A Woman Under the Influence

A Woman Under the Influence; drama, USA, 1974; D: John Cassavetes, S: Geena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper, Lady Rowlands, Katherine Cassavetes

Los Angeles. A pipe break forces construction foreman Nick to stay all night at work, which cancels his plans to spend a romantic weekend with his wife, Mabel. Since she already sent her three kids away from their home to her mother's place, Mabel is disappointed and goes to meet a stranger in a bar, and then they become intimate at her home. The next morning, Nick and a dozen of his coworkers arrive at the home and Mabel makes spaghetti for them. Mabel is getting much more distraught, so a doctor sends her to a mental asylum to recover. Six months later, Nick and the relatives welcome Mabel back home, allegedly cured now. However, Mabel again starts acting nervously. The relatives leave. Mabel goes to the toilet and cuts her wrist with a razor, but Nick stops and slaps her. The kids go to bed, and Nick and Mabel calm down and tidy up the house.

Included in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, independent drama "A Woman Under the Influence" plays out more like a set of family home video episodes than a real film. The director and screenwriter John Cassavetes uses shaky, hand-held camera, telephoto lens, over-the-shoulder shots and huge close-up frames to conjure up a realistic, intimate and painfully authentic experience when the couple, Nick and Mabel, argue, without any music or larger artificial cinematic interventions, until the viewers can almost smell how it is to live there and then, though he does stumble here and there in some melodramatic scenes of Mabel's nervous breakdowns. "A Woman Under the Influence" plays out like a longer, less funny version of "Terms of Endearment", except that instead of a woman dying from cancer, here a woman is suffering from a psychosis. Geena Rowlands plays the character of a psychologically disturbed woman very well, yet do her random shenanigans hold up that well today? Not really. The dialogue is mostly bland, only intermittently saying something memorable ("Talk to your kids? They never listen."). At 2.5 hours the movie is too long, with too many excessive and unnecessary little details (a co-worker spills his spaghetti from the plate during the lunch sequence; an hour into the film, there is a sequence of a naked 5-year old girl running around the house, which should not have been displayed directly on the camera) that could have been cut, whereas the point at the end isn't that clear—is the message that a couple can drive each other crazy, go to various lows, experience a dramatic crisis, and then just bounce back to normal, as if nothing happened, because they developed an indestructible relationship plasticity? Yet its weird moments of humor and idiosyncratic behavior (Nick arrives with a dozen (!) corworkers at his home, unannounced (!), and Mabel now has to cook spaghetti for all of them; a coworker singing almost like in an opera during the spaghetti lunch, while Mabel tilts her head and curiously looks at his mouth) have some spark, and as weird or trivial as some situations look, you can identify with a lot of them.

Grade:++

Bone Tomahawk

Bone Tomahawk; western-horror, USA, 2015; D: S. Craig Zahler, S: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Lili Simmons, Richard Jenkins, Evan Jonigkeit, David Arquette

A frontier town int he Wild West, 19th century. Sheriff Hunt asks Samantha O'Dwyer to extract a bullet from a convict in his prison and thus stay there for the night with deputy Nick, while her husband Arthur with an injured leg stays behind in their home. The next morning, Hunt is shocked to find the prison empty and realizes everyone there was kidnapped by a deviant cannibalistic Indian tribe. Hunt, Brooder, Chicory and Arthur embark on a three day long ride to save them. One night, bandits steal their horses, forcing the quartet to continue their journey on foot, but Arthur stays far behind due to his limping. Arriving at the cave of the Indians, Hunt and Chicory are taken captive by them, while Brooder is killed. Just as an Indian is about to kill Hunt, Arthur appears and shoots the Indians. A wounded Hunt stays behind to shoot the remaining Indians, while Chicory, Arthur and Samantha escape and flee.

