A cosmic joy to watch

"Most good successful fiction...succeeds precisely because it does both--provides an escapist closed universe of some description...[and] tells a great story...My argument is with fiction which pretends to do otherwise, which takes the stuff of the daily tabloids, commonalities, and frames them as profundities, as original thought. This is the worst sort of escapism to me."
-- Michael Moorcock

NOT SO long ago, in a galaxy that now seems far, far away, admitting that one's preferred reading habits settled on picture books featuring a foul-mouthed, heavily armed raccoon would have at best evoked sideways glances, and at worst resulted in an express trip to the inside of the nearest locker courtesy of the local school yard bully. And yet a posse of outlaws, thugs, and miscreants previously consigned to the deeper recesses of geek culture have burst from the pages of their relatively obscure comic series onto the silver screen, smashing box office records on their way to becoming household names.

It may be too soon to tell whether the massive popular success of Guardians of the Galaxy will contribute to a statistically notable decline in the number of wedgies, but based on its $94 million opening weekend, we can safely declare that little seems likely to stand in the way of Marvel Studio stretching its ambitions for cultural conquest even further beyond the final frontier. Executives can already be seen counting the immense amounts of money they stand to make through the merchandising of everything from Groot endorsed Miracle Grow to full-sized Rocket Raccoon plush dolls--to say nothing of the already announced sequel.

So what about this unlikely band of space heroes has generated such widespread appeal? And what business does a socialist newspaper have reviewing a comic book inspired science fiction epic, set in a made-up universe, with hardly a single identifiable political lesson to speak of? One approach to this latter question open to radicals would be to follow some famous commentators in continuing to make loud harrumphing noises about the tragedy of superheroes taking over popular culture. In addition to being gauche, such a response would be like bemoaning the death of the radio play as an artistic medium--a completely pointless endeavor in the face of the reality that superheroes aren't going away any time soon.

The more fruitful, and far less pompous, tack would be to admit that sometimes the appeal of a film or other piece of popular culture is its ability to temporarily distract from the mundane and oppressive daily existence of life under capitalism. If Guardians never pretends to be anything other than an escapist romp--and it doesn't--then political people should approach it on its own terms, rather than waste our time meticulously documenting all the ways this is not The Battle of Algiers.

As a political treatise on the space race and the excesses of imperialist militarism this movie is an utter failure. As a piece of interstellar swashbuckling fun presented on an impressive visual canvas that looks like Blade Runner if Jack Kirby had designed the sets, Guardians of the Galaxy is an undeniable success.

THE FILM opens with a 10-year-old Peter Quill clutching his Walkman just outside of the hospital room where his mother lays dying of cancer. The audience is treated to the movie's first dose of nostalgia as Quill's headphones (and the soundtrack) play "I'm not in love," from "Awesome Mix Vol. 1," as his mother takes her last breath. Our distraught protagonist then rushes from her bedside and runs until he collapses in a nearby field, only to be promptly beamed up by a waiting spaceship.

The title sequence, which immediately follows, pays homage to both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars, as the narrative advances 20 years forward. We are reintroduced to an adult Quill--now calling himself "Star Lord"--who we find seeking out some lost artifact amidst long abandoned space ruins, all while dancing to the second track from his mixtape (which we later learn was a gift from his mother), Redbone's "Come and Get Your Love."

The juxtaposition of these two scenes in the first 10 minutes of the movie perfectly encapsulates the irresistibly enchanting blend of emotional gravitas and mirthful irreverence which readers of the comic series have come to expect from Guardians of the Galaxy since its relaunch several years ago, and which co-writer and director James Gunn has so successfully built into the heart of his film adaptation.

Though the plot is somewhat formulaic, and some of the character development feels forced, the film's real achievement is its ability to believe in itself without ever taking itself too seriously. This quality is truly infectious, and goes a long way toward accounting for the box-office appeal. Its charm and verve is on display from start to end and imbues everything from the characters themselves--the team includes a talking raccoon, a semi-sentient tree, the galaxy's deadliest woman, and a hulking, green, tattooed man-child who doesn't understand metaphors--to the dialogue, combining fast and furious cultural references with hilarious and believable banter.

Even the penultimate confrontation with Ronan the Accuser is fueled by this blend of absurdly high stakes and droll charisma when Quill challenges the cosmically powered baddie to a dance-off. And that's to say nothing of the fact that the writers manage to evoke sympathy for two characters fully rendered by CGI.

The charm only grows by reading about the seriousness Vin Diesel brought to his role as Groot (who, for those not in the know, speaks the same three words in every situation). The action star reportedly recorded over 10,000 takes for his three words of dialogue, and credits the role with pulling him out of a dark place after the death of friend and Fast and Furious co-star Paul Walker. Add to this the earnestness with which former pro-wrestler Dave Bautista talks about realizing he was a terrible actor and hiring a coach to prepare for his audition as Drax the Destroyer, and it's hard not to smile.

