The Guardians of the Galaxy spend time in Znamogda, a space station built in the skull of a dead Celestial (huge creatures who appeared in “The Eternals”). Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is worried about losing Gamora, Rocket (Bradley Cooper) is setting up a settlement with telekinetic dog Cosmo (Maria Bakalova). Well, Drax (Dave Batista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) decide to give a gift to a homesick Peter. Namely, they go to Earth to steal their buddy’s idol, actor Kevin Bacon (Kevin Bacon), and bring him back as a Christmas surprise.
James Gunn has been on forced leave from Marvel for the last couple of years – and during that break he shot several projects for their main comic book competitor, DC, and even managed to become creative director of the film universe there. But, most importantly, the director let his dark side loose: in the second “Suicide Squad” and “Peacekeeper” we saw the same Gunn of the “Souper” and “Porn for the Whole Family” times. The cynical 50-year-old who wasn’t quite allowed to run wild by the rigid vise of the Disney system. For the new “Watchmen,” James clearly came back a little refreshed, rested and, oddly enough, much kinder than ever before. It’s as if the pendulum rule had worked in his career – and after the bloody bacchanalia of DC projects, Gunn wanted to do something exactly the opposite.
The “Guardians” special both sneers at the clichés of the kind of spiritually uplifting Christmas movies – which Hollywood churns out in packs every year on networks like Lifetime – but also follows them rigorously. There’s the classic “saving the holiday” plot, where the sullen hero is bound to be reminded of the value of family and friends. There’s the cheesy atmosphere of a world where, in principle, nothing bad can happen. There is, after all, a hilarious song written especially for the movie. True, the aliens in it sing about Christmas as a strange tradition with Santa the domus.
Even the adventurous plot with Kevin Bacon’s kidnapping and battles with the police (as well as one very unlucky cosplayer) ends up twisting in the same gingerbread direction. The characters forgive everything at just the right moment, forget all problems, and do things purely out of sheer kindness. And it’s obvious that Gunn is perfectly aware of the naivete of his film – but, like any sensitive author of a world of victorious post-irony, he doesn’t let that awareness break him. “Holiday Special” accepts its own simplicity, winks at the viewer wryly, and still tells the endlessly touching story of two strange characters trying to make a friend feel good. Although they have no idea how to do it.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday SpecialsTrailer
The film proves that James Gunn knows how to remain himself even without any hint of transgression – he feels just as confident in the space of an innocuous Christmas movie as he does in a bawdy exploitation piece. But more importantly, “Holiday Special” is another example of how you can manage to maintain your individuality even in the face of the impersonal Disney Corporation. Of all the recent Marvel movies, it’s the 40-minute “Guardians” that seems the most human, lively and creative: there are even animated flashbacks done with rotoscoping (that’s when you draw over actual footage, as in Linklater’s “Blur”). It’s a shame that the company’s big movie comics rarely allow themselves even a fraction of the creative energy found in this little trivia special for small screens.