Archive for August 9th, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Michael Rooker, Glenn Close, Djimon Hounsou, Benicio del Toro, Lee Pace, Brad Cooper, Dave Bautista, John C. Reilly

Marvel’s sci fi action adventure Guardians of the Galaxy is like Star Wars on acid with an exceptionally cool soundtrack, featuring some 70’s and 80’s classics. Part comedy, part adventure, director James Gunn successfully mixes comic adventure with intergalactic chaos and mischief.

Featuring a suitably toned down Chris Pratt (Zero Dark Thirty) superbly cast as rebel Starlord, Peter Quinn who while rummaging on an abandoned planet discovers a mysterious orb which soon elicits a whole bunch of ragtag and riotious characters from all corners of the Galaxy as they race to claim the orb for themselves. The Guardians of the Galaxy featuring the amiable and funny Peter Quinn with some serious mommy issues, along with green skinned Gamora, played by Avatar star Zoe Saldana along with a talking racoon (yes you read that right) voiced by Bradley Cooper and a walking tree, with a severely limited vocabulary, voiced by Vin Diesel.

Guardians of the Galaxy is psychedelic sci-fi and not visionary like Elysium or Blade Runner, making no attempts to conceal its main target audience – teenage boys who have followed the comic book series of the same name. The film even retains a comic book feel and with some exceptionally interesting visual effects, Guardians certainly does make use of its 3D appeal.

This is like Star Wars on LSD for a younger generation, but hugely enjoyable, thanks to the casting of comic actor Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldanha as Gamora, who are both after the powerful and illustrious infinity stones, which they soon hand over to the Collector, a wonderful cameo by Benicio del Toro, who was also seen in the closing credits of Thor: The Dark World.

Veteran actress Glenn Close (101 Dalmations) makes a camped up appearance as Prime Nova, a cipher of her Cruella de Ville character along with John C. Reilly and Djimon Hounsou of Blood Diamond fame.

Lee Pace plays the evil Ronan who with his extraordinary makeup and pharaoh like costume is hellbent on destroying the Universe along with his adopted daughter Nebula played by Karen Gillian. Naturally the ragtag bunch of Guardians band together and fight the onslaught of the Kree against the fabulous planet Xander, which looks like Dubai on steroids.

Guardians of the Galaxy must have been a massive hit at San Diego’s Comicon and it’s not difficult to see why, humour mixed with romance, good versus evil all enveloped in a wildly over the top action adventure which makes the first Star Wars positively tame. Except that Star Wars was a classic and this sci-fi is not aiming to be anything more than merely fun and amusing much like the comics the story is based on. Marvel definitely got the concept right.

Recommended viewing for geek freaks and not to serious sci-fi fans, making Guardians definitely fall into the frivolous popcorn fodder category. Hugely enjoyable, with lots of implied moral messages, but this film does not aspire to be Alphonso Cuaron’s Gravity, this is Guardians of the Galaxy featuring Gamora and the infinity stones! Besides who can take this film seriously when there is a talking racoon and a tree in it?

The Hundred Year Old Man who

Climbed out the Window and Disappeared

Director: Felix Herngren

Cast: Robert Gustafsson, Georg Nikoloff, Cory Peterson, Kerry Shale, Alan Ford.

Definitely one of the highlights of DIFF 2014 http://www.durbanfilmfest.co.za/ was the film adaptation of the Swedish novel, The Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared. A hugely entertaining and entirely Scandinavian tale about a pyromaniac pensioner Alan Karlsson delightfully played by Robert Gustafsson who after blowing up a foxhole near his home in rural Sweden, is untimely placed in a seemingly secure retirement village.

On his hundredth birthday, Alan decides that this confinement is for the birds and literally climbs out the window and misses his hundredth birthday party. So begins a marvellous adventure in which Alan gets mistakenly mixed up with a gang of Neo-Nazi criminals, an elephant, an undecided student and a mischievous train station manager who are all after a suitcase filled with loads of cash.

Based on the internationally bestselling novel by Jonas Jonasson The 100 Year Old man is a delightful subtitled film as the audience follows the sweet natured Alan who whilst going on his escapades also reminisces about his life as an explosives expert, who happens to quite literally cross paths with some of the 20^th century’s most ruthless dictators including Spain’s General Franco and Russia’s Stalin.

Through espionage and countless subterfuge, Alan also becomes involved with the Manhattan project about the building of the nuclear bomb by the Americans, gets drunk with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and even receives an invitation to the Atomic Energy Commission by the Swedish prime minister.

The 100 Year Old Man is truly a cinematic gem and a clever statement and parody on Sweden’s apparent neutrality throughout some of the last centuries most brutal, menacing and socially disruptive geo-political conflicts including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Cold War and even the 1968 counter-culture youth rebellion in Paris.

This is recommended viewing and whilst some of the jokes would miss an English speaking audience, the 100 Year Old Man is a definite must see and certainly totally different to the dark Swedish thriller trilogy starting with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The 100 Year Old Man is a charming, hilarious and poignant journey through a century by a naïve likable character who keeps things simple by blowing things up or dancing with dictators. A must see Swedish comedy featuring lovable characters with a clever script and a highly amusing plot.