The second worst thing that Russia has subjugated the States to in the last year.
As a major proponent of the superhero genre, I always jump
at the rare opportunity to see the concept executed through the refreshing lens
and new perspective of a foreign culture.
Enter the release of 2016 trailers for Russian superhero
action flick, “The Guardians,” by director Sarik Andreasyan, who seems to have
a peculiar obsession with fairly high concept genre stories in cinema.
The story of a group of former covert Soviet era KGB super
soldier science experiments, including a woman that can turn invisible and telekinetically
control water, a man with super speed and a master wielder of combat grade
serrated swords, a manipulator of rock and Earth with super strength, and most
famously, a man that can transform into a bear, united to take down their rogue
creator and his terrorist plot actually received a fair bit of surprise
attention from crowds out for something a little bit different from the
standard Marvel/DC license-based faire filling the market.
With a concept silly yet sound enough to be one of the best
foreign comics never imported and an admirable pass made at visual effects to
at least make a lasting impression with audiences despite a low budget of $5
million, the only question remaining to be answered in this equation is how
exactly did this go so wrong?
The inherent spectacle of superhero storylines often trips
up productions operating outside of the mainstream primarily due to a lack of monetary
resources necessary in believably rendering essential effects to bringing the
spectacle to life, a lack of established storytelling talent capable of
blending the genre’s bombast with compelling human drama, or some mixture
and/or permutation of both.
“The Guardians’” budget may be substantially higher than
what “Fromage Fridays” typically has to offer but by the standards of even
lower budget blockbusters, it’s a drop in the bucket, which makes the technical
side of the film all the more admirable.
Special effects utilized in bringing these characters and
their capabilities to life are undeniably noticeable as special effects but
through solid compositing and adherence to a mildly stylized aesthetic, the
film can achieve an effect substantially grander than the money actually put
into it.
Where “The Guardians” does unfortunately manage to undo all
of that impressive technical artistry however is in its absolute inability to
actually generate some sort of story to unfold in front of the rolling cameras.
Had this merely been
a bad movie, I could have been more tolerant of whatever destination the final
product was heading towards. The opening montage playing out over a somber
music track in which the experiments and commissions responsible for the
origins of its heroes before closing out on an opening credit logo almost had
me as intrigued and stoked as I would be for something I watch in theaters,
while the subsequent sequence of a military briefing in which the officer
officiating the assembly felt the need to dictate the villains personal
feelings of vengeful rage in an official government report as though he were a
14 year old summarizing a novel for a book report, establishes just the right
level of B movie cheese that I was actively ready for a fun time.
The movie that ensues however isn’t so much a bad story so
much as it is a nonexistent one.
While the screenplay clearly opts to keep things as simple
as possible, focusing on the villain as a threat and excuse to rally special
effects behind that needs to be stopped by the special effect generating heroes,
even that manages to come off as completely flat and ineffective thanks to
dialogue so bad and bland that it makes place filler meant for revision and
punch up look like an Aaron Sorkin passion project.
The villain never expounds his motivations or demonstrates
any sort of human trait that would define him as an actual person, one
dimensional or otherwise and although the heroes occasionally bring forth a
character trait or two that lends itself to what could have generated characterization
and personal arcs of growth, they pretty much go nowhere despite having a few
minutes dedicated to mildly exploring them.
Clocking in at under an hour and a half, the biggest saving
grace of “The Guardians” is that it end right before its laziness began to
actually piss me off, despite closing out on a flare up of anger by dropping a
sequel hook so blatant that you would almost swear it’s an SNL skit waiting to
happen, satirizing he nature of premature sequel advertisements for would-be
franchises that tank.
More than irritation however, I simply felt let down. The movie
is very visually creative yet doesn’t contain a worthwhile sequence that you
can’t piece together by compiling the trailer footage and while I normally check
my brain out completely when I can see a “Fromage Fridays” feature turning into
train wreck, I found myself actively piecing together a better movie using only
what was provided while adding a modest 15 minutes to the running time.
At its best, “The Guardians” is a fun visual ride for a few
minutes at a time but gets so bogged down with its lack of imagination or drive
in terms of actual story structure and writing that I found myself wishing it
were the other way around.
The Japanese style of Tokusatsu has emphasized low budgets
in favor of theatric performances and theme exploration in writing to be
carried by the special effects showdowns on screen. Its emphasis on creativity
over spectacle despite existing to tell action stories a style that I adore so
much so that I not only met the release of 2017’s bland and sizably budgeted “Power
Rangers” with a level of distaste and passionate vitriol distinct from the
general sense of apathy that my fellow millennials felt towards it, the tenants
and tropes of it are the cornerstones of a novel that I’m writing.
Perhaps “The Guardians” would never have gone mainstream,
but they certainly didn’t need a big budget to yield a better movie than what
we have here and it saddens me to see that potential wasted as we enter an age
of big budget feature fatigue.
1½ out of 4 Shatners
Bottom Line: Had the care put into the visuals of "The Guardians" been applied to the writing, this score would have been double at least.
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