A strange mish-mash of "The Searchers" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", this western-horror flick is overall still a good film with some well-made sequences, though it gets weaker the more it steps into the splatter violence territory in the inevitably trashy finale. The fictional Indian tribe of cannibals who kidnapped people from a town and thus four cowboys embark on a journey to save them missed some potentials which could have created a creepy mood, though it is suspensful and one feels the burden of responsibility of said for rescuers. The best moments appear in the beginning when the character development in the small frontier town dominates the film, from a husband who tells his wife she looks "prettier than the cows" up to Sheriff Hunt (very good Kurt Russell) who sees right through a robber in a bar when he asks for his name, the man thinks for a while and then replies with "Buddy", so Hunt observes: "You hesitated there for a while". During the night, there is this dialogue: "What's the time?" .- "It must be around nine, but it feels like next week". However, the flaw is the middle part which lingers too much and too sadistically on Arthur limping on a crutch while walking through the desert, who constantly feels pain in his sick leg, which is excessive and pointless. In fact, Arthur becomes the symbol for the story itself, which is starting to limp by that point in its narrative. The final duel between the cowboys and cannibal Indians is banal in its violence, whereas the ending feels as if someone "stole" an epilogue, but the dedicated actors and competent directing are able to carry the film.

Grade:++

The Last Duel

The Last Duel; historical drama, UK / USA, 2021; D: Ridley Scott, S: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Ben Affleck, Dame Harriet Walter, Serena Kennedy

Normandy during the Caroline War, 14th century. French squire Jacques Le Gris arrives at the castle of squire Jean de Carrouges, demanding he pay his debts for the war taxes. In order to get some money, Jean marries Marguerite de Thibouville, and her dowry is several acres of land. However, Count Pierre seizes the land and gives it to Jacques. Jean cannot get Marguerite pregnant after five years of marriage, and he is absent to fight in far away battles. When he returns, Marguerite tells him that Jacques entered the castle under a false pretext and raped her. Jean challenges Jacques to a duel, even though these duels were outlawed by that time. If Jean is killed in the duel, Marguerite will be burned at the stake. In the duel, Jean kills Jacques. Marguerite gives birth to a child, presumably Jacques'.

The second screenplay written jointly by friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (with the help of filmmaker Nicole Holofcener) is good, but still weaker than their first and much more inspired effort, the endearing "Good Will Hunting". The dialogue is much more conventional this time around, missing that finesse and creativity. "The Last Duel" chronicles the real-life incident in 1386 when one of the last French duels were allowed to determine if Jacques Le Gris was guilty of the accusation of a rape of Marguerite de Thibouville (amazing Jodie Comer who is an astounding acting discovery), except that it is presented "Rashomon"-style, showing three chapters, each from the perspective of one of the three main characters: Jean, Jacques and ultimately Marguerite. The problem is that there are no huge surprises nor twists when a new chapter introduces the same event from a different perspective: in the first one, Marguarite claims Jacques raped her. In the second one, it is shown and thus confirmed that he indeed raped her. The third chapter again shows the rape from Marguerite's perspective, again confirming the same thing, and thus not much new is revealed. Ridley Scott again directs the film with flawless technical expertize: everything here is perfect from the technical perspective. And yet, it all feels somehow routine, sterile, mechanical and schematic. As if a certain wild energy needed to make a movie come to life is missing. One of the most absurd moments is when Jacques is questioned about the accusations of rape, mirroring the "MeToo" movement, and so he replies: "The accusation is false. Of course she made the customary protest, but she is a lady. It was not against her will." However, all the chapters indeed confirm he is guilty of rape, and thus there is not that much doubt or mystery for the rest of the story. A slightly overlong, but quality made reconstruction of the middle ages with a lot of attention to detail and great locations.

Grade:++

BlacKkKlansman

BlacKkKlansman; crime drama, USA, 2018; D: Spike Lee, S: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Jasper Pääkkönen, Ryan Eggold, Topher Grace, Alec Baldwin

In 1 9 7 2, Ron Stallworth, the first African American police officer in Colorado Springs, is ordered to spy on the rally of black rights activist Kwame Ture. There, Ron meets Patrice, president of Black Student Union, and starts dating her. However, Ron soon gets an even more explosive assignment: to spy on the Ku Klux Klan. Accidentally using his real name during a phone call with KKK member Walter, Ron persuades police officer Flip, a Jew, to pose as "Ron Stallworth" and personally meet KKK members. When KKK leader David Duke arrives to town to hold a speech, Ron is assigned as his bodyguard. A KKK member, a former convict, identifies Flip as a police officer. Ron stops a bomb assassination of Patrice. However, the superiors at the police department order Ron and Flip to end their investigation and destroy all the evidence they gathered against KKK.

