It depends on who the villains are. For example, against some guy trying to start WWIII or an alien invasion, such a threat would likely be opposed by people from most countries, regardless of each country's specific government. As a Brit with no particular political leanings, I don't see why an audience can't root for heroes of another nationality. An example off the top of my head were the Russian and Chinese Jaeger teams in Pacific Rim. Going further back, even in the old James Bond movies it's not impossible he formed brief if uneasy alliances with foreign spies if it's against a common foe, ie some non-politically aligned would be megalomaniac. (And if the spy was female and hot.) If it was as simple as one country not wanting to root for foreign heroes, apparently one of the reasons for this movie was the popularity in the east of the US made Avengers movies. It would be interesting, for example if this movie did well (though not expecting a cinema release in US or UK) and they did a sequel and we saw a group of American heroes appear in this movie's universe, basically I'd wonder what the Russian idea/interpretation of American superheroes would be like, given how long the US has stereotyped other nationalities. (Not condoning or condemning, it's just kind of iinteresting to see how other countries see their "others" through their own cultural filters.)
About this movie itself, assuming a moderate budget, they might still turn a decent profit. I wonder how Russians themselves feel about home-grown superheroes as opposed to the ubiquitous Marvel and DC ones. One of the things about Watchmen, for example, was it was a very British take on superheroes. Maybe not so much now, thanks to the proliferation of US cbms in the UK, but back in the 80s when Watchmen was written, the British (majority) view of superheroes was as something somewhat absurd and I think Moore and Gibbons ran with that, so it had a uniquely British flavour despite the subject matter. The trailer for this movie has me interested, (much as I hate dubbing) but ironically it still looks to me like they're trying to look very "Hollywood", even down to the music. I don't know if this is a deliberate thing or if most big Russian movies are stylistically like that (in which case it's not an attempt to look American per se, but just happens to be their mainstream cinema style).
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jacktrojan-79032
8 years ago
American citizens can root for Russian super-heroes just as long as they stand for freedom just like Americans do.
However, if they only stand for the State, then Americans can't side with them no matter how much worse the other villain antagonist is.
But this movie's science-fiction story takes place in another dimension where the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics still exists. If the members of Patriot (Khan a.k.a. Windman, Ler a.k.a. Landman, Ursus a.k.a. Bear, furthermore known as Wildman and Kseniya a.k.a. Waterwoman, furthermore known as Xenia) all don't turn against their Communist Russian government, then American audiences just can't accept or condone them as "super-heroes". But if the four super-human beings are shown to defect to the United States of America, then movie audiences in the U.S.A. can forgive them for their past misdeeds as Soviet super-agents for the K.G.B., and as Soviet super-soldiers for the Soviet Army. Even in this alternate, divergent, parallel universe where the former U.S.S.R. still exists on the Planet Earth, the Cold War that is still going shows that the C.I.A. and the United States Armed Forces are the good guys because unlike Patriot, they actually are fighting for democracy, freedom and the American way.
So unless the four costumed super-humans who are all top Soviet secret agents show that they are eventually becoming opposed to their country's corrupted government and ultimately become defiant against their Russian Communist Party masters by standing for honor, justice, loyalty only to the Russian people and truth which isn't controlled and suppressed by the Soviet State, the movie Guardians is going to be seen as a pro-Communist Russian, anti-American revenge fantasy against all data-pirates, freedom fighters, rebels and revolutionaries who would dare to be a resistance against the State.
No real American citizen who is a free enterprise capitalist and who lives in a free democratic republic would truly accept that kind of a political and social message of the film makers' wishful thinking of a global fascist, totalitarian police state. The successful international box office release of this movie's profit is dependent on the protagonists being genuine heroes. Not the lesser of two evils.
You couldn't make a comic book hero-based movie about Nazi German "super-heroes" who protect the totalitarian rule of the sole political party that is the Axis Powers. The same thing applies to Soviet super-powered beings.
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