Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) — Marvel’s Weirdest Team in Marvel’s Strongest Movie

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Space Avengers.

Space Avengers.

Guardians of the Galaxy is the tenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it is directed by James Gunn (Slither, Super) and co-written by Gunn and Nicole Perlman. In a departure from the highly interconnected, Earth-bound Marvel Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy takes place in a galaxy far, far away (hmmm). Peter Quill (Chris Pratt, a massive departure from Parks and Recreation) aka Star-Lord, was abducted as a child by a group of inter-galactic marauders and has since grown up as a thief and rogue. When Quill discovers an ancient orb on a desolate planet, he finds himself in the crosshairs of Kree warrior Ronan (Lee Pace), who is also after the artefact. In his journey Quill encounters Gamora (Zoe Saldana), an assassin who looks to redeem her nefarious past; Drax (former WWE Champion Dave Bautista), looking to avenge the death of his family at the hands of Thanos (that big guy at the end of The Avengers!); Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically engineered raccoon with a penchant for weaponry; and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a hulking, anthropomorphic tree and companion of Rocket. Quill must tag with this renegade group of extraterrestrial fugitives to outrun Ronan and his subordinates who are in pursuit of the orb, which holds one of the powerful Infinity Stones and the capability to destroy the galaxy.

The strong point of this film is the outlandish cast of characters. Each character has different backgrounds and different motivations, and the greatest moments come when they are interacting with each other — both clashing and bonding. The humour is never cheap either; there is never a moment where you are laughing at Rocket just because he’s a raccoon. On the contrary, Rocket is initially established as a no-nonsense, sarcastic badass, and the humour comes from the fact that he actually doesn’t realise he’s a raccoon. That’s great scripting, because the character of Rocket is established without a mention of raccoon, that point comes up naturally in the dialogue. Another great character trait belongs to Drax, as his people do not understanding metaphors, this creates some great comic banter between himself and the sassy Quill. GOTG has a level of entertaining character interactions and dialogue on par with The Avengers.

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MIFF 2014 Review: Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014) — A Schlock-Till-You-Drop Insight Into One of the Great Bad Studios

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Director Mark Hartley has a terrific track record producing documentaries about sub-genres of cult cinema; his first, Not Quite Hollywood, was a fascinating look at the low-budget Australian New Wave films (“Ozploitation”) of the 70’s and 80’s, and that was followed up by Machete Maidens Unleashed!, a look at exploitation films coming out of the Philippines in the 70’s and 80’s. He makes it a trilogy of cult film documentaries with Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, which focuses on the films produced by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, together putting together the Cannon Films production company — a production company famous for their cheap, but cult-favourite exploitation films.

A symbol of excellence.

A symbol of excellence.

Cannon was known for churning out low-budget films at a rapid rate, with a distinct company ethos of quantity over quality. Although universally panned by critics, Golan-Globus stayed in business throughout the 80’s through savvy marketing and by taking advantage of the booming home video market. They produced a large number of popular genre films featuring action (Chuck Norris films Invasion USA and Delta Force), science fiction (Lifeforce, Invaders From Mars), and sequels to pre-existing films (Death Wish, Texas Chainsaw Massacre). They also produced many horror, dance (the titular Electric Boogaloo), and adventure movies. If anything was in the popular zeitgeist of the moment, Cannon was sure to take advantage of it, at minimal cost.

To attain legitimacy, Cannon then began to partake in risky bookkeeping; financing films off the profits of the previous release, which was a haphazard process and ultimately led to them biting off more than they could chew. Those larger risks involved enticing Hollywood stars with larger payouts, with the hope of a larger financial reward for the bigger outlay of production costs. This never came to be; failed, expensive productions such as Sylvester Stallone’s arm-wrestling ‘epic’ Over The Top, Masters of the Universe, and Superman IV (allowing Christopher Reeve creative freedom to return to his iconic role was another mistake), led to Cannon straying from their low-budget business model and would be the eventual death of the company.

