Fast X (AKA Fast Ten Your Seatbelts)

 

I don't know what to say about these movies that has not already been said by me and a thousand others. "The Fast and Furious" series has gotten bigger and more preposterous with each entry, and the connection to reality disappeared around the fifth one in the series. They are extremely well made, over the top action films, that you can enjoy the heck out of, as long as you are willing to give up any sense of reality. The physics are silly, the characters are cartoons, the stunts are Rube Goldberg sequences that will make you want to go back to your childhood and play "Mousetrap". Every movie has the same tropes in it somewhere, there is a racing scene, shots of girls wiggling their hind ends to hip hop songs at the race scene, and then there are the character beats. Vin Diesel's Dom gets serious and says he has to go it alone, the team mocks that idea, Letty defies the notion, and they all end up working together. There will be new characters introduced, usually with some family connections. A Secondary character will return to be sacrificed at some point in the story, and a dead character will be resurrected. There is also usually a double cross somewhere ion the story, and/or enemies come together for a common purpose. 

"Fast X" or "Fast Ten Your Seatbelts" as my friend Mark Hofmeyer would call it) has all of those moments. Like a Roger Moore 007 film, it checks off the essentials, tosses them together and then gets by on it's stars. Michelle Rodriguez continues to glower at everyone who might be an opponent, and if there is a woman to be taken down, she will get the sequence that requires that ass whopping. Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris will do their Abbot and Costello routine, fall out for 30 seconds and then bond again. They are the comic relief most of the time, although there are other characters that do get to put some comedic spin on what they are doing. The characters of Han and Ramsey are along for the ride on this one, but they have almost nothing to do for most of the story. Charlize Theron likewise, is in the story, but the segment with her and Letty is mostly shoehorned in to give them something to do while the rest of the action is taking place. 

The best thing that the makers of this franchise have done, is introduce new characters on a regular basis. Those characters can come back and be part of the action in the next films. Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham and Jon Cena all started out as antagonists to Dom's team, and end up working with them in later films. Helen Mirren is not given a lot to do, but when she shows up, she classes up the film a bit. I try to avoid spoilers in my essays so be careful with this next bit, although anyone who has followed the series knows that it is true. Characters die in the films, but they all seem to come back somehow. We get a couple of those moments and the film itself is a bit of a tipoff because of how it ends.

Fresh faces keep things lively in the eleven films so far (which includes the Hobbs and Shaw spinoff). Jon Cena was the anti-Dom in the last film, and now he is back as a semi-autonomous surrogate father for several scenes. He seems to be having a great time and I enjoyed his sequences more than most of the others. However, it is clearly Jason Momoa who is having the most fun with this movie. His character is flamboyantly evil, and Momoa plays him with gusto and panache. The character is written as a stylized villain, and the actor embraces the character the same way that John Lithgow took on Lord John Whorfin in the Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension. His costumes, hair, eyebrows and voice all scream "I'm the Bad Guy!! Pay Attention to Me!". It is exactly right, even the use of the extended arms in a crucified like position as a visual exclamation point that the character has a habit of posing in, feel like a comic book bad guy should be. The retcon sequence that brings Dante into the story is not as elaborate as the one that got Cena's Jacob in the last film, but it was managed well and it works. 

The one new wrinkle this film gives us is that it ends on a cliffhanger moment. All of our heroes appear to be doomed and the bad guy has won. There are several strings that you can pull at to come up with more story. For example Brie Larson could find her Dad Kurt Russell and start a new hunt on the villain. Jason Statham is on his way to protect his Mama from the bad guy, so that can be a path to follow. And Letty's new alliance with Theron's Cipher has been set up with a twist that I saw coming three movies ago. Regardless of all that potential, I am confident that the dead will rise, the strings will be tied up, and if Dante, Momoa's character is not sent to hell, he will become an anti-hero ally in entry number 12. I heard they were going to stop after the next one, but I also thought Han was dead. 