Excellent detective investigation crime drama "BlacKkKlansman" (the title is sligthly misleading since the African American police officer Ron Stallworth is a fictional member of the KKK in name and phone voice only) is a gripping historical account of how an African American and a Jewish police officer infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, and it is invigorated by strong performances by John David Washington and Adam Driver. Spike Lee's direction and meditation on racism and xenophobia is luckily much more concise, objective in this edition, avoiding some of his previous too preachy or blatant accusations, and thus one gets the impression that every scene has its why and because, whereas the storyline is contemplative, true and genuine. Some memorable moments include Ron attending an African American rally where Kwame Ture delivers a strong speech: "It's time for you to stop running away from being black." Another is when the police chief comments on both Ron and Flip pretending to be Ron Stallworth: "Anything happens to one of my men, there won't be two Ron Stallworths. There'll be none." The scene when Ron is shocked when an FBI agent briefs him that they discovered the real names of two KKK members, and that two of them work in NORAD. The suspensful situation of a KKK meeting in a house where a suspicious KKK member wants to see if Flip is circumcised, so Ron interupts by randomly throwing something through the window and running away, causing a commotion. The only flaw is the anticlimactic ending: indeed, this is what happened in real life, but it still feels like all their efforts were wasted. Furthermore, there is an unnecessary epilogue featuring the 2017 Charlottesville car attack and speeches by then President Donald Trump which feels superfluous and like a stretch when connecting white supremacy in 2017 and white supremacy 45 years earlier as Ron Stallworth investigated it. It feels rather like a different movie that needs to be covered on its own terms. Otherwise, "BlacKkKlansman" is a remarkably well made film and reconstruction of an historical event.

Grade:+++

Black on White

Schwarz auf Weiss; comedy, Germany, 1943; D: E.W. Emo, S: Hans Moser, Elfriede Datzig, Hans Holt, Paul Hörbiger, Annie Rosar

In order for his teenage daughter Nelly not to flunk class for a third time, her father Eduard, a pastry chef, baits scholars with cakes to give Nelly private instructions in math and latin. Eduard is furious when a chimney sweep, Heinz, moves nearby, fearing that the soot will make his pastry dirty. Since Eduard only knows Heinz when he is dirty, a clean Heinz in a suit pretends he is a scholar to give Nelly private instructions, because he is in love with her. Due to a misunderstanding, Eduard thinks that Nelly's school teacher Klaus wants to marry her. When Klaus explains he has no such intention, Eduard quickly sums up Heinz at the engagement dinner, and thus Nelly is engaged.

One of Hans Moser's most famous films, "Black on White" is a light comedy where the comedian doesn't quite manage to rise to the occasion: he rather acts happy more than actually being funny. The main problem is that the screenplay wasn't that well written nor rich with jokes, and thus Moser carries the entire film by trying to improvise jokes, giving it more effort than was his duty. There are some amusing situations here, such as when the main protagonist Eduard, a pastry chef, is furious that his neighbor is a chimney sweep, fearing the soot will besmirch his cakes. Eduard exaggerates by showing everyone a cake with a dark spot on it, and even goes to the manager, showing his daughter's dress in a foil with a dark patch, as evidence of the chimney sweep's dirt. In another, Eduard brags how he baited one private instructor with streuselschnitte and the other with a cake. However, these are not enough to justify the movie, since everything feels thin. The love story between Nelly and the chimney sweep is neat and sweet, yet, just as it is the case with the jokes, these moments are today more convincing with their charm than with their inspiration and skill.

Grade:++

To Be the Dear God for Once

Einmal der liebe Hergott sein; comedy, Germany, 1942; D: Hans H. Zerlett, S: Hans Moser, Marie Christine Passecker, Lotte Lang, Fritz Odemar, Ivan Petrovich

Karl has been a hotel valet for 35 years, but now gets a chance to be something more: when the hotel manager has to leave for a day, Karl is left to take charge in his absence, which makes him feel like the God of the building. Karl gives a free hotel room to a poor actress and arranges an audition for her in front of a theater manager. Karl also tries to match a piano girl with an uninterested painter. He even tries to break-up a couple whom he thinks are done with their relationship. A thief, Pavlovitch, introduces himself as a detective and gains Karl's trust, only to rob jewelry from a guest, Elvira. Karl clumsily orders that all the hotel guests are summoned in the lobby and searched for stolen goods, but then the hotel director manager returns and fires him. Karl though books a room in the hotel and stays, only to find out Pavlovitch hid the jewelry in his suitcase. When Pavlovitch gets the jewelry again, he is arrested after leaving the hotel, so Karl is again hired to be the hotel valet.

