Off the bat, I’d like to admit I went into this one with very low expectations because Marvel movies can be fun, but the fun comes at the expense of character and story development too often. I was afraid it was going to be the case here.
Yet Guardians of the Galaxy takes what works in all the other Marvel movies, still keeps it light and frothy, but has an emotional and character arc to it. Wow! When was the last time one could say that about a Marvel movie? Let’s dig in.
If you don’t know by now, Guardians of the Galaxy is based on a Marvel comic book created by Stan Lee (who cameos in this one too) and Jack Kirby (he who created Batman). Guardians is part of the Phase 2 stream of movies from Marvel which are more or less building towards Avengers 3 whereby Thanos will finally come to earth, forcing a super-super team-up with all these guys, we’ve been seeing in different movies. Trying to fight off Thanos whom we saw at the end of the first Avengers.
Yes, being big and purple is so scary that the Guardians and the Avengers have to team up … but till then we still have Avengers 2 and other gazillion movies to go through till Avengers 3.
Guardians is another origin movie but set to 80’s pop music, reminiscent of Raiders of the lost Ark in its tone; action set pieces and how it keeps under cutting its own sentimentality with humour. Chris Pratt is the emotional heart of the movie as Peter Quil aka Star Lord. Chris has bulked up a lot here since his supporting role in Her and the tv show Parks and Recreation
Batista (yes him from WWE) is well cast as the muscle Drax who does not get metaphors at all (he has some very funny gags and lines in the movie due to that) . Zoe Saldana is Gomora the love interest who is also a super assassin.
Then we have the awesome duo who almost steal every scene there are in Groot (voiced by Diesel as the strong but silent type Tree guy) and Rocket ( voiced by Bradley Cooper, as the fast talking maverick with with an attitude who happens to be a Raccoon)
Chris Gunn ( Scooby doo) actually does a great job as the director and part of the writing team on this. He really uses his ensemble cast well, each of our 5 character actually have their own arcs that they travel on, with Chris Pratt’s being at the centre. Yet we are able to see some growth for all the 5 characters within the running time and see why the team works actually exists.
Gunn keeps it fast, pacey and hilarious, using Chris Pratts massive comedic talents to their full effect. Yet its Diesel and Cooper who shine, the voice acting is brilliant and it is helped by some very cool CGI character designs. These guys are photo real, you end up forgetting that Groot and Rocket are computer generated images. The guys who are doing Visual effects have outdone themselves.
On the side of the bad guys, we finally get to meet the big bad Thanos, whose been coming like Godot since Avengers one and yet we wait. Thanos finally makes an appearance - voiced by Josh Brolin - but alas, we spend more time with his Jihadist-like /revenge filled side kick Ronan the Accuser…who like most comic book villains, has a God complex. But I have to confess I liked how he was realized. I got his motivation and rationale and loved how Lee Pace projected .( If you want more on the comic book origins of the baddies read
this)
Overall I really liked the characters of Guardians of the Galaxy. Yes, it's cool to have an incredible team on screen ala Avengers but it helps when the team has motivation and arcs ala Guardians. Gunn and co-writer have given Guardians guys exactly that - a team with flaws to overcome as individuals and also as a group.
It’s so cool to have such cool characters thrown into an adventure like this one. For me this is one of the best Marvel movies ; yes its kiddie safe and all but aren’t they all, if you want dark we have DC for that. So if you looking for fun times at a movie, a fun story with fun characters then Guardians of the Galaxy is for you.
Rating ****
*junk **almost bearable ***now we cooking ****almost perfect *****classic ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++