Guardians 2 finds comedy in violence

Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) in Guardian of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Image courtesy Disney.

Writer/Director James Gunn sets the tone for his second entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, with an opening credit sequence featuring both a brutal brawl against a tentacled space creature and Baby Groot dancing along to Electric Light Orchestra's Mr. Blue Sky. The latter is Gunn's focus – watching the tiny version of the Vin Diesel-voiced Ent-like creature dance is adorable on so many levels – but the battle that causes Baby Groot to bust a few moves is never too far in the background. Even amid the laughs and the goofy tone Gunn has gifted his little franchise, someone somewhere is about to be or has already been murdered viciously, which somehow remains part of the joke.

This is essentially Gunn's modus operandi, as seen in films like Slither and Super, films that feature far more gore than what either Guardians of the Galaxy or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 can offer. But Disney has granted Gunn a far longer leash than it has with the other MCU movies – no other Marvel film boasts a sequence as bloody as the one involving Michael Rooker's Yondu and his whistling arrow of death – and Gunn uses that leeway to put his stamp on what a Guardians movie can be. He revels in the fighting and bloodshed, reinforcing the comic book aspects of a medium that can pushes violence as a ritual. In many comic books, a hero isn't heroic until he or she has punched out a few bad guys for fun. Gunn does this with a wink and a laugh, mocking the very conventions and mores he promotes. Much of the violence is played for humor, like the opening credit sequence and especially the aforementioned Yondu path of destruction – setting such a bloody seen to Jay and the Americans' Come a Little Bit Closer is a strange bit of funny lunacy. The bloody mayhem and wanton shootings sometimes serve as build ups to punchlines, for Chris Pratt's Peter Quill and Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon and Dave Bautista's brutally honest Drax. Gunn and crew never miss a sliver of a chance to insert a joke, making it difficult to take things too seriously.

That backfires a bit with the conflict between warring sisters Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), whose tragic childhood is lost in the shuffle of comedic elements. It also diminishes the quietly sad backstory for Mantis (Pom Klementieff), a being who exists solely to help the aptly named god Ego (Kurt Russell) get a decent night's rest. She's effectively a slave, and the melancholic nature of her existence is mentioned in passing. There are a lot of characters to service in the more than two hours Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has to tell its story, so the movie inevitably skips on a few beats it could have hit.

Fortunately the misses are outweighed greatly by the hits. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 keeps its comedic flow going in moments both sad and triumphant – only a Guardian could get hit in the head with debris while calmly reflecting after winning a major fight. The Guardians are the losers of the MCU, the characters who are dumped on the most by their creator and thrown into situations well beyond their capabilities. Their success is rooted in the inevitability of their failure, their need to improvise a key testament to their characters’ respective resolves. Heroes like Captain America, Iron Man and Thor are less interesting to watch because their challenges are large but surmountable; the Guardians are thrown against a literal god and an armada of combat droids at the same time while using outdated technology. Even though the MCU won't allow the Guardians to lose, they come the closest to possibly succumbing to the impossibilities in front of them, which is a bit thrilling for a production company that talks about a third or fourth installment before film two is released. To paraphrase Don Delillo, Marvel and D.C. Are trying to prove there's little danger left in the new. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 at least tries to be a little newer than the rest of the stock, daring to open a film with a monster fight serving as a backdrop for a dancing tree. Gunn trades some depth for jokes, an exchange that ends up mostly in his favor.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 136 minutes

Genre: Action
 

Ask Away

Target audience: People who continue to follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe and need to complete all the homework assignments until next year's Avengers: Infinity War.

Take the whole family?: Considering there's an entire sequence where bodies are impaled in slow motion, I'd keep the really young kids at home.

Theater or Netflix?: This is totally fine for a theater trip, especially if you can catch a matinee screening.

How cute is Baby Groot?: Mostly all the cute. Still voiced by Vin Diesel, Baby Groot loses the strange sweetness of the adult version but gains a level of innocence that fuels the little guy's violence. He is a rather good encapsulation of the fun and frustration of a toddler, a creature that invokes chaos but gets away with much of it thanks to a hug or a slightly tender moment.

Watch this as well?: You can watch the first Guardians of the Galaxy to catch up on the series, along with a fair chunk of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Highlights include The Avengers, Iron Man, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Deepwater Horizon dragged down by storytelling woes

Mark Wahlberg stars in Deepwater Horizon. Image courtesy Lionsgate.