One of only 15 feature films with an average grade of at least 7.0/10 or above on IMDb starring the sympathetic comedian Hans Moser, "To Be the Dear God for Once" is a gentle and light hotel comedy that dwells on the theme of what happens when someone's wish to be the boss comes true and said person realizes it is much more difficult and tough than expected. Hans Moser is charming and funny as the kind, but confusing Karl whose behavior and way of talking reminds of Sweetchuck from "Police Academy III", yet the whole movie is two categories below his talent, never managing to be anything more than just barely amusing. The opening act has Moser's typical comical skills when his Karl is watering the plants with a watering can, only to then drink some water from the can himself. The hotel manager also has this comical exchange with Karl: "Your upper button is open." - "I know. It's my personal touch." - "Does that also include your worn out shoes?" - "If you had been walking in those shoes the whole day, they would have been worn out, too." - "I told you to iron your pants!" - "It doesn't matter how wrinkled the trousers are, what matters is what heart beats in them!" Later on, Karl even opens the letters of a hotel guest, a Professor, because Karl has an agreement with him to not burden his weak nerves with "bad news", which Karl then just throws away. Sadly, the jokes start exhausting themselves already after 20 minutes, leaving only meager humor for the rest of the film, whereas the thin story and passive directing don't enrich the movie. It's not much, but at least it's a well meant, harmless fun with an enthusiastic lead.

Grade:++

Senso

Senso; drama, Italy, 1954; D: Luchino Visconti, S: Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Massimo Girotti, Heinz Moog, Rina Morelli, Christian Marquand, Sergio Fantoni

After the dissolution of the Republic of Venice in the Napoleonic Wars, the Austrian Empire ruled the region of Lombardy-Venetia from 1815-1866. Venice, 1866. An opera is interupted by a clash between Italian patriots and the Austrian soldiers, and one of the Italians, Roberto, is arrested. He is the cousin of countess Livia, who tries to plead with the Austrian officer Franz to acquit Roberto. Even though married to the older count Serpieri, Livia starts a passionate affair with Franz. The Third Italian War of Independence breaks out, with Italians wanting Lombardy-Venetia to unite with Italy, so Livia goes to her estate in Aldeno. Franz shows up there, and persuades her to give him money of the Italian rebels to bribe a doctor to get exempt from serving as a soldier. Later, Livia travels back to Venice to see Franz again, but only finds him with a prostitute in his apartment. She gives the letter of bribe to the Austrian officer who arrests and shoots Franz for desertion. 

Included in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, historical drama "Senso" could play in a double bill with Luchino Visconti's other film "The Leopard", which also explored the theme of Risorgimento (the unification of Italy in the 1860s), but also, at least partially, with "Obssession", except that here the gender roles are switched, and the older countess Livia is obssessed with passionate love for the younger man, Franz, who, though, just exploits her for her money. Unlike the overlong 3-hour "The Leopard", where Visconti's conventional style was not able to hold the attention of the viewers for so long, "Senso" has an ideal running time of two hours and is concise in displaying this rarely talked about historical era where the Lombardy-Venetia regions were under Austrian occupation, but strived for independence and unification with Italy. The movie has an elegant narration with smooth use of colors (bright colors in the first half, when Livia thinks Franz truly loves her; dark colors in the last third, when Livia discovers Franz is only after her money) and exterior shots of Venice, whose architecture is fascinating in any movie. 

