WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
It’s funny to think that one of my favourite characters in the whole of the Guardians of the Galaxy films is voiced by an actor that I don’t exactly rate very highly. What’s interesting is that the films show a long friendship between Groot and Rocket which is true, however Groot doesn’t join the Guardians with him from the beginning. This actually happens following the disappearance of Peter Quill and Rocket tries to keep the Guardians together in his absence.
The A-Team
Based on characters from the original 80s series The A-Team, this film actually turned out to be a better film than I remember it being the first time I watched it. Now, I’ve never watched the original series so wouldn’t be able to make much of a comparison but I get the feeling this is supposed to be early is the career of the A-Team but brought more up to date as the 4 of them fought in Iraq instead of the Vietnam War. Cooper takes on the role of Templeton “Face” Peck who was originally played by Dirk Benedict, who is supposed to be the second in command but seems to be portrayed here as a little bit of a loose cannon so much so that Hannibal seems to be continuously berating him. From my understanding, this film is based around the incident that they later have to spend their time trying to clear their names of. Unfortunately, I do feel that Cooper is overshadowed in this film by the likes of Sharlto Copley who plays Howling Mad Murdoch.
Midnight Meat Train
Is it wrong that the only scenes I had any interest in were those that actually took place on the train? You know, the ones where people were DYING! I’m not sure if that says more about me or quite how dull the story line for Cooper’s character of Leon is. It’s nearly an hour before Leon actually gets on the train but there’s just something about his over-interest in it that frustrates me. I get that he is saying he’s following Mahogany (great name for a brutal killer by the way) to get justice but it all just comes across as he’s doing it for himself. My only interest in this film in the end was why the train existed, what were these killings for? Unfortunately all of Bradley Cooper’s scenes faded into insignificance for me. The main thing that confused me though were Leon’s dreams; with scenes like this you expect it to turn out that Mahogany doesn’t really exist and he has been the one killing all these people. It would have definitely given more of a point to Leon’s character because in my opinion this film could have worked without him – especially as it doesn’t technically have a happy ending.
Limitless
Here is a character of Cooper’s that I can completely relate to, a writer struggling to put his words on the page. Blogging is easy in comparison to writing your first novel, I’ll tell you that for a fact. Anyway, back to the reason we’re here. I’ll be honest, Bradley Cooper could be replaceable in this film too. I realise this probably sounds really familiar to how I have described him in Midnight Meat Train but if I’m completely honest there’s no real difference in Cooper between the two films outside of the fact that Eddie is a writer and Leon is a photographer. Unfortunately, unlike the former, there’s no hook for me and I also find Eddie a little bit annoying. I also wonder if his getting Liz to take NZT is actually a selfish act – even though it saves her life, it leaves her with the same consequences he is currently suffering. I had to watch this film twice in order to write this article and it still wasn’t that enjoyable for me. The visual effects used during the periods of Eddie on the NZT seriously messed with my eyesight and made me feel a little bit sick.
Honorary Mentions
I’m going to be completely honest, outside of The Hangover franchise I didn’t think I had seen many Bradley Cooper films but it turns out I had stumbled across a couple when writing other articles including A Place Beyond the Pines and Yes Man. Now, maybe I don’t remember him being in either because I was focused on Mahershala Ali and Zooey Deschanel’s roles respectively but it could also be because he didn’t have much impact on the overall film. There are also two films, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, I want to see but that have nothing to do with him but more because he stars alongside one of my favourite actresses and fellow Marvel star Jennifer Lawerence.
