Colin Downey’s The Shadows, or Guardians of the Crown as it’s known on UK DVDs, is a 2014 Irish “film” based on the novel by George MacDonald. There’s nothing I can say to prepare you for this so let’s just get into it.
The first few seconds of the film make it look quite nice, with the opening of a storybook, sweeping shots of mountains and soft-spoken narration, but then we get our main villain Geldren (Natalia Kostrzewa) acting through the whites of her eyes. It’s so unintentionally funny!
We’re introduced to the world in which the story is told: there’s an evil witch frozen in ice and a race of shadow-people living in the mountains. The shadows are clearly actors that have been shot in front of a greenscreen, turned completely black and imposed onto photographs of caves. The story begins when the Shadow Prince (Samuel Homan) goes to the lair of the white witch Geldren to free her. It’s pretty obvious by the way it’s shot that he’s moving towards a greenscreen, and when he opens the door to Geldren’s hovel, the sound effect for the door does not match at all. Geldren asks for her crown, but the Prince didn’t bring it, so, because she has no further use for him, she kills him. I dunno, you might still have use for him. He is a prince, after all.
I will say that the visual effect of ice melting off of Geldren’s fingers was pretty good. The only other time it looks visually interesting is when the camera tracks up through the earth. The rest of the VFX is mostly ready-made mist effects, making it look really fake.
The film transitions to the human world, where a young boy named Matthew (Lorcan Melia) and his mother (GraInne McHale) are going to stay with his granny (Irene Wright). You know those people who never close their mouth, it’s always open, and it’s really uncomfortable? That’s this kid, and I wish we didn’t get SO MANY close-ups of him, especially extreme close-ups of his mouth.
The next morning when Matthew wakes up, in one shot he’s laying on his side and in the very next shot he’s getting up from lying on his back. In this scene and scenes that follow throughout the movie, one shot will have soft lighting and in the next the lighting is harsh. The colour grading also goes from dim to bright from shot to shot. During night scenes everything is coloured naturalistically or blue, and then everything goes purple for no reason and then back to blue. Continuity is one of the most basic things you learn about when it comes to visual storytelling, and this movie has none of that.
While playing in the garden, Matthew cuts his hand on a trap door. The following night, one of the shadows reaches out and heals his hand. The next day, Matthew reads a map left behind by his grandfather; it reads, “In the woods there is a tree.” Yeah, no ****, Sherlock! But anyway, he notices that his hand his healed, and the film flashes back to the imagery of him hurting his hand, as if we needed to be reminded of what happened only two minutes ago!
Matthew finds a key to open the trap door and enters the hideout of the shadow-man Yorrick (Michael Parle). The first whole minute of Yorrick’s introduction is shot at completely the same angle, facing the camera, and the way he is lit, plus the fact that he reads all his lines in this really soft-spoken tone, makes him look really creepy, especially when approaching this little boy. In fact, all the mystical characters – the shadows and Geldren the witch – speak entirely in whispers or quiet tones. It’s sometimes hard to understand what they’re saying.
Yorrick shows Matthew the treasure he is protecting. He waves his hand over a glowing rock and says, “By the light of the shadow crystal” – WHICH MAKES NO SENSE – and reveals the Shadow Crown, and it’s just some generic item you would probably buy in a costume shop or a dollar store. Seriously, I know this is a low-budget film, but if we’re going to take this magic MacGuffin seriously, the least the filmmakers could do is actually design it so it stands out. Yorrick also tells of the great Shadow Elder, who came to the world of men and eventually ascended to a higher form of consciousness where his shadow now shines white, WHICH MAKES NO SENSE!
Yorrick takes Matthew to the surface where they’re hunted by the woodsman Alexander (Eddie Webber). Alexander finds Matthew and the crown, saying, “I know someone who will pay handsomely for this,” followed by the image of Geldren glaring straight into the camera. It’s bad enough that this film is so incompetent, but it seems to think that the audience is incompetent too. In a sequence of quick cluttered shots, Yorrick sneaks up on Alexander and knocks him out by throwing a rock. If you look closely, you can see that the rock is a PNG image being moved across the frame, and when Alexander falls, the sound effects are those of metal pans, not of a man falling on some twigs. It’s so stupidly funny! Yorrick puts an image in Alexander’s mind of being caught in a “shadow trap,” and the effects used are just not good. Alexander’s opacity is off and he’s shaking his body in a silly way while holding his arms in a weird position.