Furious 7 (2015) Revisit

 

So this is the one with the parachuting cars and the cars that fly from one building to another. Abu Dhabi, Tokyo and Colorado serving as a stand in for the Caucasus Mountains are the setting, until the conclusion where Los Angeles gets the treatment that London got in the previous film. This is one that I actually saw when it was released in 2015. 

In addition to the convoluted spy plot, the pyrotechnics and the physics defying car stunts, we get evil Jason Statham, as a mass killing machine who is as implacable as the Terminator, and slippery Kurt Russell, as a government agent so secretive, we don't even know his name. The team of Torretto and company have gone full blown spycraft now, and the macguffin technology and secondary villain are almost forgotten in light of all the crazy stunts, chases, and unfortunately, the cinematic illusion of making Paul Walker look like he was there for the whole time. This is the one they were filming when he died in a mysterious high speed crash in Santa Clarita. 

The main difference in this film is that there is only one car race that is planned as a race rather than a chase. Usually, the team would have to strap up their cars to go out and obtain cars for the heist they are planning. Here the joke is that they have enough money of their own, and the resources of the U.S. government, to get all the tech they need without having to steal it or win it. There is a time glitch in the story also, this film seems to take place right after "Tokyo Drift", so that film chronologically must come after Fast 5 and Furious 6. 

There is an early showdown with Statham's Deckard Shaw, which end up taking Dwayne Johnson's Hobbs out of the plot for 80 % of the movie. That first fight is all hand to hand combat and the two have an amazing choregraphed fight scene, that if it were real, would leave any of us mere mortals dead. Of course these two are not mere mortals, and they are in a movie, and there will be another showdown. The second massive fight sequence gives Statham a chance to rough up Vin Diesel before having a concrete garage dumped on him. Of course he will survive for the next film, and the sp[in-off that is coming. Michelle Rodriguez gets to face another woman MMA champion, Rhonda Rousey, in a cool fight in a luxury building in Abu Dhabi. That one is also full of punishing hits that would wipe most human out of furter action, at least for the duration of the film.

Djimon Hounsou  is a secondary bad guy named Mose Jakande: A Nigerian-born mercenary and terrorist who leads a private military company that allies with Shaw, He does not get much to do except scream from a helicopter and shout orders. Maybe it's in his contact that he doesn't have to go fisticuffs with a behemoth twice his size. 

The parachuting cars come early in the movie, and once that scene happens, nothing else can be taken seriously. People complain about the 007 film "Die Another Day", but they can accept this silly element. That's probably because the "Fast and Furious" films have never felt particularly real, and we began accepting the more outlandish elements way too soon in the story line. Just pass the popcorn, and let's not ptretend these are great movies, they are just great entertainment.  

Furious Six [AKA Fast and Furious 6] 2013

 

While the movie can't quite decide what it's title is, that fits because it also can't decide on what sort of film it is. Is it a heist film, a spy film a racing film, who knows? Maybe since it has all of those elements we should not be too worried about classifying it, and more worried about the whiplash we get as we move from one action sequence to another. Maybe the transitions are supposed to be made easier by the brutal fight scenes that break out around them. 

Logic aside, Furious 6 has some great things going for it. The return of Dwayne Johnson gives the extended plotline a little more coherence. Johnson drips charisma and he gives Vin Diesel someone to act against who disappears into the scenery. This time he is accompanied by another DSS agent, in the form of Gina Carano, another actor with charisma to match the counterparts on Dom's team. Carano's character, Agent Riley,  engages in an extended fight with Michelle Rodriguez's Letty in the London Underground. These characters are as brutal as any man would be in a similar fight, and I suppose the justification for this is so Letty can have some combat scenes and not have to be pounded on by one of her male co-stars. The resolution of Riley's storyline is disappointing because she could have been a compelling recurring character. I guess they have enough of those already, so adding to the reoccurring cast was undesirable. 

