Marvel’s B-list strikes gold
There’s a good reason that Stan Lee shows up in all of the recent Marvel superhero films, lurking in the background as a cameo figure: he practically steered his vast comics universe straight into Hollywood’s heart, or down its jugular, and now he wants to make sure the thing stays afloat.
Lee turns up as “that creepy dude,” macking on a young alien woman in Guardians of the Galaxy, and it’s kind of fitting, because even some fans must be wondering by now how many times they’re going to see the Marvel architect up there on the big screen. (Alternate theory: Mr. Lee’s just a big ham.)
There was initial skepticism, among not just casual Marvel fans, about this new franchise: Marvel is now calling in their B-list heroes to fill the summer screens, goes the jaded viewer thinking. Ka-ching, ka-ching.
Loosely based on a 2008 reboot of a 1969 Marvel comic, Guardians of the Galaxy works, mostly on the funnybone level, thanks to inspired casting of Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation) and the voice of Bradley Cooper animating a feisty raccoon. Guardians takes apart the superhero buddy genre we know so well and reassembles it with enough good-natured fun that you can’t exactly fault it for being unoriginal.
Our reluctant heroes are assembled in the usual grab-bag manner. Peter Quill (Pratt) is a young kid sentimentally attached to his Walkman and headphones as his mother lies dying of cancer back in 1988. It’s a nonstop cavalcade of ‘70s pop and rock nuggets — an “Awesome Mix Tape” containing his mom’s favorite songs growing up, like 10cc’s I’m Not in Love, Raspberries’ Go All The Way, Blue Swede’s Hooked on a Feeling, Bowie’s Moonage Daydream, etc. Then young Quill is suddenly whisked up into a spaceship, and we see him 26 years down the line, a part-time thief hunting for relics on alien planets under the employ of blue-skinned bandit Yondu (Michael Rooker from The Walking Dead). He’s still listening to those Walkman headphones when he comes across the film’s MacGuffin: the Orb. Unlike the Orb much prized by Woody Allen’s hedonistic future hipsters in Sleeper, or the UK ambient techno outfit, this Orb controls the universe. So it can’t fall into the wrong hands.
Quill bags the Orb, makes his zippy escape, and quickly gets tripped up by both a green-skinned woman (Zoe Saldana as Gamora) under the command of arch bad guy Ronan, and a bounty-hunting rodent (Cooper as Rocket Raccoon) with a prickly temper and his walking tree buddy, Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel).
Such a description does not exactly inspire audience huzzahs, but Guardians works on a kinetic level, taking us quickly from one mishap to another. Quill, Gamora, Rocket and Groot end up in prison, where the raccoon quickly hatches an escape plan. Then it’s off to the ends of the galaxy, first to sell the Orb for cash units, and then finally to see that it’s restored to its rightful place in the universe.
Director James Gunn likes to keep his influences right out there, on full display. When the future Guardians are arrested, they arrange themselves in a police lineup — with appropriate snarky quips — that’s a direct echo of The Usual Suspects. And they’re basically a Bizarro World recasting of Star Wars, with the digits all jumbled. Quill is described in press notes as “a cross between Han Solo and Marty McFly,” and the universe is always in need of another rogue flyboy. (Quill calls himself “Star-lord,” a moniker he desperately wishes to be picked up and used by others.) That makes Gamora the Princess Leia of the batch, with her connections to the power elite and plans to destroy the Evil Empire. Large and tattooed mixed martial artist Dave Bautista, who plays Drax the Destroyer, is basically along as the un-ironic muscle; walking tree Groot is Chewbacca (whose sole line, interpreted a thousand different ways, is “I am Groot”), leaving Rocket to fill Luke Skywalker’s shoes, though he’s really more like “Joe Pesci in Goodfellas,” according to Bradley Cooper. (In truth, Quill himself is a combination of Solo and Skywalker — one part cocky pilot, one part wide-eyed innocent — so you get twice the mileage with his character.)
With little propelling it but its own good-natured intentions and a refusal to take itself seriously, Guardians rockets around from one dilemma to another, playing off all the cinematic standbys of the “mission” movie — everything from Magnificent Seven to Star Wars — with ample room for group hugs and wisecracks to remind us how silly it all is. (One throwaway shot — the Guardians striding in slow motion towards the screen after a big battle, with Zoe Saldana releasing a mouth-stretching yawn, as though it’s been one hell of a tough day — tells you all you need to know about the tone of the film.)
At this point in our moviegoing history, we may find ourselves asking the musical question raised by Tina Turner in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome: “Do we really need another hero?”
Surely, the cinemas are littered with enough alternate versions of flawed superheroes to make us wonder why audiences keep lining up, again and again. The magic ingredient, which Stan Lee and his artists recognized way back when, is that people relate to heroes who are not perfect — who, in fact, wear their reluctance and bad tempers and issues on their sleeves like all the rest of us — and with that insight, he launched a galaxy of regular schlubs thrown into superhuman roles. Guardians fits right into that galaxy.
In truth, the film was kind of big gamble — with a budget of $170 million — but it handily made this back on its opening weekend worldwide. Does this mean Stan Lee’s magic touch is still golden? Or are people just finally relieved to sit down in front of a screen with “new” characters for a change? Stay tuned for the next installment.