Back in the hideout, Matthew is introduced to Alice (Emma Eliza Regan), his “shadow guardian”. The shadow-people use the word “shadow” a lot, don’t they? It’s implied that Matthew is infatuated with Alice, and… I’m deeply uncomfortable discussing the romantic or manic feelings between a child and an adult, even if it is one-sided on the child’s part. Usually with something like this, the healthy message is for the child to abandon attraction to the adult until he is older, but if anything Alice actually enables this behavior.
Alexander goes to see Geldren, his mistress with whom he is infatuated, and she’s wearing some tall cylindrical headdress. She wants to know the future, so she picks up a small vial and speaks to a trapped miniature man (Trevor Downey in a horrible fake moustache (or at least I hope it’s fake)). I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but do you want to know why this guy’s so small? It’s not an enchantment. He’s a dwarf… They’re not that small, guys!
Using Geldren’s magic, Alexander sneaks into the hideout where Yorrick and Alice are sleeping, uses a potion to prolong their sleep, finds the Shadow Crown, and uses a mirror to summon Geldren. As he recites the incantations to summon her, we see that same shot of Geldren glaring at the camera. What can you do but laugh? Meanwhile, Matthew’s mother and granny go into town and let Matthew stay at home on his own. His mother’s clearly worried about him, but she leaves him alone anyway. Lazy writing makes lazy parenting. Matthew goes to the hideout again where the Yorrick and Alice are sleeping, finds the crown (even though Alexander already found it), and is confronted by Geldren. Geldren threatens the boy, takes the crown and teleports away, saying she will spare him, and that Yorrick and Alice will sleep for as long as she wants. Not only is this a cliché, it’s also inconsistent with her character. Geldren is supposed to be completely evil; she kills her benefactors, but not her enemies, not children, and allows Yorrick and Alice to wake up instead of letting Alexander kill them or killing them herself.
After Yorrick and Alice come to, they tell Matthew about Geldren and send him home. As Matthew is crawling through the tunnel to get home, he starts thinking about the scones he’d have when he gets home. Neither Matthew, Yorrick nor Alice seems to have any sense of urgency. They’ve failed their mission and now their most precious magical artifact is in the hands of their enemy, but they don’t act like it’s a big deal. There’s no desperation to get it back or report to the Shadow Elder, and Matthew’s life is made no more difficult for this so-called “development”.
We’re introduced to Matthew’s teacher Bob (Robert Bannon), and it’s a very awkward and claustrophobic introduction. During the scene where he and the mother are talking and hitting it off, it keeps cutting to Matthew, supposedly to illustrate his discomfort with his mum showing interest in a new man, but in terms of performance, he shows no reaction. He looks blank or bored.
There’s a night scene (with the colour grading going from blue to purple in between shots) where Alice comes to Matthew. Most of the shots of Matthew have been reused from earlier in the film. The kid is given so little direction to the point that, from an editing standpoint, there’s nothing to work with and any given shot of him is interchangeable. To be fair, Geldren also gets this treatment to some degree. Plus, Alice only communicates through whispers, so it’s hard to understand her when she exposits information.
Over at the witch’s lair, Geldren finds she cannot use the crown and now for some reason she is dying. Earlier in the film, Yorrick said that should the crown fall into evil hands, “the destructive forces of the world will hold sway”. Yorrick also said the power of the crown may only be wielded by the purest soul, so from the beginning there’s absolutely no consequence if Geldren gets her hands on it. When Geldren eventually gets the crown, not only are there no destructive forces holding sway as a result, but her black heart prevents her from using its powers. If that’s the case, why did she want it in the first place? Did she not know about its requirements? Well, if the shadow-people hadn’t kept that tidbit a secret, maybe she wouldn’t try to steal it in the first place! Apart from the witch being a physical threat there’s nothing else at play here. She’s hyped up as a threat to the world, but when you get right down to it, the stakes are substantially lower than that. It doesn’t make her look like the most evil being on Earth – it makes her look like a pathetic idiot!
Geldren has an inner monologue about her desire to rule the shadows, and it’s just terrible. She keeps glaring and showing off the whites of her eyes, and even her thoughts sound like whispers. There’s no fury. There’s no direction.
