Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Is this the button I push for a Coke?

Grade: B –

Director: James Gunn

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 16 min.

Whereas Guardians of the Galaxy carries the spirit of a Saturday afternoon serial, Vol. 2 is Greek mythology set to celluloid. Gods mate with mortals, celestial tribes wage war, daddy issues envelope demigods, and family squabbles tilt the balance of power. All of it’s set to the strained strains of 1980s pop nostalgia and 1970s minor rock, the latter part dubbed onto an audiocassette labeled “Awesome Mix Vol. 2.” The film, like any second mixtape, is a hit-and-miss compilation lacking the choice cuts and cohesion of its forerunner.

Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and her cyborg sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) remain locked in a pitched sibling rivalry. Drax (Dave Bautista) manically clings to his new surrogate family. Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), the genetically altered racoon, finds a kindred spirit in fellow tortured soul Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker), all while playing dad to Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), this film’s answer to the worry that the only thing missing from the first Guardians of the Galaxy was a Minion.

Then there’s Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), whose swashbuckling for hire as part of the Guardians quintet—plus Rocket’s coincident thievery—run afoul of a perfected, prickly, gold-plated race called the Sovereign and their lithe leader, Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki). The Guardians’ escape intersects Ego (Kurt Russell), an ancient god-like being who travels the universe masquerading as a human but subsists in planetary form. He also claims to be Quill’s father, a role Russell channels like the celestial embodiment of Stuntman Mike from Death Proof.

And on its goes, as everything is at stake even as nothing really seems to be.  No matter how dire the situation, there’s always a Cheers, Mary Poppins, or one of a half-dozen David Hasselhoff references ready to lighten the mood. There’s no problem that a slo-mo montage and needle drop of Electric Light Orchestra, Cat Stevens, or George Harrison can’t solve. A deity smitten by the lyrics to “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” also wants to destroy the universe? Uh OK.

A lost sense of discovery was always going to hamstring Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when compared to its predecessor. The main characters aren’t new, and the new characters—like Ego’s empathic girl Friday, Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Sylvester Stallone’s blink-and-miss appearance as Ravager leader Stakar Ogord—aren’t well-developed. Moreover, the sweet silliness of the original is replaced by pliable angst and an orgy of CGI. Director James Gunn says he drew inspiration from The Empire Strikes Back. The actual product is more in line with such saggy Marvel sequels as Avenger: Age of Ultron, Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 2. The first Guardians of the Galaxy was a breezy, easy ride. This time, the journey feels familiar but the flop sweat is flowing.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Ranger Rick Five

Grade: B +

Director: James Gunn

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel (voice) and Bradley Cooper (voice)

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 1 min.

Fashioned more in the spirit of a Saturday afternoon serial than a modern superhero film, Guardians of the Galaxy appears at first flush as the most thorny Marvel Studios movie to make. An offbeat flick about a band of misfits, including a green girl, anthropomorphic tree, humorless hulk and garrulous racoon, set in the not-so-distant future in a galaxy far, far away.

In fact, this sci-fi comedy benefits from a connection to the Marvel universe that isn’t as ubiquitous as the mythology surrounding the likes of Iron Man, Captain America and The Hulk. It affords filmmakers the creative latitude to fashion a freewheeling fantasy flick that combines the construct of Star Wars with the idiosyncratic conceit of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Although Guardians of the Galaxy has been around since 1969, the characters for this film version are drawn more from the 2008 comic book revival. Their accidental leader is Peter Quill, who as a child in the mid ‘80s flees the hospital room of his dying mother only to be abducted by aliens, clinging all the while to his personal totem, a Walkman loaded with an Awesome Music Vol. 1 mix tape.

Raised by a band of thieves and smugglers called Ravagers, Quill grows into a resourceful scalawag and scavenger who also fancies himself an space adventurer he labels Star-Lord. We first see the adult Quill (played by Chris Pratt) foraging for a valuable orb, with Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” blasting through his Walkman’s headphones. Indeed, Quill’s ‘70s styled dubs, compiled by his mother, serve dual purposes. They remind Quill of a simpler time while also blocking out the otherworldliness of his extraterrestrial life.

The orb, which houses one of the six Infinity Stones, soon puts Quill in the sites of Gamora (Zoe Saldana, trading her blue skin from “Avatar” for cold-blooded green), the adopted daughter and personal assassin of Thanos who harbors a secret desire for retribution against daddy not-so-dearest.

Meanwhile, a bounty placed on Quill’s head by the Ravagers attracts a couple of mercenaries. Rocket (voiced with gusto by Bradley Cooper) is a genetically engineered, hyper-intelligent racoon. His sidekick is Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel, not that you’d recognize him), a tree-like humanoid only able to garble, “I am Groot,” with Rocket the lone creature who can interpret his varying intonations.

