Zoë Saldaña – Action Hero Movies

This move gets off to a bad start, with a boring-come-irritating drama scene that attempts to conjure up a traumatic experience while building a backstory for the main character. Fortunately this only lasts a few minutes, and then the better stuff gets underway.

Chris Pratt (with vibes of Seann William Scott) stars as Peter Quill – the main man in this movie. He’s a fun character with convincing acting, and carries the occasional moment of humour very well too.

Dave Bautista adds substantial value as a strong powerful ally called Drax The Destroyer, although he gets beaten easily by the main antagonist called Ronan – himself played quite well by Lee Pace with a massive dose of CGI and masking up so much that we can’t really see who he is.

Zoë Saldaña (star of Colombiana, 2011) is the main female in this movie. She’s a green woman called Gamora, and a trained killer. She joins the team of misfits, to save the galaxy, and has the odd moment of romance with Chris Pratt’s character. Her performance is adequate but nothing outstanding. She wears heavy makeup including some bits to make her look less human.

Michael Rooker plays Yondu, the head of the Ravagers, quite well.

Bradley Cooper provides the voice of Rocket, the bounty hunting raccoon; and Vin Diesel provides the voice of Groot, the talking, walking warrior tree.

Considering the ratio of tedious drama to exciting action, the ratio of easy viewing to irritating viewing, the general quality of acting, the half-smooth half-muddled script, and the general strength of cinematography, I have to rate this movie Bang Average, on a par with Captain America 1 and 2.

But if Chris Pratt had some kind of super power or incredible talent that made him special, and the main crew were not a bunch of weird alien misfits, this movie could have more of a classical superhero vibe, but as it stands it’s far more casual than exciting (when it’s not a noisy mess of drama). Although it has the odd bit of good action and the odd bit of good humour, it’s hard to get behind the main characters, some of whom are not even human, and most are weird looking beastly aliens with bright red, blue or green skin. I wouldn’t even call it childish, I’d call it too goofy or wacky-minded to relate to, and too nonchalant to really get behind. Thus, although some parts belong in a much more highly rated movie, the overall production is so full of pros & cons, it ultimately boils down to a Bang Average action hero movie by Marvel Studios. Having said that, after a long tedious patch, the ending is pretty strong and shows the specialness in Pratt’s character Peter Quill for the first time, as well as another level of ability in his main comrades (Saldaña’s Gamora, Bautista’s Drax and Cooper’s raccoon) as they’re officially dubbed the Guardians Of The Galaxy by the main antagonist, Ronan. Question is, why so late? Why suffer two hours of weak drama for one strong ending? There should have been more bits like that, to prevent this movie getting lost between genres and never surpassing mediocrity in either genre. With a few more scenes like that, this movie could have easily gone up several rating levels.

Credit also goes to Josh Brolin who barely recognisably plays Thanos (with the help of ample makeup & CGI) – the most powerful being in the universe, and Ronan’s boss (until Ronan acquired the infinity stone). Prior to Guardians, Thanos also appeared in Avengers (2012) where he was played by Damion Poitier instead; then Josh Brolin took over the role of Thanos for every subsequent movie until Avengers: Endgame (2019) where he dies.

Sequels

Next up, if you’re following all Marvel movies in order, is Avengers 2: Age Of Ultron (2015) featuring a multitude of superheroes just like the first Avengers movie from 2012, including Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow and more, but no Peter Quill or anyone from the Guardians movie series yet, although Avengers 3: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers 4: Endgame (2019) both feature the entire Guardians team. Or if you just want to skip to the next true dedicated Guardians movie where Chris Pratt and his team of misfits get all the screen time, that would be Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 (2017). There’s also a Guardians 3 (2023) in case you’re going down that route.

Colombiana stars Zoe Saldaña as Cataleya (after a 30 minute backstory where someone else plays her younger self).

Zoe Saldaña is perhaps best known for being the main blue chick in the Avatar movie series, as well as the main green chick in the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies. She also played Uhura in the Star Trek movies. But as strong as all her other roles were, nothing tops her performance in the lead role of Colombiana so far as action hero movie connoisseurs like myself are concerned.

From its well crafted opening with great patience, sound effects, camerawork and cast members (including Amandla Stenberg who expertly plays a young version of Cataleya, plus Cliff Curtis who quite well plays her uncle Emilio living in USA, Jordi Mollà who quite well plays the main baddie early on, and many other strong supporting cast members)… To its smooth yet committed plot development that scarcely fails to retain the viewer’s fixated attention (especially for first time viewers but quite effectively for occasional rewatchers also)… Colombiana is an understated memorable near-masterpiece as far as female assassin movies go.

Lennie James also puts in a strong performance as the FBI agent in charge of identifying, tracking down and capturing Cataleya.

Colombiana has a simplistic plot, but it’s generally well executed with great tempo, acting and effects all round. When a less captivating scene starts to drag on too long, it tends to change pretty quickly soon after, in order to relieve the frustration, so boring bits are scarce and short at the worst of times – credit to the directors for that.

Having said that, the chunky middle of the movie is by far the best of it; stylistically reminiscent of Jessica Alba in the Dark Angel sci-fi series. The start, and even more so the long action scene near the end, are a bit gritty and one-dimensional, which can get tedious for frequent rewatchers of this movie. So while I would rate the majority of this movie ‘very good’ alongside the best male-led assassin movies like The Equalizer, Hitman, and The Transporter; due to its weaker ending (sure, it’s got a long & loud action scene, but that’s not everything) I have to shave the edge off it and rate this movie overall as merely ‘pretty good’ alongside the best female-led action hero movies like Wonder Woman and Ghost In The Shell, which is no poor achievement by any means – they’re still fairly strong movies, quite well made.