One line of dialogue in this movie really irked me. Matthew’s mother comes to his bedroom door to tell him dinner’s ready; Matthew asks what’s for dinner, and she replies, “I got fresh peas for you.” Is…Is that it? You’re just gonna have peas? It doesn’t go with anything? You’re gonna malnourish you kid, ma’am!
Finally, after I-don’t-know-how-long, Geldren figures out that “the one who would destroy [her]”, Matthew, is the one destined to wear the Shadow Crown, and plans to capture the boy to take control of the crown, however that works. I’ve never known a character to have so many worthless inner soliloquies. When the dwarf-in-a-jar objects, she hits the jar with a stick and says, “Never interrupt an evil genius at work.” Lady, if the plot of this movie is any indication, there are no geniuses here.
The Shadow Elder comes to Yorrick and Alice to give them the Serpent’s Tongue, a knife that can kill the white witch, and reveals (completely unprompted) that he is Matthew’s grandfather, illustrated by a picture of George Briscoe’s face momentarily imposed on the Shadow Elder’s head. The effect looks terrible.
Geldren transports herself into Matthew’s bedroom to take him away but Yorrick and Alice intercept with the magical blade in hand. Geldren disarms Yorrick and controls his mind to try to kill Alice, keeping Matthew in place with some sort of telekinesis. Through the power of…well, nothing, really…Matthew breaks free of his bonds, creeps up behind Geldren and trips her up so she falls on the Serpent’s Tongue. Our villain, ladies and gentlemen! The most evil witch to plague to world, and she goes out like a *****.
After Matthew reconciles with Bob, the film closes with Matthew meeting his grandfather (and the abominable special effects that comprise him) and claiming the Crown of Light. Don’t know what they’re going to do with the Shadow Crown – I guess it wasn’t important. Way to go, kid! You have done NOTHING throughout this entire movie, and now you get to be king!
I don’t feel right calling this thing a film or a movie – I only do so for convenience. Everything about it is done wrong. The Cambridge Film Festival describes it as “a spellbinding adventure” and “an enchanting film”, which immediately makes me doubt anything the Cambridge Film Festival has to say about anything. The DVD for this thing has the gall to have on it the trailer for Imaginaerum: The Other World (Stobe Harju, 2012), a far superior movie with much more competent cinematography, editing, performances, writing, mise-en-scène, special effects and stylistic execution, made by one of the greatest heavy metal bands of today, Nightwish, who featured in the film and provided its soundtrack. It pains me that footage from that movie is on this DVD, as if that film and this are even tangentially related in some way. If you want to see Guardians of the Crown, only do so to laugh at how bad it is, but whatever you do, don’t pay money for it. I bought it in Morrisons for £3 back in 2017 and I still feel dirty for having done it. Unlike with my usual reviews, I’m not going to expend the effort to write a conclusion. Instead, I defer to my younger self:
“Only 15 minutes into this movie and I utterly despise it. Let me count the ways! Your cinematography is obnoxious, your camera lenses are nauseating, your editing feels like it was done by a monkey, your colour correction and colour grading is inconsistent if not non-existent, your special effects are on par with YouTube videos, your lighting is horrendous, your sound design is laughable, the acting is awful and your writing and dialogue is beyond lazy! WORST. MOVIE. EVER.”
Sarik Andreasyan’s Защитники (Zashchitniki), or Guardians, is a 2017 Russian superhero movie about a group of superhuman individuals, the remnants of a Soviet genetics program, who are called upon by the secret organization Patriot to avert the plans of a mad scientist. As a fan of superheroes in general, I was interested in seeing this film in the cinema, to see how Russian cinema would handle an original Russian superhero team, but never got the chance due to a lack of screenings in the UK. The film received highly negative critical feedback in Russia and while it debuted at the top of the Russian box office it quickly bombed thereafter, with many considering it to be one of the worst films ever made.
The movie stars Sebastien Sisak as Ler, who can manipulate earth, Sanjar Madi as Khan, who can apparently move “close to velocity of light” (according to the opening credits) while wielding two enormous crescent-shaped sickle-blades, Anton Pampushnyy as Arsus, who can transform into a bear either partially or fully, Alina Lanina as Ksenia, who can turn invisible, and Valeriya Shkirando as Major Elena Larina, assigned head of Patriot. All the super-powered characters in the story also have an ability where their aging has been slowed to a halt.
