Home Entertainment Review: Guardians (Shout! Factory)

The Guardians is a Russian 12a certificate film that I watched with English dubbing over the footage but you can get with subtitles instead.

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First, off it’s a pretty decent film especially as its the very first attempt for a Russian studio to make a superhero film, there are a few negative points obviously but a lot of positives to that cancel them out and it’s probably because we are a little spoilt when it comes to big budget superhero movies. The beginning is brilliant instead of 30 minutes of film about their lives before hand and how they got their powers blah blah blah Guardians have a neat little montage that expertly lets you know where we are in their timeline and the films background.

Another positive is the character Temirkhan he is like a teleporting ninja with MASSIVELY curved swords and his fights scenes are just amazing to watch and his swords are epic and could easily compete with more well-known superheroes. Little needs to be said about Artis he transforms into a bear but rarely goes full bear and instead fights as a man with a bears head and oh yeah gets a huge machine gun backpack. Kseniya is a little sketchier she is invisible, in water, no other time just in water handy if it’s raining but any mission during the summer and she’s a dud. She does get an upgrade that lets her become invisible anytime AND make other things disappear with her which ends up being pretty cool. Lernik can control rocks, seems to pretty specifically rock as well not earth or concrete just rocks but he can control them magnificently using them to create armor fists weapons and all sorts, his upgrade is a whip made from rocks and electricity that he can wield pretty impressively.

A lot of the negatives can be forgiven because for a first attempt it’s decent. The CGI is a little ropey and the acting is a tad hammy at times mainly when a simple “how are you?” turns into a seriously long dramatic monologue about the characters feelings and backstory. The bad guy is a little ridiculous looking as well, to be honest, but like I say it doesn’t take away from enjoying the film for what it is. The story has it all, armies developing almost sentient killing machines (what could go wrong) and pretty awesome origin story for the bad guy, pretty spectacular set pieces and superheroes overcoming defeat and personal struggles to save the day and also an ending that leaves it open for sequels!! Brilliant

Watching the cast interviews you can see how much effort went into the project and how they really tried to create some unique ideas which of course they did which can’t be easy with the amount of superheroes out there. They knew they couldn’t compete with the big leagues so just concentrated on making their own thing which I think they managed perfectly.

The Guardians will be exclusively at Walmart on September 5th. Available everywhere on December 5th.