The Guardians of the Galaxy Movie, On the Other Hand, Will Be Great
Yesterday, I had some fairly negative things to say about the prospects of an upcoming Justice League movie, because of how different it’s going to be from Marvel’s The Avengers, which was a huge success last summer.
But all that negativity got me to thinking. Maybe DC/WB shouldn’t try to copy the formula that made The Avengers so successful. One doesn’t have to look hard to find a formula that might work much more to their advantage: The formula Marvel is currently working on in regards to next summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
The Guardians are a pretty well-known team to comic book fans, but the general movie-going public has no clue what they’re all about, a fact that I don’t think is inevitably going to matter all that much. Whereas the Avengers took the long approach to developing each individual of their team in their own standalone movies before adding all the parts together for the team-up, Guardians is instead just throwing as much talent as they can possibly muster into a gigantic cast for a movie that will eventually, presumably, somehow tie into everything else in the Marvel Universe.
It’s a huge gamble. But I think it’s going to work. Let me explain why.
First of all, now that Marvel has established where they want to go with their properties during what they’re calling “Phase Two” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Joss Whedon has taken on a supervisory role, offering advice to the various filmmakers tasked with each individual film and acting as a guiding hand over the entire process. His involvement on Guardians is probably minimal, but at least they have a guy who’s making sure everything is fitting together. That’s important.
Next, I’m excited for something different. One of the things that made Iron Man so great when it came out is that, here was a movie where the main superhero wasn’t afraid of people knowing his secret identity. We’d grown so accustomed to superheroes preserving their secret identities to protect the ones they love (while staring wistfully out of a window or crying in the rain), that it was nice for a guy to finally stand up and say, “Y’know what, I can handle the heat. I’m Iron Man.”
This promises more of that same sort of departure, away from what we’ve come to expect in a superhero movie. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Guardians of the Galaxy, I’d recommend you get caught up on Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s recent run (available at comic book shops everywhere!). But this is a team that features a talking Raccoon that serves as the team’s weapons specialist. His best friend is a giant tree named Groot. Don’t worry, if you forget that name, he’ll remind you of it constantly.
But what has me most excited for this movie is the cast. It’s as weird as the team itself. Of the actors announced so far, we don’t know for sure who they’re all playing, but it’s still shaping up to be extraordinary. In brief:
Chris Pratt – Peter Quill aka Starlord – The Leader of the Group
Zoe Saldana – Gamora – Thanos’ adopted daughter
The Animal Batista – Drax – The team’s muscle, created specifically to murder Thanos
Michael Rooker – Yondu – Founding member of the original team
John C. Reilly – Rhomann Dey – Nova Prime
Glenn Close – unknown
Benecio Del Toro – unknown
Hopefully they’ll add Major Victory to the final roster, just because it’d be a cool tie-in to have somebody wielding Captain America’s shield. Plus, Adam Warlock has to be involved somehow, doesn’t he? And I’d love to see a guy like a Quasar or a Nova that serves more as a team member than just Nova Prime, who I’m guessing will be something like the Agent Coulson of the Guardians. That’s just me daydreaming and fantasizing, though. None of it adds or detracts from what they’re working on here.
But just look at those names. They don’t belong together in a superhero movie. At all! That’s friggin’ weird!
And that’s why I think it’s going to work. When you’re dealing with a team that features talking raccoons, telekinetic cosmonaut dogs and time-displaced heroes from entirely different dimensions and centuries, you need to either embrace the weirdness and hopefully capture something spectacular, or you shy away from it and make something that will likely seem ashamed of itself. I, for one, am excited to see them try to embrace the weirdness.
If they fail, at least they’ll fail in a manner befitting the Guardians of the Galaxy.
It still seems to me like an outer space based team with a talking raccoon and a talking tree was born to be a cartoon, but what the hell, I’ll take a movie.
I really hope you’re right about this. I’m a little concerned about Batista being in it, though. Pro wrestlers don’t have the best track record for being involved in quality movies.
Fair point, but he inarguably has the look of Drax, and I’ve heard he was great in “The Man with the Iron Fists,” though I haven’t yet seen that movie. I’m optimistic.
I did see The Man with the Iron Fists, and while I don’t know if I’d consider his acting “great,” it definitely wasn’t bad. His role just didn’t give him a lot of opportunity to really act. He played the part of bad, bad man very well though.
However, and I’m not kidding at all, based on how well he nailed the subtleties and nuances of his character leading up to his break from Evolution back in early 2005, I’m not worried.
Batista barely talked in Man With The Iron Fists, so I’m not sure you can even really consider it “acting.” He punched things and looked menacing. He’s in this new Riddick movie too, and his part looks more substantial there.
I remember how Batista actually made us all excited for a John Cena match a few years back at Wrestlemania. If he can do that convincingly, he can play Drax no problem.
I didn’t realize he’d been appearing in other movies, so that’s encouraging. And that is a really wild cast. Hmm, could Glenn Close be Moondragon? I know she’s not in the current Guardians of the Galaxy comic (not sure how similar it’s gonna be to the movie), but I could see Close playing the kind of arrogant and cold telepath. Unless she’s the villain. Do we know who the villain is?
Not yet, though Benecio Del Toro, especially his hair, LOOKS identical to Adam Warlock. Maybe we’ll see the Magus as the villain. How sweet would that be?