Before I get to the movie itself, I want to mention some aspects of the press kit. The tagline for this movie is “A squad of Soviet superheroes”, which doesn’t really inspire much confidence, does it? Besides, as far as I can tell, if ever these characters had any allegiance to the USSR back in the Cold War, there’s no indication that they’ve held to this allegiance since, so the tagline is both uncomfortable and misleading. The blurb on the back of the DVD box gives a detailed description into the alternative history and origins of the Guardians, but this information is barely referenced in the movie itself.
The film starts with just over a minute of studio logos. After that, the film opens with a military weapons test packed with exposition involving these three-legged robots that are never named in the entire movie. The villain, August Kuratov (Stanislav Shirin), takes control of the robots, some things blow up, and the movie goes straight into more exposition where it’s just one guy talking for two minutes and forty-two seconds. It’s possibly the most on-the-nose exposition I’ve ever seen in a movie.
Forty years ago, Kuratov stole the research to the genetic research used to make the Guardians. When the Russian military tracked him down, he detonated his own laboratory and the chemicals therein gave him superhuman strength along with the Guardians’ longevity. Kuratov has invented something called “Module-1”, which also allows him to control motorised vehicles wirelessly. Now, with anti-realist fiction like this, a degree of suspension of disbelief is required. For example, in Marvel Comics, long before it was revealed that the X-Men’s mutations were the result of godlike alien experiments, audiences were willing to accept that their powers were simply the result of natural evolution. If you can suspend your disbelief that far, even knowing that’s not how evolution works, you could accept that 20th Century genetic experiments could bestow powers onto human beings. I still question how Khan can run near light speed without causing a nuclear reaction or even breaking the sound barrier, but what really bothers me is Kuratov. The work needed to create the Guardians must have been grueling, so for this guy to just blow himself up and get a physique that can outpace the Guardians without any danger of physical, chemical or biological instability is a stretch. And then there’s his Module-1. How did he get that thing plugged into the back of his head? Who did the surgery to make his brain compatible with electronics? Was it one of his clones? (Oh yeah, he built a clone army of himself.) The clones never display any intelligence beyond having a gun and a pair of legs. The device itself is kind of fascinating. There’s no allusion to how it works other than the image of him zapping whatever vehicle he wants and taking instant control of it. This includes the unnamed three-legged robots. Does Module-1 use radio waves? Even if that were so, how does Kuratov get by the defensive software that these robots should surely have? Even more impressive is when he takes over simple things like trucks and forklifts. Based on what we see, he can actually manipulate electrical fields with such precision (and while barely paying attention) that he can physically move the mechanisms in the vehicles. These powers have massive implications: telekinesis, electrical manipulation (including ionised electrical blasts), magnetism manipulation… The potential applications of a device like this are extraordinary. Technology manipulation alone is a versatile ability, but it’s disappointing that the filmmakers didn’t take it further with what this device is capable of.
Getting back to the story, Larina goes out into the world looking for the Guardians, and one by one they are introduced into the team. When we meet Ler, he’s established as a Christian hermit who’s left behind the conflicts of his past, but when he hears that Kuratov is still alive he immediately joins the mission. No sooner are Khan and Arsus introduced (through nothing more than a display of their superpowers) than they are recruited and the film moves onto the next scene. Ksenia is the only one to have anything remotely interesting to do with her character at that point – she has amnesia, she’s tired of running and she wants to know more about her past. The team is immediately sent on a mission together, and this is a huge problem because the audience knows nothing about these characters – neither who they are nor what their team synergy is like. We have ONE LINE of banter between Ler and Khan, and the implication that Ksenia and Arsus were in a relationship once, and that’s it. Ler’s faith is never referenced again. Ksenia’s amnesia has barely any influence on the plot or character interactions until the very end of the film.
So these people have lived for forty years moving from place to place, hiding their identities and trying to stay off the grid. Yet as soon as they’re sent on a very dangerous mission, they split up stand around (or move slowly) in the open – no attempt at a stealthy approach – and of course they all end up getting captured. Even Ksenia, who mentions she has the power to control her own body temperature, is clearly visible to the armed guards wearing thermographic goggles! Khan gets hit with a tranquiliser dart despite him being able to move at near light speed, Arsus gets caught in a net, and Ler is overpowered by Kuratov. It’s almost like they had no strategy! I expect more from the Russian military!