Location shooting in London looks great, and as a Bond fan, I always appreciate when Great Britan is featured at the center of a spy story. The villain of this episode is Owen Shaw, played by Luke Evans, and his character is basically Bond gone bad. As if Dr. No persuaded double o seven to join SPECTRE and commit international terrorism on a scale only dwarfed by the events of 9/11. Most of London gets bruised in the early section of the film, and then Spain gets the destruction of hundreds of cars with passengers in them for a chase scene involving a tank. I've read that the tank crushing of the cars was real and not just a CGI animation. I can believe it because the weight and mass of a tank in comparison to some European sedan would be massive. There was an incident several years ago where a deranged Army Vet stole a tank and decimated a neighborhood in San Diego. You can see in the news footage that a tank can in fact run over a car with impunity. Where the scene gets it wring is in the use of a couple of cars to try and anchor the tank so it will flip. It is also a big stretch to see Dom, flying through the air to catch Letty and then landing safely on the road. 

A good suspenseful climax that gets drawn out by a series of complications is always welcome, but it needs to be somewhat grounded. The plane/car chase here is just not acceptable for suspense purposes, but it is fine for spectacular action. Cars getting on and off a plane, a harpoon gun taking down the whale of a cargo jet, and an extended fight sequence in the belly of the plane are all fun but at no point do you think this is going to come out wrong for our heroes. Even the apparent death of one of the female crew is nearly dreamlike, we never see the outcome, just a moment of vanishing, but into the dark and we are not sure how far of a fall is there. Characters in this series get revived from the dead all the time, so i would not "Wonder" if a certain actress were to return in a future film. 

The best payoff in this movie is the thirty seconds of Jason Statham, glaring at the camera and scowling as he makes a threatening phone call that will set up the action in the next film. I think the best way for me to keep track of these movies which are all fun but forgettable, is to check the location and stunt moments. Furious 6: London Car Flipping, Spanish Tank Chase, NATO base with the longest runway in the world and a car plane chase. There, that should help you remember more than Letty does for most of this film. 

Fast Five (2011)

 

Next week brings us the Tenth film in the "Fast and Furious" saga, a series that I never could have imagined when it opened twenty years ago, that would still be going strong. This premise has been used to give us race centered movies, gangster films, spy films and heist films. Scratch Vin Diesel and under the surface you may find another genre struggling to get out. There is always the "Family" drama going on, but this is never going to be "Ordinary People" or "Terms of Endearment". 

In getting ready to see the newest film, I thought it would be fun to go back and finally see all of the other movies. After the first film, I did not return to the series until the sixth movie. Six, Seven, Eight and Nine all have posts on this site already. We burned through the first four at home on video so they did not really demand a commentary from me since the majority of the posts here are based on a theatrical experience [Special Projects Excepted] .  I was looking up times for next week when I noticed the local Cinemark, was playing all of the films in succeeding nights. This timed out well for me so the next three days will have "Fast Five",  "Fast and Furious 6" and "Furious 7" filling this spot. [The 8th and 9th films conflict with some other activities].

This is the entry where Brian has finally shed any connection to law enforcement, and having engineered Dom's escape from prison, finds him and Mia on the lam in South America. So the action for most of this film is centered in Rio de Janeiro. There is substantially less street racing than in the previous films as the movies transition to more heist related story lines. In this case, a car theft from a moving train starts the action, but it is the briefest part of the heist chronology, serving only to introduce us to more complicated thefts down the script. 

The other element that makes this film noteworthy is that this is the movie where Dwayne Johnson becomes part of the universe. The former "Rock" is set to be a fixture for five more of these films but this is the one where it started. Johnson's character Luke Hobbs is a U.S. Agent sent to catch the team, not realizing that they are in the midst of a heist to bring down a bigger fish that the DOJ and State Department would love to bag. In this series, enemies become allies, the dead return to the world of the living, and there is always a double cross or plot twist down the road. Let's just say that when Dawyne Johnson bursts into the movie, the whole film comes to life with a voltage high charge of charisma. 

