Hooked on a Feeling

(I know this review is a little late, but a lot has been happening the past week, and I felt obligated to bump it due to the lose that we all recently suffered.)

For anyone who has not seen Guardians of the Galaxy yet, I say, "What!?!" But I know what you're thinking Mrs. Rhetorical Device I Am Using To Make A Point, ("I Am Using" was her maiden name,) "Its just another Marvel movie. I'm not in the mood for superheroes."

First off, you used "Its" improperly. You used the possessive form, meaning "of it." You should have used the contraction "it's" meaning "it is." Secondly: No. Guardians is more than just some superhero movie. It's a space opera in the vein of the original (i.e. the good) Star Wars. Sure it takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but the Guardians of the Galaxy are as much like the Avengers as the Three Stooges are like the Three Tenors, and that is the genius of Marvel.

Marvel Studios has a winning formula. A) Take a recognizable comic book hero (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, etc) and translate them semi-faithfully to the big screen. B) Slap a Marvel logo on it. C) Put a stinger after the credits that (may or may not) star Samuel L. Jackson. D) Rake in billions of dollars. E) Repeat ad infinitum.

Except they didn't follow Step E. Instead of playing it safe and giving us another predictable superhero story, (and don't get me wrong I love predictable superhero stories. After all, I own Daredevil on DVD,) Marvel took a risk. When Guardians of the Galaxy was announced even hardcore comic fans went, "huh?" and then immediately went to Wikipedia to read up on the who the heck they were so that they could answer the inevitable questions of their normie friends. Marvel could have given us Thor 3, or Black Panther, (which I am still hoping for,) or even Robert Downey Jr. Eats a Sandwich, and they would have made billions of dollars (see formula above,) but they didn't. They took a risk and for that I love them even more.

When most movie studios would just try to ride the high of their success until it inevitably crashed them onto the rocks of repetition, Marvel has realized something that other, more well establish, movie studios can't seem to get, "Keep it Fresh." There is this trend in Hollywood, where if one movie makes a lot of money, everyone should hurry up to make the exact same kind of movie and get there piece of the pie. They did it with Asteroids and Asteroids, the White House and the White House, and now even Hercules and Hercules, and most of those aren't even good films. More broadly they overdo genres until audiences are sick of them, disaster films, horror films, and whatever the hell Michael Bay decides to slap his name on. Transformers made 709.7 billion dollars, so let's make a GI Joe movie, and then a Ninja Turtles movie. For instance, (I'm not making this one up,) since the Lego Movie, scored it big at the box office, a Hot Wheels movie has now been fast tracked by Warner Bros. as well as movies that will be based on Ouija, Candyland, Monoply, Tonka Trucks, and even Peeps (yes those yellow disgusting Easter candies.)

What Hollywood doesn't get is that the Lego Movie made money, not because it was based solely on a beloved and timeless childhood toy, but because it was actually a good movie. It was witty, charming, funny, and it didn't take itself too seriously. Movie executives only see dollar signs, and by slapping a familiar look or brand name on a movie they know that they can make a quick couple of bucks, quality be damned, which is what makes Guardians of the Galaxy all the more impressive. In this atmosphere of repetition and death, Marvel has the ultimate brand name recognition at their fingertips, and instead they choose to go with a little known comic title and take a risk on a director whose credits include Scooby Doo, and Scooby Doo 2: Monster Island.

I like my ladies how I like my coffee... TARDIS blue

They let director James Gunn work his vision and his script and what we got was movie gold. Sure there were some small plot holes, but then you see a bald and blue Karen Gillian and for some reason the world seems right. I applaud Marvel for taking this risk. When other studios would be running out of ideas, they seem to just be getting started. Even Captain America: Winter Soldier (which was a guaranteed money maker) took some unusual risks, as the story read more like an espionage movie than a straight-up "save the world," superhero movie. It also seemed that the upcoming Ant-Man movie was originally very much going to be in this new genre bending trend, with it being billed as a superhero/heist movie, but with the departure of Edgar Wright I am taking a "wait and see" attitude.

Hopefully, this all means that Marvel is just getting started with what's to come. They are the studio that practically legitimized the superhero movie genre (before them it was just a fad.) Everything they have done has been copied by other studios, stingers, shared universes, etc. They could have sat back and just made a few more mediocre movies and trusted their name to make the money, but instead they took a risk, went out on a comic limb, and showed us what the future of comic movies could be. For that and so much more I love them. (Maybe DC can learn a lesson from their playbook.) With any luck the wit-and-styled feel of Guardians will be one thing that other superhero movies copy. It's time to start playing with the genre in fun and interesting ways, but all of that is for the future. Right now, I want to live in the present and go see Guardians of the Galaxy again. (And so should you.)