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Review: Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) — Mind-Numbing Autobot Boom-Boom, Another Bay at the Office

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Michael Bay returns to the bombastic robot-fisticuff franchise in Transformers: Age of Extinction; the fourth film in the series, and despite reports to the contrary, not a reboot. This Transformers film deals with the effects of that gigantic battle in Chicago, and it’s not good for our Autobot pals:  CIA operatives are out to capture and destroy all Transformers, Decepticons and Autobots alike. Fugitive Transformers have scattered all across the USA, and it’s in a small town in Texas where failed inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) finds a dilapidated truck that winds up being the wheeled form of Autobot leader and franchise stalwart Optimus Prime.Yeager and his family must join the Autobots in evading the US government, led by Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), and their associate, a mysterious bounty hunter known as Lockdown.

Twin guns? Check. Explosions? Check. City-wide destruction? Check.

Twin guns? Check. Explosions? Check. City-wide destruction? Check.

These Transformers movies need to be taken with a grain of salt; you know exactly what you’re getting when you purchase your ticket. It was to my surprise that the first act of this film was actually quite enjoyable: the character interactions were reasonable (despite clunky, cliché dialogue), and Bay’s directing was surprisingly restrained (for his standards). But after a major car-chase action sequence at the end of the first act the film becomes a mind-numbing bore. Meaningless action scenes with no plot development, wretched and laughable dialogue, and awful pacing and editing: the exact stuff I was initially dreading. This is a film that goes well over two and a half hours, but could easily have been edited down to one and a half. Classic Michael Bay over-indulgence

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Review: How To Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) — Animated Perfection Breathes Hot Fire into Cinemas

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Animated movies these days are a dime a dozen, with studios such as Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age), Disney, and newcomers such as Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me) all dominating the 3D computer-animated landscape. This lucrative market is big-business and big bucks, and many of the top grossing films each year are from 3D animated films. But as the quantity rises, the overall quality of the output seems to be taking a dip. Even the once infallible Pixar are no longer a sure thing; increasing the numbers of sequels produced to diminishing critical response.

But every now and then an animated film comes along that reminds us how magical the medium can be with the right execution. Enter How To Train Your Dragon 2.

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Review: Edge of Tomorrow (2014) — Cruise Keeps Dying, Doesn’t Stop Running, in Smart and Gripping Sci-Fi Spectacle

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In the near future, alien creatures — known as Mimics — have conquered most of mainland Europe, with global domination in mind. A last-ditch assault is planned by the military: a surprise attack on France, fueled by the addition of weaponised ‘Jackets’ worn by human soldiers. After attempting to weasel out of front-line deployment, Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) is apprehended and knocked out by military general Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), who dumps him with the infantry unit J-Squad en-route to the invasion. The cowardly Cage winds up in an explosion with an advanced Mimic known as an Alpha, and the Alpha’s caustic blood spills over Cage as he dies. Cage wakes aboard the same vessel on the day before the battle. Confusion sets in as he repeatedly dies on the battlefield and awakes the day before, stuck in an infinite loop. With the assistance of war hero Rita Vrataski, the “Full Metal Bitch” (Emily Blunt), Cage realises his curse may be the key to victory over the Mimics.

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Review: Godzilla (2014) — The Big Guy Plays Hide and Seek in Epic Monster Smackdown

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The 30th Godzilla film opens in 1999, with an apparent earthquake triggering a meltdown at a nuclear plant near Tokyo, Japan, killing the wife of technician Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston). Flash to present day, where Brody and his estranged son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) reunite after many years. During that time, the elder Brody has become an obsessed conspiracy theorist as a result of the tragedy which took his wife, and what he uncovers sets in motion the events which lead to the return of Godzilla, as well as a couple of other nasty kaiju known as MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism). Godzilla is turned loose to hunt the MUTO, but can he take them out before they reproduce?

The King of Monsters is back after a ten year absence, but instead of beginning a new era under the careful eye of long-term Japanese production company Toho, the keys to the franchise have been passed on to Hollywood. 1998 was the first and last time that a Godzilla film was produced outside Japan, and I think we can all remember how that turned out:

The horror...

The horror…

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