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Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) |
Storyline
After stealing a mysterious orb in the far reaches of outer space, Peter
Quill from Earth, is now the main target of a manhunt led by the
villain known as Ronan the Accuser. To help fight Ronan and his team and
save the galaxy from his power, Quill creates a team of space heroes
known as the "Guardians of the Galaxy" to save the world.
Written by
James Hake
User Reviews
It had all the ingredients to be great but instead it is merely just "OK".
Antoine Fuqua's The
Magnificent Seven is about as brazen as the cowboys it portrays. It is
loud, visceral and action packed but lacks the necessary functions for
it to be a truly great film. Despite Fuqua's most confident directing
and Denzel Washington's excellent performance, the film ends up being as
cluttered as the cast would suggest. When it all comes down to it, it
is a matter of an overload of star power. While there have been films in
the past that have had incredible casts and flourished, this film makes
it feel as though the film is only big enough for one star. Chris Pratt
is great as an alcoholic and incredibly ballsy gunslinger, Faraday, but
he lacks any gusto to really command the screen as does most of the
cast outside of Denzel Washington (someone who I can't say enough good
things about here). It ends up feeling like these roles could have been
played by anyone when it should have felt like these actor's owned these
roles so much so that you can't imagine anyone else in it.
Unfortunately that isn't the case here. Quite frankly, the only
performances worth noting are Washington and Peter Sarsgaard, who gives a
devilishly good performance as a sadistic law man. In this respect, the
film is very much a disappointment for anyone expecting to see the next
great ensemble film of the year. More importantly, those of you who
were excited to see the re-teaming of the Training Day squad
(Washington, Hawke and Fuqua) will have to wait a bit longer for that
because there is barely any chemistry between Ethan Hawke's Goodnight
Robicheaux and Washington's Chisolm. The screenplay, written by True
Detective's Nic Pizzolatto and action aficionado, Richard Wenk is
lackluster to say the least. As I said, the character development with
the characters is either not there or so forced and unnatural that it
takes you out of it. After the abysmal season 2 of True Detective and
this, I think is safe to say that Pizzolatto is turning into the one hit
wonder that everyone feared that he would be. However, I will still
hold off on officially saying that about him because there are some
ideas that were introduced in the film that were really interesting
which is why it is all the more frustrating when they are cast aside and
never touched upon again. The screenplay is the big problem here. It is
well paced but emotionally hollow. It never really reaches anywhere
near the heights of the Kurosawa masterpiece or even the 1957 remake
that that film spawned. In this case, the script reads and sounds like a
bad imitation. Despite this, The Magnificent Seven does boasts some
pretty exceptional action set pieces much to Fuqua's credit. The film is
explosive but it is highly predictable. Those who are killed don't
really resonate with the viewer because quite honestly, we don't care
about any of the characters outside of Washington. They are mere
footnotes to the larger picture which is a monumental disappointment.
Overall, I thought that Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven boasted a
great idea and never truly capitalized on it. The film felt like it
really could have been something but we are left holding on to the idea
of what could have been.