Eventually there will be a mano a mano showdown, and the two behemoth actors of Johnson and Diesel, will pound on one another for several minutes, but don't expect them to stay permanently at odds for the whole film. Brian's character has already abandoned the LAPD and the DEA and FBI, so it is problematic to have Johnson fully commit to a life of crime as well. The truce that gets made will also set up Johnson's return in the following films. The other agents that Hobbs supervises are basically red shirts that do not go on to have bigger roles in the next caper. 

The car stunts are thrilling but they do get progressively more outlandish with each film after this one. While some of the chases and heist moments are over the top, it does not reach the level of incredulous disbelief until the final sequence when Brian and Dom essentially take a giant safe and turn it into a wrecking ball for the streets of Rio. We are lucky they could not scale  Corcovado , otherwise Christ the Redeemer might have been brought down. 

The term "popcorn movie" perfectly describes these films, which don't have serious content, weighty themes or intellectual depth. They do have great entertainment value and the technical crews and logistics of making a film like this are nothing to sneeze at, unlike the plots. 

F9 The Fast Saga

 

I have been a sometimes fan of the series. I have never seen 2,3, or4 and only half of 5. 6,7, and 8 as well as Hobbs and Shaw are in my back pocket. Frankly, there is nothing to say about this except it is stupid, but I enjoyed watching the stupidity. 

The substitution of Jon Cena for Dwayne Johnson allows Vin Diesel to be the focus of the film, and that's fine. There are a couple dozen secondary characters that some people seem to like but all seem to me to be replaceable at any time. OK, maybe Tyrece Gibson as the main comic relief would be a little tough to replace, but otherwise, they are cardboard cutouts being moved around the set pieces.

Most of the film is made up of one outlandish chase, race, or fistfight punctuated with some flashbacks that explain most of what is happening. Don't worry about following that, just keep your eyes on the screen for the next impossible stunt, physics defying escape or miraculous moment of self awareness. This film goes full meta, acknowledging  how silly it is and even nearly saying "we are a movie". 

There is no sense in analyzing any of it, or critiquing the story. this series jumped the shark years ago, it's now just a question  of what the next shark is. I may be in spoiler territory here, but don't worry, it was going to come out somewhere anyway, this is the "Moonraker" of the series. They make a bunch of corny jokes, and go to space. I'm only surprised that Roger Moore did not show up with his laser equipped Space Shuttle to help out. 

F9 was the subject of this week's Lambcast, and we spent an hour just laughing at all the idiotic coincidences, resurrections, and tropes these films wallow in. I will post a link here when the podcast is live, I will credit Mark Hofmeyer, for coming up with my favorite title for a movie next time. "Fast Ten Your Seatbelts".  That's better writing than anything in this pile of stuff that is instantly disposable, but fun while you are disposing of it. 

https://largeassmovieblogs.com/2021/06/lambcast-590-f-9-the-fast-saga.html

F8 of the Furious

OK, it's time to fill your tank, strap yourself in and forget everything you learned in science class. We have another entry in "The Fast and the Furious" franchise to watch.This logic defying, cheesy dialogue spewing, CGI mismash, is what I like to refer to as "Craptacular". It doesn't need to make any sense, it just needs to entertain us for a couple hours on a sunny weekend afternoon after we've had a nice lunch and we are looking for some air conditioned silliness. "F8 of the Furious" as I insist it should be spelled,  has a lot of things going for it despite the cockamamie story telling, paper thin characterization and 1000 yard stare machismo. I don't anticipate these films like some people do, In fact I was not even sure I would see this one. But when the history of my life is written, I won't hate myself for having enjoyed these movies a bit. They feel like summer.