The theoretical appeal for the remarkably subpar Deepwater Horizon is its based on true events nature, in this case the explosion of the titular oil rig off the coast of Louisiana in 2010. Films like this are akin to a backstage pass to watch a tragedy unfold in real time and see where things went awry. People want to understand what went wrong for an event like the Deepwater Horizon explosion to occur and film is a logical medium to tackle that curiosity; it's simpler to visualize these events rather than parse through lawsuits and transcripts from investigative committees. Yet the process is less honest this way, the necessity of compressing hours of reality into less than two hours of film and the requirement of providing a captivating narrative trumping a direct and truthful discourse of the situation. Director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg had a similar issue arise with their previous collaboration/enactment of true events Lone Survivor, which shed most of its nuance for a loud, dense, manipulative serving of America.

Deepwater Horizon is somehow worse, simply abandoning the concept of subtlety for tremendous doses of sloppy foreshadowing and outlandish, easy to identify bad guys to blame for the explosion. The villains, in this case a collection of BP representatives highlighted by John Malkovich, are portrayed as money-grubbing, out of touch snobs focused more on their important time tables than the safety of the good, hardworking folks on the rig. They're effectively cartoon characters to shove the blame on, simple scapegoats for the audience to root against as their demands become more and more outlandish. Casting Malkovich as the biggest bad is both a tremendous and a terrible idea – brilliant for exaggerating the Snidely Whiplash nature of the character, but awful for adding layers or depth to the corporate shill. That the film is factually inaccurate with its representation is doubly worrisome; while BP deserves the lion's share of the blame for the explosion, TransOcean (the company that owned Deepwater Horizon and is portrayed favorably in the film) and Halliburton were at fault as well. There's no expectation for Deepwater Horizon to be a piece of journalism or documentary, although it remains dangerous for any film to effectively slander people just for storytelling convenience.

Truth is a secondary concern for Deepwater Horizon; the film's tagline uses the line “real life heroes” to describe the people on the titular vessel. But it's interesting though how anonymous most of the heroes are in this film, how much the movie focuses on the deeds of Wahlberg's Mike Williams and, to a lesser degree, Deepwater Horizon manager Jimmy Harrell (played by Kurt Russell). This is not an ensemble film despite the multitude of names on the poster, meaning the multitude of people who saved others amid the chaos are left on the sidelines, memorialized during a brief run in the end credits. One character who is given a few seconds to sacrifice himself to save the others is summarily killed off with rather over-the-top Foley work above it (and it isn't not the first time Berg has valued sound effects over verisimilitude). That Berg and company spend so much of their time throwing stones at Malkovich’s group provides even less time for the film’s heroes to show their valor.

There is, however, a fair amount of beauty covering the flaws. The strongest selling point is the wonder of the images once the Deepwater Horizon catches on fire and the crew has to navigate through the flames and chaos ensues. One shot involving Wahlberg and Gina Rodriguez (as Andrea Fleytas) alone as the world burns around is awe-inducing and deservedly memorable. Deepwater Horizon comes close on occasion to being a serviceable survival/disaster flick in the mold of The Poseidon Adventure, complete with the visuals and a couple moments of tension to keep audiences engaged. Deepwater Horizon is a film better served from the outside in, its aesthetics worthy enough to make it occasionally watchable.

Rubbing off the foundation though reveals all of those problems and then some. It's a film with an overabundance of patriotism (including a rather blatant reference to the Star-Spangled Banner) that's used to make the British-based oil company slightly more evil than it would be otherwise. Deepwater Horizon condescends to its audience, trusting visceral reactions will supersede intellectual curiosity while casting stones with little regard for how hard they’ll land.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 107 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: People who like Mark Wahlberg and films involving true tragedies.

Take the whole family?: There's enough blood and destruction to bother kids, so try to stick right around the PG-13 rating.

Theater or Netflix?: Even though the effects are solid, it isn't worth paying out for the theater trip.

Any hopes for Patriots Day?: If it is anything like the last two Peter Berg/Mark Wahlberg collaborations, no. The film, about the Boston Marathon bombing from 2013, is even more recent than the last two real-life flicks they've done, making the wounds much fresher and the need for a light touch that much more important. Their films are blunt like anvils, which is exactly the wrong way to handle that project.

Watch this instead?: Fruitvale Station uses the same storytelling technique Deepwater Horizon has but does so with much more grace and general quality. You could also hit up The Poseidon Adventure for a solid brain-wasting disaster flick.