The film also excels at offering more knowing winks to the geek set than any previous Marvel Studios production. Going well beyond the obligatory Stan Lee appearance, Gunn's script is so riddled with references to major and minor figures as yet not introduced to movie going audiences that fanboys and girls across the globe are liable to crash several message board servers speculating about whether the Easter eggs will ever develop into full blown projects.

The first unobscured appearance of Thanos, and the post-credit sequence featuring Cosmo the space dog and Howard the duck are the most obvious, but a careful eye will also notice Rhomann Dey (who, in the comics, grants superpowers to Richard Rider, turning him into Nova) hiding in plane sight as Corpsman Dey (played by John C. Reilly). Then there's Adam Warlock's cocoon (notably empty the second time it's seen), Lloyd Kaufman's cameo, and what may or may not be Beta Ray Bill trapped in a glass case.

Fingers are crossed that the run away success of Guardians of the Galaxy signals the green light to further cinematic entries drawn from the hitherto untapped "cosmic" wing of the Marvel universe. With any luck we won't have to wait long to see Gladiator, or Annihilus, or maybe even Pip the troll on the big screen.

HAVING (HOPEFULLY) established that Guardians is an enjoyable jaunt through space well worth watching for the sheer fun of it, we would nonetheless be remiss if we said nothing about the movie's politics.

The number of humorless screeds with concluding sentences that read something like "ultimately [insert movie, book, or album name here] fails to recognize the need for proletarian self-emancipation" can be matched only by the proliferation of plodding, and often thin, attempts by those on the left to politically justify their cultural affinities through the discovery and defense of subversive themes. This review of the latest Beyoncé album is exemplary of the prior trend, while this review commits the second error in coming glancingly close to referring to Snowpiercer as Capital in dystopian-sci-fi-class-struggle-on-a-train form.

Socialists should not be driven by guilt to spit polish the politics of the cultural commodities that appeal to us--even if they promote conclusions that we would disagree with--nor should we feel compelled to demand a lucid class-conscious political analysis from a Hollywood film. What we need is less waxing nostalgic for Warren Beatty's Reds and more rigor and honesty when reviewing contemporary releases.

Long cautionary qualifier now out of the way, where does this leave our merry band of space-faring superheroes? Well, to begin with, it is worth pointing out that the entire conflict between Ronan the Accuser and the Nova Corps of Xandar that Quill and company get sucked into is, at base, a rehashing of the tired liberal narrative about The Dangers of Religious Extremism.

Ronan is a zealot who demands the eradication of an entire planet as revenge despite (or maybe because of? it's not entirely clear...) the fact that his people signed a peace treaty ending a longstanding conflict between the two civilizations. In case we weren't quite convinced that he's a bad guy, we're even treated to a scene where Ronan literally bathes in the blood of his enemies.

Then there's the Marvel Cinematic Universe's gender problem. The movie does, surprisingly, pass the Bechdel test, and also laudably (*spoiler alert*) resists the temptation to have Gamora fall for Star-Lord (a move that would have done such violence to her established comic book badassness that the rage of the betrayed geek tribe would have been as insatiable as the hunger of Galactus), but she is nonetheless the least-developed and most underutilized member of the superhero team.

In comparison to Pepper Potts, Maria Hill, Jane Foster, or the other second-stringers/love interests in the other Marvel Studios films, Gamora can certainly be counted as weary progress, but still illustrates the distance that needs travelling.

One could also use Guardians of the Galaxy as a jumping off point for a more "meta" political and economic analysis of the likely impact and potential problems that could come with Marvel Studio's march toward monopolization of the summer blockbuster genre. Yet, until such time that workers' control of Hollywood is on the agenda, this reviewer will consider such a consolidation as a positive development--if for no other reason than that it brings with it the possible marginalization of Michael Bay and his Luciferian quest to enslave and destroy every Saturday morning cartoon I loved as a 10-year-old child.

I MUST, therefore, concede the truth in the charge of the hardnosed and politically astute critics that this whimsical intergalactic romp will do nothing to bring us closer to the human liberation for which those of us on the left strive. My only riposte would be that we are quite desperate, indeed, if we are relying on a film starring a talking tree to bring us closer to this goal.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a good-natured, funny, and unapologetic escapist spectacle. It revels in its absurdity, trucks in well-worn (and effective) narrative clichés, and offers no profound insights into the nature of our society. And, most importantly, it is an absolute joy to watch. It is on those grounds that this movie can be defended and enjoyed. That said, if a space opera can be a soothing balm to temporarily numb the ache on our wrists from the chains we wear everyday, isn't that also something worth defending--even if in a qualified way?