From where I sit, the best things about this series are it's most recent additions. I missed the film where Dwayne Johnson first showed up as a character in these, but he is a guy that oozes charisma. Jason Statham is in his third one of these movies, having a brief cameo in 6 and then being the main bad guy in 7. Whatever they are paying these guys it is worth it because they inject the most energy into the movies of any of the actors. Kurt Russell shows up in a suit and tie for a few scenes, and his swaggering smarminess as a spook with no name, brings a smile to my face. If only Scott Eastwood were as much fun as the intern version of Russell's character.

Two new additions for this film are the ladies that figure heavily in the plot. Charlize Theron steps in as the villain for this edition of the story. She has tightly weaved hair extensions and a badass attitude. It looks like she was saving all her action chops for "Atomic Blonde" later this summer, because in her role as Cipher, she primarily barks orders and frantically types. In another of the mindless film sequences over the years, cyber hackers attack, block and outwit each other as we see who can really reach 70 words a minute on their laptop. Maybe if we edit it together tightly enough and inject some screen shots of computer graphics, it will feel like an action piece. [No it doesn't]. After giving us a dozen reasons to hate her and be ready to cheer for the comeuppance that we have been waiting for, there is an unsatisfactory close to her story. In all probability, we will see the same plot twist that has happened in every one of these films happen in the next one. Also stepping in in a brief scene is Dame Helen Mirren. She doesn't get to do much but she can act everyone else in the film right off the screen just by sitting there.

For thirteen years people have piled on Pierce Brosnon's last outing as 007, for some of the same reasons that they have embraced this franchise. CGI cars that defy gravity, preposterous super villains with all powerful knowledge, stunts that induce as much laughter as excitement, and jokes that don't produce either laughter or much character. With the exception of Statham's sequence on a plane, the humor here largely falls flat. Since I am at heart a sentimentalist, I sometimes find myself being drawn into the "Family" motif that strings these films together. Who doesn't like a hardy laugh as you celebrate your victory of a new bad guy by breaking bread and forming an alliance with the last bad guy. As I said earlier, it doesn't make a lot of sense but cracking the whip on a movie like this is a little like kicking a puppy. It ties so hard to please you that it is just wrong to punish it when it drops a turd on your carpet.

If you think you can take a giant grain of salt and choke it down, than you will almost certainly enjoy a car chase with a submarine, or a parachute jump that would make D.B. Cooper proud. You probably won't care that a convoluted double cross is arranged without any explanation or that people leaping out of cars traveling well in excess of the speed limit results in no physical consequences. "The Rock" doesn't need the force to levitate his opponents off the ground, Statham doesn't need gravity to interfere with a good fight or foot chase, and Vin Diesel doesn't need to act to star in a movie. All of these things are still more believable than finding enough clear road to chase on in New York City on a weekday afternoon.

Furious 7

I can't say I am a big fan of these films. I saw the first one when it came out and did not return to the series until the previous film, Furious 6. That film had a convoluted plot, brought back a dead character, and pushed the limits of what is believable in a car chase film. Somewhere along the line the gang of criminals featured in these stories became the good guys and they now are working as intelligence operatives because they pissed off the wrong people. I don't buy a second of any of it, but watching it was not annoying in any way and if you are willing to give up any sense of realism, recognize that gravity and physics don't mean anything to making movies any more, than there are worse ways to pass a couple of hours.

Vin Diesel and crew are the continuing attraction. They race cars manically and they take dangerous stunts to the ultimate level. Paul Walker's death in late 2013 delayed this film as they had to create a way to tell the story with bits of his role that had been filmed and plug in spots where there was no footage to work with. I guess you could spend the time playing "spot the CGI double" but that is too much effort for such a weightless film.