So Arsus, Khan and Ksenia are in a cell together, and for some reason Arsus still has his knives with him! Did they not get searched when they were captured? I thought the villain was some kind of super-genius! Kuratov, in one of the most clichéd moves ever, offers the heroes a chance to join him. He gives them 24 hours to decide, but after he sets off to enact the rest of his plans, the three of them are still in their cell where Larina rescues them! Let me reiterate: in another of the most clichéd moves that a supervillain can make, he leave the heroes alive, giving them the chance to escape and cause problems for him later!
So you may be wondering, if Arsus, Khan and Ksenia are all together in a cell, what has Kurotov done with Ler? Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? Okay… HE LEFT HIM LYING ON THE GROUND! This is such a shock to my system. The guy can create clones, force fields and electromagnetic technology manipulation, and yet he has just enough sense to imprison only three of the four people who could get in his way, and he just leaves the fourth lying around! And hell, the prison is made of metal, where no earthbending is possible, and Kuratov leaves Ler in a pile of rocks – you know, rocks, which Ler uses to beat people up! What if Ler came to? Even if you disabled him, he still has his powers! Apparently Kuratov thinks Ler can split the planet apart if he wanted. If you believe that, why wouldn’t you just kill him? Why is the evil genius such an idiot?!
Oh, and Larina is wearing a formal suit while she’s on a raid. Dumb.
In a following scene, Arsus opens up to Larina, saying that his transformations are becoming more difficult. He feels himself becoming more and more like an animal even as he returns to human form, and he’s afraid of becoming permanently stuck in Bear Mode. Despite saying this, he never acts very animalistic at all. When he’s in human form he’s generally got this collected demeanor and posture. It would have been better for the actor and filmmakers to actually show Arsus behaving somewhat like an animal outside of his bear form. Show, don’t tell. Write and portray his behavior to indicate what his issues are. Later, Khan tells a story about his brother, and I realise we’re nearly an hour into the movie and it’s only now we’re learning anything about this character, and it’s just him dolling out exposition.
While Kuratov is taking over the city, relocating and repurposing massive buildings for his plans, the Guardians are presented with special suits that will enhance their abilities. Khan and Ksenia master theirs immediately, Ksenia now also being able to make anything she touches invisible, Ler gets a whip made of rocks that’s held together with electromagnetism, and Arsus gets a minigun. During the training montage, Ksenia takes on several sparring partners simultaneously. What bothers me is that her opponents aren’t wearing thermographic goggles, which I find defeats the purpose because the enemy wearing those goggles got her busted earlier in the film! What’s even more bothersome is that the Guardians didn’t get these uniforms earlier in the film. Those “cyber scientists” have had forty years to make these suits, plus all the research on the Guardians to understand how their powers work and apply that knowledge to these suits. There is no reason why this so-called team should have been sent out without a strategy or the proper equipment! And yeah, this training montage is the first time we get a glimpse of how these people work as a team. It’s bloody pitiful.
During the next briefing, which finally shows some strategic brainstorming from this government-led team, they note that the minions they’ve been fighting this whole time are Kuratov’s clones. It’s not presented as a revelation or anything like that – it’s just mentioned in passing. This is the first time that Kuratov’s minions are identified as clones. It’s like there are pieces of this film missing. Imagine if in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001) we saw Saruman’s underground lair in Isengard but we never saw the Uruk-hai being spawned or outfitted or that interaction between Saruman and Lurtz. We would have no indication that the Uruk-hai were created, that they weren’t in fact Orcs, or that they were supposed to be a bigger threat than Orcs. That’s this movie: it’s playing keep-away with its characters and its lore!
Ler, Arsus and Ksenia advance on the giant makeshift antennae where Kuratov is trying to access to a weaponised satellite, while Khan is to arrive by air. For the most part they’re split up, though Arsus and Ksenia do work together somewhat. There’s this really dumb part where Ksenia takes a clone, turns it invisible and uses it as a shield so the other clones will shoot it instead of her, and when the clone reappears and she’s barely invisible, she runs off and the clones don’t try to shoot at her despite having a clear shot and lots of ammo.
