I find it difficult to pass violence off as comedy. Long gone are the dusty antics of The Three Stooges, with pratfalls so lumbering that the sheer creaking ineptitude of their execution was half the fun of the slapstick. Now, with technology being as capable as it is, we must endure a never-ending freight train of grotesquely muscled-up punches to the face — all in the name of a good high five while we leave the theatre energized from witnessing a plethora of mass destruction in the name of escapist recreation.
This stimulus of carnage scratches the itch of the Id in all of us and obviously plays to the colosseum mentality that continues to define so much of our media experience. But it also raises troubling concepts dealing with the nature of violence within entertainment that have so adeptly been explored by filmmakers like Michael Hanake and, of course, Alfred Hitchcock.
Why do we wish to see this brutality? Is it possible to cheapen bodily harm by means of inflicting it on things that merely resemble real people?
In a word: yes. And this is precisely why the superhero celluloid experience is such a strange dichotomy for contemporary audiences, particularly the enterprises belonging to the once-troubled Marvel Comics (now owned by Disney).
While rival house supreme D.C. has found great success in giving their flagship characters dark, brooding makeovers (Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and Zach Snyder’s Man of Steel) that mercifully steer hard from the stunningly awful Joel Schumacher productions that turned Batman in a camp chorus girl, Marvel owns the monopoly on colourful family-friendly adventures (this year’s earlier X-Men: Days of Future Past being the obvious exception).
It is slightly odd then that James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy should be so decidedly inappropriate for children. After sitting through trailers for all of the impending digitally animated films from the people who brought us Frozen, we are treated to 121 minutes of battering-ram beat downs and jokes involving prison rape and cleaning up bodily fluids after a one-night stand — yes, actually.
The humour, while often very funny, is considerably more confrontational than the odd over-the-head reference thrown in to appease bored parents that would be more characteristic of, say, Shrek. It is obviously a parent’s prerogative to decide what their children watch. Just be warned that more than one crying child was escorted from my screening when a character was dismembered or died.
Our protagonist is hapless space pirate Peter Quill/Star-Lord, played by funnyman-turned-beefcake Chris Pratt. Quill acquires a mysterious orb being hunted by numerous parties, including the most powerful of the Kree species Ronan the Accuser and the ominous titan Thanos. As the chase for the orb breathlessly moves from one Total Recall looking locale to the next, Quill assembles a motley crew of reluctant collaborators initially involved for financial gain, until a sense of duty inevitably takes hold and they form the “Guardians of the Galaxy”.
The team includes a sassy raccoon and an anthropomorphic tree (voiced by Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel respectively; however, both players bring little presence to roles that could been played by anyone), a green-skinned alien assassin (Zoe Saldana playing a more bum-proud version of her Avatar princess), and a tribal-patterned hulk (WWE “fighter” Dave Bautista with the delivery range of Siri).
It’s all a bunch of vibrant, delirious fun of course … but as you leave the theatre, maybe you should ask yourself why it’s fun.
Guardians of the Galaxy Official Trailer
All photos courtesy of Marvel/Disney