To me, the two best things the movie has going for it are reliable veteran film tough guys, Kurt Russell and Jason Statham. "Handsome Rob" is playing the villain here. He is an unstoppable tornado of violence that kills at the drop of a hat. It looks like in the introduction there is already a body count in the dozens and the movie is just starting. I like Statham as a tough guy and he is appropriately menacing in this, however, he is much like one of the vehicles that gets thrown into the story, indestructible because it would slow things down. His character shows up in places that he has no reasonable ability to be and we never see any planning from this bastardized version of James Bond. The most elite military teams in the world can not hit him with a single shot despite the presence of dozens of  high tech weapons. He is a cardboard bad guy made to a boogeyman that is hard to enjoy.

Mr. Russell shows up as a surrogate for Dwayne Johnson's F.B.I. agent. The Rock's character is sidelined early on but he did get a nice fight sequence with Statham and he picks up a big machine gun at the end of the movie and does the best impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger ever. Kurt is cool and smarmy and gets involved in only one real action scene and it is the most believable character arc in the story and it is ridiculous. Just having him swagger in and smile is worth whatever they paid him and I would not be surprised to see his character pop up again if the series gets another film, which given the box office seems inevitable.

In a movie assembled from action pieces, strung together by oversimplified spy tropes, and depending on dialogue written as if it is going to be delivered in a big balloon over the characters head, the cast does what it can to sell the emotional components of the film. There is a nice epilogue with Paul Walker that seems to be a fitting goodby to their co-worker. Now it is time to get back to work, crank out another one and make another couple of billion on the shallowest  movie franchise this side of "Scary Movie" parodies. The cheese is laid on thickly, and it goes down quickly and will not upset your stomach too much.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Since the teaser trailer above came out, this has been the film I most anticipated this year. Without knowing a single thing about the characters, plot, or Marvel Universe that it is based in, I was sold. The teaser conveys a humorous attitude, outrageous characters and spectacular action on a huge scale. I am pleased to report that it delivers on every aspect of that promise. This was the most completely satisfying experience I've had in a movie this year. Any complaints that I have are minor quibbles about the complexity of the story and motivations of some of the characters but none of that matters because I was smiling throughout the film and enjoying every minute of what I was seeing.

Ronan, a xenophobic Kree, set on perpetuating a genocidal war against Xander, is also a vassal of Thanos who desires the Infinity Stone embedded in the orb that Peter Quill, known to himself as Star Lord, has obtained supposedly for the Ravanger commander Yondu. That sentence contains the essentials for the plot motivations of the antagonists of the story. Does it sound convoluted enough and is it filled with enough Alien names to tickle your tongue and boggle your mind at the same time? We are just getting started. Ronan is assisted by the adopted daughters of Thanos, Gamora and Nebula.Quill is pursued by another of Ronans enforcers, Korath  and two bounty hunters seeking the reward put out by Yondu for Quill betraying him. This all happens in the first thirty minutes of the movie so it can be a little overwhelming. The names keep coming as well, there is the planet of the Xanders, their capital city, and their leader. All of which trip off the tongue with equal ease. For the most part, the heroes names are simpler; Drax, Rocket, Groot, Quill and eventually Gamora also. With all that going on you would think you need a score card to keep track of what is happening. The storytelling however is constructed in a fashion that is far more straightforward than the list of characters. The on screen imagery usually tells us quite obviously who to root for and who to fear. So even though it sounds like a Russian novel with an endless list of exotic names, you will be able to follow most of the plot twists very clearly.

Fortunately for us, the plot is the least important part of the film making. This is a movie about character and the five central heroes are all great characters. Peter Quill (referred to as Jason in the teaser trailer?), is the perfect anti-hero for a story like this. We know enough of his backstory to feel some kinship with him and we can pick out his persona within twenty seconds of encountering the adult version of him that we first meet on the abandoned planet.  Basically Quill/Starlord is a cross between Han Solo and Bugs Bunny. He is a thief, scoundrel and smart ass rolled into one. He also has an inflated opinion of himself that is sometimes matched by his ambitions. Chris Pratt is cast in this role for the voice and attitude he can convey. The writer/director also provides him with small pieces of business that suit the tone of the character and the actors ability. In his first scene, he is dancing to his own soundtrack and disrespects the local wildlife in the most amusing ways possible. The voice is not quite the Milquetoast that Emmet from "The Lego Movie " is,  but he never sounds like a badass even though he fights like one. As the story unfold we will learn a bit more about this Terran that most of the rest of the characters underestimate.