A jail break introduces Drax (Dave Bautista) into the mix. Drax, a muscle-bound warrior, wants revenge on Ronan the Accuser (Will Pace), a Kree radical also hunting the orb, for killing Drax’s family.

Guardians of the Galaxy has its villain, but the most daunting adversary is the struggle for this flawed quintet to set aside their distrust, selfishness and personal woes to function as a team. Moreover, it’s about the assembly of a surrogate family comprising members wrested from their real families. This journey occasionally takes some dark detours, including a drunken Rocket confessing the physical and emotional pain of his unnatural existence. And at one point, a character commits a sacrificial act to save the others. Quill wants to find his life’s purpose, Gamora secretly wants to feel emotional warmth and absolution for her crimes, Groot longs to find his proverbial voice, and Drax aches to avenge his family.

Punctuated by the requisite firefights and action sequences, the whip smart script from writer-director James Gunn and screenwriter Nicole Perlman—the first woman to pen a Marvel movie—is full of charm and swagger. More subversive is the fact that it slyly deconstructs the very sci-fi action tropes it uplifts, from the generic motive of avenging the Death of Family to using an almost-MacGuffin to propel the plot. In one scene, as the ragtag guardians join in a clichéd slow motion group walk (think “The Right Stuff,’ and more than one Quentin Tarantino film), Gamora cuts loose a conspicuous yawn.

It’s a malaise the audience won’t share. Guardians of the Galaxy is high-flying fun, but its cheeky, sentimental core is what really sets sail.

Riddick

I see that gleam in your eyes

Grade: C -

Director: David Twohy

Starring: Vin Diesel, Jordi Mollà, Matt Nable and Katee Sackhoff

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 59 min.

It’s apropos that Riddick, a movie about an antihero who can see in the dark, is a murky, muddled mess. Writer-director David Twohy and Vin Diesel reteam for their third entry in the Riddick film series, this time reverting back to the stripped-down, R-rated basics of Pitch Black.  But, while Twohy and Diesel are trodding familiar ground, this time it feels like they’re just going through the motions.

Flashbacked contrivance summarily strips Riddick (Diesel) of the Lord Marshalship won at the conclusion of The Chronicles of Riddick and lands him on a sun-scorched, desolate planet where the indigenous dangers range from snarling dingos to venomous scorpion/lizard beasts. Needing a ride off the weatherbeaten rock, Riddick activates a homing beacon for bounty hunters that attracts two sets of mercenaries. One, led by Santana (Jordi Mollà), is a hardscrabble bunch there to collect Riddick’s bounty-laden head. The other, steered by Boss Johns (Matt Nable) and the sexy but sassy Dahl (Katee Sackhoff), have more personal motivations.

Unfortunately, Riddick seems more like a self-parody than a sequel. It starts with Riddick’s faux-Frank Miller first-person narration, which fills the opening third before suddenly disappearing. When Riddick isn’t battling or domesticating CG creatures, he’s playing the part of Predator to the paramilitary humans.

It’s sadly telling when a computer-generated space dog has more charm and personality than your lead actor. While Diesel’s deficients were papered over by eye-popping Fx and a large, likeable cast in the surprisingly entertaining Fast & Furious 6, the overcooked bravado and marble-mouthed mumblings become more detrimental once they absorb the limelight. It doesn’t help that Twohy’s dialogue, as translated by Diesel and the rest of the monosyllabic and somewhat misused cast, sounds for all the world like the English dub of a bad spaghetti Western.

Indeed, the plodding pace of this would-be sci fi Western makes Riddick feel like it’s not as much stuck in the mud as mired in quicksand. And for a film so dependant on digital effects, the visuals are shockingly subfusc and uninteresting. If anything, the film reminds us that—suggestions to the contrary—it’s misplaced to (ever) declare a Vin Diesel comeback.

Fast & Furious 6

Beware Of Falling CGI

Grade: B

Director: Justin Lin

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Jordana Brewster, Luke Evans, Ludacris and Gina Carano

Running Time: 2 hr. 10 min.

MPAA Rating: PG-13

I can’t decide what is more amazing: that six Fast & Furious films have been made (and made money) over the past 12 years, or that (Lord forgive me...) they’re somehow getting better.

For this sextuple installment, the franchise vanguard of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Jordana Brewster and others (character names irrelevant) are recruited out of wealthy hiding by returning fed agent Luke Hobbs (the ubiquitous Dwayne Johnson) and his new sidekick (Gina Carano) to traverse Moscow to London and points in between and take down a mirror-image car gang led by a former Special Ops soldier (Luke Evans). The bait? The baddies include Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Diesel’s ex-squeeze and partner-in-crime believed dead and buried two movies ago.

