Ryan Shoots First: Guardians

Guardians is Russia’s unabashed attempt at creating Russia’s Mightiest Heroes. Their very own Avengers. You may have seen the clips and trailers making their way around social media a few years ago. You know the one with the Giant Man-Bear. I love these kind of movies, when foreign films throw a decent budget and effort at a different take on what seems to be a very American genre. If you read my review of Iron Sky this feels much in the same vein but in a Nationalist Superhero Film way. It has all the hallmarks, grand swelling music, secret military organization, assembling a team to stop a maniacal villain with ties to the program, the agency is called Patriot and they have a nice logo on their blue uniforms. It’s themes you know in a different lens. For some backstory, during the Cold War the Soviet Union experimented on various people and animals in the hope of developing a team uniting all areas of the USSR. When things go haywire and it’s creator, Professor Kuratov, is presumably killed in a explosion at the Patriot facility, it is put on ice.

Now, Professor Kuratov is back with his own abilities and wants revenge. So the new leader of Patriot is tasked with “getting the band back together”. The team consists of Ler who can control earth and stone, Khan who can move at super speed, Ursus who is the aforementioned Giant Man-Bear and Kseniya who can transform her body into water and become invisible. Most of the team seem pretty ready willing and able to join the cause for Mother Russia expect Kseniya who has some memory loss. Things move pretty fast here but we need to get to the action, this film doesn’t get bogged down with too much build up like those boring American superhero films where we don’t see a costume until Act 2! It’s also funny to see almost no distrust of the Patriot organization and how willing everyone is to help. The movie really has a Pro-Nationalist feel to it.

The teams first outing reunited does not go so well and the team is captured, which features an excellent job on the part of Ursus of hiding a knife behind his back as he confronts the main villain only to not use it until the villain walks away and there is an obvious force field keeping them. What can you expect from a Giant bear though really? Team is not looking so great so far as our villain Professor Kuratov marches toward Moscow with his army of machines that he controls and clone army. If you have a clone army why you need to control all the machines pilotless is beyond me. What I learned from this film is even though Russian looks very large on a map or Globe it must actually be very small as the characters in this movie bounce back and forth all over the continent from city to city and base to base. Now after a montage where our heroes get back on their feet and get to try out their sick new superhero costumes they are on their way to Moscow, at least I think it is I don’t see any of the typical buildings movies show when they go to Moscow. This movie does feature the best “news reel cleanup” Scene in history as they go over the aftermath of the incident. One news anchor says “Those whose homes were not destroyed have happily returned home and those who were less fortunate will receive free housing as their homes are rebuilt” Good guy Russia. Oh and incase you are wondering, there is a end-credit scene teasing a sequel and expansion of the world. Unfortunately the movie was not well received in the homeland, it was universally panned but nonetheless a sequel is coming with co-production coming from China and Chinese actors being introduced.

Guardians attempts to capitalize on many of the Superhero genres tropes and in many ways it does and cranks them to 11. The problem is it also takes many of the Superhero genres pitfalls and amps them to 11, flimsy physics, thin characters, loopholes galore and non-compelling villain. I do give points to Guardians for trying and the runtime is fairly short so it’s not a huge investment and is not a hard watch by any means. The effects are solid and it’s just different enough to keep you going. It drags quite a bit in the middle when it tries to shoe horn some backstory to all the characters but hang in there and the final act is pretty entertaining and even has a super deus-ex machina Voltron ending. So gather cause in Mother Russia Guardians Assemble you!