Zoe Saldana is officially the biggest female star in the Science Fiction Universe. I have no idea how she is going to keep up with the demands that will be made on her in the next ten years. She has three "Avatar" sequels to film, another "Star Trek" and now this franchise. The fact that she changes skin color for every one of these roles is a side note but it may also explain one way that she can seem to be so distinct in each movie. As Gamora, the assassin and disloyal adopted daughter of Thanos, she is a lot more physical than in either of the other parts. Her motion capture work in Avatar was amazing in the sense of body language but the fighting and action scenes will not compare to what she is asked to do here.

There are three other characters that make up the Guardian team. Drax is a behemoth bent on killing Ronan and then Thanos for the murder of his family. Dave Bautista is a wrestler turned actor. He has the physical dimensions you want for a powerhouse ally in a galactic prison. There is something very charismatic in the way he carries himself and the smile that he gives up infrequently. As a bad guy in "The Man with the Iron Fists" he was stoic and monosyllabic. He repeats those characteristics in this role but adds a touch of warmth and shows some potential as more than just a comic book big guy. The other two characters are computer generated and despite that, they have some of the most human behavior and emotions in the film. Rocket is a genetically and mechanically altered organism that basically is a talking Raccoon.  He is a sly creature with a sick sense of humor and a clever ability to plan and engineer on the fly. Bradley Cooper helps bring some intensity and humor to the character through his voice. Groot speaks only four different words in the whole movie. His lines consist of the same sentence but it is delivered with enough variation that we can tell there is more meaning there. Vin Diesel does the voice work.

There are a dozen other characters that are distinctive enough that after seeing the film you will remember them, despite the name problems. The story is populated with a variety of interesting alien beings. The broker who is supposed to be in charge of the sale of the orb is a combination of a Star Trek character from "The Search for Spock" and Mr. Ollivander in the Harry Potter series. Quill's surrogate father, the Ravager Yondu is Michael Rooker, an actor who has always been a welcome presence in films. In the opening segment Greg Henry gives a memorable few moments as Peter's distraught maternal Grandfather. Up and down the line there are performers doing a good job in a film where most of them are acting against green screens and other characters so heavily made up that it looks like Halloween.

The visualization of the technology and ships and worlds that the characters interact in and with is marvelous. No one stops down to do exposition on most of these things, we just see them work. The story moves fast enough that we get as much background as we need but not more than is necessary. The music is fine but what is going to stand out is the song score that is laden with seventies and sixties pop rock. The way the music is integrated into the story is amusing and it creates some heart for the main character. The choices are sometimes whimsical but that whimsy provokes a laugh at just the right time and reminds us of the spirit that the movie is trying to sustain. The world in this universe is another bunch of planets and that may make the mayhem of destruction more tolerable since it is clearly fantasyland we are playing in here.

This is a comic book movie that I had no knowledge of before the film came out. It feels so much more like the fun type of fantasy story told in the Star Wars films than the angst heavy comic stories we have had in the last few years. This feels like a summer movie. It is on a scale as big as "The Avengers" but it does not have all the baggage that each of those characters bring to their collaboration. I know that all of the Marvel Universe is being tied together here and there, but I hope that I will never see Tony Stark and Peter Quill trading barbs with one another. The sensibilities of those franchises is so different that it is a joy to visit a completely unique spot in the comic universe. I look forward to future adventures with the "Guardians of the Galaxy", let's hope that the light tone and ingenious creativity can sustain these stories without having to venture into other territories.