The plot is utterly mindless, and it feels almost intentionally so at times. How else to explain why Walker’s wanted Brian O’Conner went to extreme, precarious efforts to sneak into not only the United State but a maximum security prison to interrogate a former drug lord for information that nobody seems to want or need upon his return? And when Tyrese and Ludacris are your emotive tentpoles, it’s safe to assume the cast won’t be on the shortlist for any SAG Awards.

However, the film knows its reason for being and delivers that to the audience in spades. Director Justin Lin helms his fourth film in the franchise, and with bigger budgets come bigger, ever-escalating, gloriously 2D action sequences that violate all strata of law, including penal, physics and gravity. There are the obligatory races between nitrous-powered muscle cars seemingly capable of infinite upshifting. But wait, there’s more. In one scene, an armored tank rumbles down a freeway against the flow of traffic, leaving crumbled SUVs and compact coupes in its wake. In another, Lin oscillates between about a half-dozen simultaneous fights/chases, including fisticuffs between Rodriguez and Carano—the scary/sultry former MMA grappler who starred in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire—while speedsters anchor a cargo plane attempting takeoff.

But, there’s also enough cheeky wit at play, whether it’s a conspicuous evocation of “007” or the sidelong needling of the Marvel film series when the muscle-bound Hobbs is jokingly referred to as “Hulk” and “Samoan Thor.” With more action than Iron Man 3 and more fun than the stuffy Star Trek Into Darkness, this is a summer movie that gives you your money’s worth. And yes, I feel guilty for writing that.

Fast Five

Between a Rock and a lard face

Grade: C +

Director: Justin Lin

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, and Dwayne Johnson

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 10 min.

Maybe I’ve been asleep at the wheel, but when exactly did the Fast and Furious films develop a mythos? For “Fast Five,” director Justin Lin assembles a cross-sectional cast drawn from the franchise’s previous four nitrous-fueled installments, including Tyrese Gibson and Lucadris (2 Fast 2 Furious), Matt Schulze (The Fast and the Furious), and an assortment of lesser-knowns from “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” and Fast & Furious.

The headliners, of course, are Vin Diesel and Jordana Brewster, series originals who resurfaced for 2009’s Fast & Furious, and Paul Walker, who has starred in every film but Tokyo Drift.

That said, it is hard to manufacture genuine nostalgia for a vacuous ten-year old film series built around street car racing. Fast Five boasts truly high-octane action sequences, but it crashes due to defective acting, plot, and dialogue. Like the souped-up racers at the center of these films, Fast Five is loud and flashy, but not very practical.

After executing a live-action version of the animated prison-break kicker at the end of Fast & Furious, Brian O’Conner (Walker), Dominic Toretto (Diesel), and Dominic’s sister Mia (Brewster) escape to Brazil to hide out in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The ever-available crime job soon calls, however, culminating with a spectacular train heist during which three DEA agents are gunned down and our three expats taking possession of a computer chip–cum-MacGuffin full of mysterious but valuable information.

Brian and Dominic soon find themselves being pursued on one side by Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), a wealth Rio kingpin, and on the other by Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a DSS federal uber-agent whose rapid-fire, tough-talking lingo smacks of a cross between Johnson’s pro wrestling alter ego “The Rock” and Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive.

One moment Brian, Dominic and Mia are trying to elude Reyes; the next they are deciding to go after him. One moment they are trying to keep a low profile to avoid being located by Hobbs; the next they calling an all-star heist team in the country with designs on breaking into a police station where Reyes is hiding his money. Don’t even try to figure out why they decide to torch a cartful of Reyes’ drug money in order to manipulate him into moving his fortune to a central location – wouldn’t the continued threat of stealing the money accomplish the same purpose?

Lin’s action segments are exhilarating and increasingly outlandish – the final big set piece involves a massive bank vault being slingshot throughout the streets of Rio. In all other respects, however, his direction is predictable and ham-fisted – I counted at least three cutaway shots involving flyovers of the Christ the Redeemer monument. I certainly don’t begrudge Lin for helming his now third lucrative Fast and Furious film – reliable paydays are rare for young filmmakers. But, enough is enough – the good will he engendered for making “Better Luck Tomorrow” is long exhausted.

Fast Five is a cacophony of pretty cars, prettier women, and pretty loud gun fights, which is exactly what anyone going to a Fast and Furious flick expects. However, it’s also the mindless embodiment of American might, both cinematic and militaristic. The byways of a foreign land are little more than a backdrop for imported car chases and glorified lawlessness, supposedly thwarted by jackbooted federals steamrolling local cannon fodder and led by a hulk willing to divert from his assignment long enough to gun down some Brazilian baddie in cold blood, all of it designed to reeve up American theatergoers. For what it’s worth, mission accomplished!

Neil Morris