During this scene, Arsus turns into a full bear and takes down the minions while running toward the heavily-armed three-legged robots, sustaining no injuries in the process. He then jumps onto one of the robots, which have been shown to be ridiculously agile, uses its guns to take down another one of these robots, and then take down that first robot by biting off its camera. It just gives up on life and falls down. Oh, and remember how he was worried about permanently becoming an animal? His brain is fully that of a bear right now yet he has full self-control. He’s not a danger to his friends. They go up in the elevator together while he’s in full Bear Mode. He’s even in half-Bear Mode in his next scene! I love it when personal conflicts are established and then thrown out the window! It’s the best! Consequences? What are those? AAAARGH!!!
So the three of them are walking across a ledge and the clones start shooting at them. Ler can also turn his rock-whip into a shield but he doesn’t use it until after Arsus loses his footing and nearly falls to his death! Khan swoops in to save them and…*sigh*…one of the clones does a Wilhelm scream… Just… I need a moment…
Why wasn’t Khan with them the whole time, by the way? With his speed he could have just ran around to that other ledge and took the shooters out.
So we’ve got nineteen minutes of this film to go, and this scientist that supposedly died earlier in the film but not really gives us even more exposition, this time in the form of a deus ex machina that the Guardians can use to defeat Kuratov. We’ll get to that in a minute, but I promise you it’s stupid.
The Guardians get to a force field generator that they have to shut down. They decide to short the circuit, but the heat from the device would melt any metal before it could do that. So, in what I can only assume was an attempt to cool the device by lowering her body temperature, Ksenia grabs onto the generator and gets a load of energy shot through her. Being able to control your body temperature doesn’t make you Iceman, lady! But somehow, this plan works! The generator shorts out, the force field goes down, and Ksenia survives!
At last, the final confrontation begins. The Guardians burst in on Kuratov, but Kuratov uses the Module-1 to stop Arsus’ gun and knock him unconscious with electricity. And it’s at this point I realised…what was Patriot thinking giving advanced technological super-suits to people who are going up against a man who can manipulate technology at will? They’re so screwed!
When Kuratov overpowers the Guardians, the heroes retreat. Larina finds them and tells them about the deus ex machina: the Guardians can transfer their power into one another, but using this ability could kill them. The team decides to go through with it and immediately get into formation. This is another problem – they know this could be the end for them, but there’s no words or emotions between the four of them incase they die. They’re supposed to be old friends, and they’ve gone through dangerous situations throughout the story, but they don’t act like friends and they don’t interact with each other in any meaningful way. There’s no character development. There’s no heart!
So the Guardians lay their hands on each other’s shoulders and transfer their energy into Ler, and Ler projects that energy like it was a move from Dragon Ball Z. Fine. Whatever. Movie’s over. Why use teamwork to make the most of the heroes’ individual powers when they can just blow the bad guy up?
In the resolution scene, Larina and the Guardians look out onto the city to have one quiet moment together. Ksenia says she’s started to recover some of her memories, but the group, including her, decides to go their separate ways. The film closes with Larina looking strait into the camera as she says, “One more thing… We’ve found other Guardians.”
…**** off.
There’s a mid-credits scene, but with its null value, no sequel on the horizon and everything I’ve had to slog through in this movie, I feel no need to dignify it.
This film was awful. The story is nonsensical, empty and lazy. The heroes have no personality and especially no chemistry. The closest we get is Ler talking about outliving his family, which has no bearing on anything outside of that monologue. All the Guardians talk to Larina, but they never talk to each other. The villain is the most stereotypically simplistic, boring, badly written kind of supervillain you can get. And the amount of clunky exposition in this movie is intolerable. It’s a real shame because I’m willing to believe that these actors could give decent performances, but they are given nothing to work with. Most of the visuals don’t look bad either – even though the CGI is not up to par, I’m willing to give a pass to the effects used to create Arsus' bear forms (not so much with Ksenia's special effects where she's see-through but not invisible). Audiences don’t like superheroes just for the spectacle or the fantasy of superpowers. We love superheroes because of what they represent. We love them for the development of their character and relationships. We love the drama of people trying to navigate their lives while dealing with the “terrible privilege” of the duty that is thrust upon them. It’s not enough to save the world. You need to ask, what does the hero stand to lose? Why are you trying to save the world if not for the ones you love? This isn’t only superhero stuff – these are basic writing skills, and for neglecting them, Guardians is a soulless mess of a movie.
