slapstick. Peter Quill's daddy issues are so very 'been there, done that', unless he turns out to be in line to inherit the throne of Asgard (because I trust Chris Pratt and the writers to play that for maximum hilarity). There were some things that I couldn't keep my mouth shut about while watching the movie. GotG seems to be set in a universe where there's interstellar ether instead of vacuum, for example. I also wish I liked Zoe Saldana's Gamora more: there were some scenes that worked really well for me, like Gamora cutting off Quill's attempt to hit on her, but I didn't really buy Gamora the Assassin. I'm not sure if it was an acting thing, or if the direction was for old school space opera, rather than emulating the more contemporary awesomeness of Aeryn Sun and Natasha Romanova and Zoe Washburn: tough as nails people who happen to also be women.
When I watch a movie, I'm there to enjoy the effect of a group of people telling a story, so I am often underwhelmed by set pieces that drag the story to a crawl for the benefit of showing off this or that technical skill. But GotG used the various components that go into set pieces - fighting, CGI, VFX, wirework, green-screen, sets, musical cues - to stunning effect elsewhere in the movie. The Groot and Rocket performance capture and CGI were particularly notable. I guess this is what happens when people who are good at what they do are given staggering budgets.
This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/645523.html, where there are
comments.
GotG did a better than expected job balancing the tonal shifts between space opera and slapstick. Peter Quill's daddy issues are so very 'been there, done that', unless he turns out to be in line to inherit the throne of Asgard (because I trust Chris Pratt and the writers to play that for maximum hilarity). There were some things that I couldn't keep my mouth shut about while watching the movie. GotG seems to be set in a universe where there's interstellar ether instead of vacuum, for example. I also wish I liked Zoe Saldana's Gamora more: there were some scenes that worked really well for me, like Gamora cutting off Quill's attempt to hit on her, but I didn't really buy Gamora the Assassin. I'm not sure if it was an acting thing, or if the direction was for old school space opera, rather than emulating the more contemporary awesomeness of Aeryn Sun and Natasha Romanova and Zoe Washburn: tough as nails people who happen to also be women.
When I watch a movie, I'm there to enjoy the effect of a group of people telling a story, so I am often underwhelmed by set pieces that drag the story to a crawl for the benefit of showing off this or that technical skill. But GotG used the various components that go into set pieces - fighting, CGI, VFX, wirework, green-screen, sets, musical cues - to stunning effect elsewhere in the movie. The Groot and Rocket performance capture and CGI were particularly notable. I guess this is what happens when people who are good at what they do are given staggering budgets.
This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/645523.html, where there are
comments.