Visconti assembled an allegorical story where Livia, an Italian, is the symbol for the Italian lands of Lombardy-Venetia still under the spell of Austrian officer Franz, the symbol for the Austrian occupation. The dialogue and the visual style are mostly conventional, though there are some remarkable lift-offs—for instance, as the war breaks out, the Italian rebel Roberto says to Livia: "We no longer have any rights, Livia, only duties. We must learn to forget ourselves." His idealism is contrasted with Franz's nihilism, who later says: "What is war, after all, if not the most conveniant means to force men to think and act in the way that most suits their leaders?" Livia will thus get disappointed in both the patriotism and love, whereas her break-up with the washed-up Franz in the end goes almost perfectly together with the Italian lands breaking all ties with the Austrian rule. Visconti doesn't dwell much on the war, except in two great sequences—one appears 89 minutes into the film, when three rows of Italian soldiers emerge behinds three rows containing a dozen haystacks, march towards the meadow, an Austrian cavalry spots them from above and starts running towards them down the hill. Another one appears 94 minutes into the film. While stumbling here and there from its too conventional style, "Senso" is a clever, cultured, sophisticated and ambitious historical parable tied to a private affair of the couple.

Grade:+++

Detour

Detour; crime / film noir, USA, 1945; D: Edward G. Ulmer, S: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Edmund MacDonald, Claudia Drake, Tim Ryan

Pianist Al Roberts is surprised when his girlfriend, singer Sue, decides to leave New York for Hollywood to try to make it as an actress. After a while, he phones her and says he is going to Hollywood, too, for them to get married. Unemployed, Al hitchhikes along his trip. He is picked up in a car by Haskell, a man who tells him about his feud with his father whom he hasn't seen for 15 years. During a rainy night, while Al was driving, he noticed Haskell died in his sleep. Assuming the police wouldn't believe him, anyway, Al hides the body in the bushes, and takes Haskell's wallet and identity. Al reaches California and picks up hitchhiker Vera, who recognizes the car and figures Al isn't Haskell. Vera uses this knowledge to try to blackmail Al into pretending he is Haskell to get the inheritance of Haskell's dying, rich father, but Al refuses. Al pull the phone cord to try to disconnect the phone when Vera said she will call the police, but later on found out the cord accidentally strangled Vera. Al returns to wondering, until he is picked up by the police.

Included in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, independent film noir "Detour" was too good to have been forgotten, since it has more than enough flair and skill to seem fresh at times even today. However, its too short running time of 67 minutes leaves the impression as if someone "stole" the last third of the story, since the ending comes abruptly, just as the plot gained momentum. The director Edward G. Ulmer crafts a fine distillation of film noir elements, slowly but steadily building up an engaging narrative told in flashbacks of the anti-hero Al (very good Tom Neal). The film follows the unemployed Al traveling as a hitchhiker from New York (!) to Los Angeles, to meet his girlfriend Sue again, and his pessimistic narration has some juicy lines and clever observations ("Money. You know what that is, the stuff you never have enough of. Little green things with George Washington's picture that men slave for, commit crimes for, die for. It's the stuff that has caused more trouble in the world than anything else we ever invented, simply because there's too little of it"). The bizarre plot tangle where he is picked up in a car by Haskell, who dies in his sleep, seemingly of a stroke, so Al takes on his identity by default, is the point at which the movie engages the viewers to the fullest, taking them in as accomplices to Al's suspicious conspiracy. Vera, who figures out Al isn't Haskell, also has several great lines here and there: "Shut up! You're making noises like a husband!" Unfortunately, just as their crime collaboration appears to be heading into one direction, it is abruptly cut short to a full stop due to a rather unconvincing murder at the end, whereas, frustratingly, the character of Sue simply "disappears" from the film when she should have appeared in the finale, maybe as a part of this conspiracy to go even further. One simply gets the impression that this finale left out the third act, a climax, which aggravates a bit the high impression established up to it.

Grade:++

Mia and Me: Hero of Centopia

Mia and Me: Hero of Centopia; live action-animated fantasy, Germany / Australia / Belgium / India, 2023; D: Adam Gunn, S: Margot Nuccetelli, Dave Willetts, David Kunze (voice), Melanie Hinze (voice), Gedeon Burkhard (voice)

Mia and her grandfather travel via a car to a resort near a coast. However, her vacation cannot last long since the fantasy land Centopia is invaded by the army of a toad, Toxor, who uses purple gas to transform everyone into his brainwashed, blue minion. Mia transforms into an elf and enters Centopia again, joining forces with her unicorn Lyra, warrior Iko and clumsy inventor Phuddle. Mia finds out her deceased parents came from Centopia. She uses special stones to transform Toxor into a normal, good personality, and thus saves Centopia. Mia returns back to the real world and goes to jump with her grandfather into the sea.

