Guardians of the Galaxy

After a brief prologue, Guardians of the Galaxy kicks off with likable star Chris Pratt basically re-creating the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark while boogieing to '70s soft rock. So far, so good. Then, Michael Rooker shows up as a blue-faced alien scoundrel. This you must know: while the presence of Michael Rooker is not a guarantee of quality, it is a guarantee of awesomeness. Boom. I'm in.

Soon enough, here comes Zoe Saldana, reigning queen of the big-budget science fiction adventure, put into immediate conflict with Doctor Who's Karen Gillan. We are cooking.

Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't squander its early goodwill. It takes its simple MacGuffin chase of a plot and layers it with yet more endearing characters; clever homages to films as diverse as Pulp Fiction, Slither, Footloose, and Howard the Duck; and loads and loads of well-played banter. All of this adds up to a light, fun, and exciting space opera that had my whole family laughing out loud and rocking along for a solid two hours.

As I write about it, however, I find that I'm having trouble sinking my teeth into it.  It's bouncy.  It's fun.  I'll enjoy seeing it again when it hits Netflix.  But it doesn't give me much to think about.  It's the cotton candy of movies.

That said, I like cotton candy.  Guardians of the Galaxy worked for me.

The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie is clever, visually pleasing, and flat-out hilarious. My wife and I have been quoting it back and forth to each other for weeks.

The film begins as a relatively straightforward action-adventure, albeit with a Lego twist. The cleverness comes from two sources: the gags, which seem mostly to consist of taking down mainstream culture in general (a bold move for a mainstream film) and Batman in particular, and the structure. I particularly enjoyed all the digs at the Caped Crusader, whom I've always found to be a ridiculous character better suited to Adam West than Christian Bale. It's difficult to praise the film's structure without getting into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that the movie takes everything you know about how these movies go, inverts it, then twists it sideways. It works, it's seamless, and it's wonderfully creative. I loved it.

Visually, The Lego Movie looks great. In fact, I've never seen a film animated quite like this one. It looks like a computer rendering of stop-motion animation using actual, used Legos, some of which appear to have been scavenged from one of the piles on my kids' bedroom floor. Some light research tells me that filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller (of the hilarious 21 Jump Street and good-enough Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) employed a computer program that modeled how actual bricks to fit together to ensure that most everything shown onscreen can actually be built. The effect? A palpable sense of wonder.

Finally, The Lego Movie is hilarious. Now, I'm an easy laugh – when my wife and I used to frequent comedy clubs, we'd always get seated right up front because laughter's infectious. That said, I laughed out loud throughout this film. From little gags like Abraham's Lincoln's unique mode of transportation to Will Arnett's 90-minute Batman parody, this picture scores again and again and again.

In short, everything about The Lego Movie is awesome. I can't wait for Lord & Miller's next picture.