Seven years after the live action-animated fantasy TV series "Mia and Me" concluded, this feature length film was made, yet such a long pause wasn't unfortunately used by the screenwriters to conjure up an especially inspired plot. "Mia and Me: Hero of Centopia" is disappointingly thin and meager, capitulating too much towards the routine, offering only the bare minimum: Mia travels to Centopia, defeats the bad guy, leaves, the end. It's all too schematic, without any layer of ingenuity, humor or creativity to upgrade and enrich such a standard good vs. evil story. A big problem is that 90% of the movie plays out in the computer-animated fantasyland Centopia, while only 10% are invested into the live action segment. In the TV series, the live action parts were always the best, having charming moments of Mia trying to find excuses to leave from school or trying to keep her elf identity a secret from other students. By having only two characters appear in the live action segment, Mia and grandfather, this was too little to have better character dynamics or interaction. No students, no school, no other characters. The animated segment is too straight-forward, featuring only generic fighting of the characters against the villain, while attempts at humor are mostly a hit-or-miss affair, except for one good joke, the one involving a unicorn that can talk, so he demonstrates that he knows also other languagues of ducks, pigs and crabs, yet he admits that crabs don't speak but just make "noises".

Grade:+

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3; science-fiction action, USA, 2023; D: James Gunn, S: Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper (voice), Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Chukwudi Iwuji, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel (voice), Sean Gunn, Elizabeth Debicki, Will Poulter, Nico Santos, Sylvester Stallone, Tara Strong (voice)

Guardians of the Galaxy have settled at Knowhere. Adam, a warrior of the Sovereigns, attacks and wounds Rocket, but is chased away by Nebula. The Guardians realize they cannot make a surgery on Rocket because he is implanted with a kill switch in his body, so they go to Orgcorp space station to get a code to nullify it. Rocket remembers his origins: he was a normal raccoon who was given intelligence in an animal testing lab led by scientist High Evolutionary, who wants to create perfect humans, and only uses animals to die by the thousands in his experiments to further his goal. Rocket is saved and thus joins Star-Lord, Groot, Drax, Mantis and a new Gamora to battle High Evolutionary, who created a Counter-Earth populated with humanoid animals in towns, but orders to have the planet exploded because he wasn't satisfied with the result. The Guardians arrest High Evolutionary, while the lab-created children and test animals are evacuated from his space ship. Star-Lord returns to Earth and finds his grandfather is still alive, while Mantis leaves to find herself. Drax is left to raise the lab kids on Knowhere.

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" is better than the weak part II, yet still weaker than part I, and is definitely the most contemplative, complex and tragically emotional edition to the film series. It has a muddled, but fascinating plot which sounds like an inversion of the devo chamber from the '93 "Super Mario Bros." movie, showing a villain, High Evolutionary, who is trying to evolve animals into intelligent anthropomorphic beings in order to use that knowledge to evolve humans into a perfect species, thus posing several uncomfortable questions about achieving ideal goals through mass pain and suffering via exploitation of disposable "others". Its hidden theme is surprisingly subversive: animal testing in laboratories, and how their suffering is "invisible" to humans, indicating specism. Part III is thus not that funny anymore as its original, and features one unexpectedly melancholic-touching sequence, the one where a dying Rocket has a vision of heaven where he is reunited with otter Lylla and his animal friends, which is something on a level of sadness that no other Marvel film managed to achieve. Overlong, overburdened by too many subplots and heavy-handed in certain moments, part III still works in its scarce, but welcomed scenes of humor. One of the best examples is when Star-Lord insults the "facelift" High Evolutionary by comparing his face to RoboCop and Skeletor. Drax reciting Mantis' words to Star-Lord, but then he randomly starts to improvise: "Yesterday, I made a poop shaped like a fish. Even my butt is capable of making an analogy." Star-Lord trying to charm an alien secretary by presenting himself as "Patrick Swayze". The action fight of the Guardians storming the entrance of the henchman 117 minutes into the film and the ensuing shootout are filmed in a great two-minute scene in one take. Despite a strange shift in tones and meandering directions, part III is a worthy conclusion of the saga: James Gunn is ahead of the curve in the superhero genre.

Grade:++