Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel Studios doesn't seem to know how to do "failure"

Our story begins with a young human kid named Peter Quill having just lost his mother to cancer being abducted by aliens on a seemingly routine pick up. The aliens led by Yondo Udonta (Micheal Rooker) are a band of thieves that mold the kid into one of their own. The kid eventually grows up to become Starlord (Chris Pratt) a self proclaimed "legendary outlaw" on a routine pick up for his group. After escaping capture during the heist he is led to what seems to be the central planet of the galaxy, with his loot in hand ready to betray his colleagues. There he meets Gamora (Zoe Saldana) who is there to take the loot from him and give it too her master Ronan (Lee Pace); as well as, Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) who are there for a bounty on his head. They all get captured by the galaxy's version of police, the Nova Corps, and are sent to jail where they meet the final member of their team Drax (Dave Bautista) who has a long standing hatred against Ronan for killing his family. They all most team up to get Starlord's loot to a buyer and keep it away from Ronan.

There is a lot more to this story, but I am so ridiculously scared of someone calling "spoilers" on me that I just put the basic first act of the movie as the synopsis. None of what I said should enter into that territory because most of it can be seen in the trailers, but if you are offended by my lack of caution just know that I tried. So the story line here was simply amazing, but most all of this movie can be summarized by the same declaration. Yes, this movie was amazing. I am going to say that this story would have been a lot less had the characters not been as interesting as they were. I liked the whole theme of the story line, a bit played out but still strong. The characters are what makes this movie shine. The "raccoon" with a tragic back story of how he was created, while also being a money hungry, wise ass. The tree who can only say "I," "am," and "Groot" in that order, while also being the gentle giant...while still also being aggressive when he needs to be. Drax is the character that lost his family and is out for the blood of the man that took them (that is not the interesting part, the interesting part is...) who can't understand metaphors. So when you say " you are a tough son of a bitch" he is going to take offense at that because you just called his mother a bitch. Starlord is an earthling that holds on to random tokens from the 80's because they hold sentimental value. The "least" interesting character is Gamora, who is the adoptive daughter of the biggest tyrant in the universe, and handed off to another tyrant. When she is the least interesting character you have in your line up, I'd say your characters are pretty awesome.

Another great part of this movie was the soundtrack (I have made peace with the fact that I am going to have to talk about the music in movies sometimes). It is all music that came out before or during the eighties and they managed to make each song fit with the scene it was placed in. It was like watching a fan made Animated Music Video with a big budget. I actually found myself dancing to songs, while still watching glorious action, and hearing funny quips.

It would be a travesty not to mention the choreography in this, or the battle scenes. These are the scenes that make you jump out of your seat and say "holy crap, did you just see that?!" They put a talking raccoon on the back of a sentient tree firing a machine gun at aliens. That is a sentence I didn't ever think I would be able to type. Gamora was nimble and brought the most crazy fighting to the table. Drax was a bruiser, and most every time you saw him fight you felt bad for the person on the other end (MOST every time... don't need people telling me about the times he got his ass kicked). Starlord was just flat out fun, like watching someone have futuristic weapons in a bar brawl.

What can I say about the acting in this that I haven't said about the rest of this movie. It was great. This movie struck most people as an odd choice for Marvel, and the cast just made it all the more weird. Chris Pratt surprised no one by being funny, but surprised every one by being a good leader. Bradley Cooper made his character more that just a brilliant CGI achievement by breathing life into the character. Dave Bautista was the real shock here by being funny, terrorizing, and warm all at the same time. Vin Diesel tried to find fifty different inflections for the phrase "I am Groot," and made us laugh every time his character spoke. Zoe Saldana was par for the course, playing a bad ass female protagonist. Lee Pace made a big splash giving his character the strongest air of menace possible. Even the lesser seen actors like Glenn Close, John C. Riley, Djimon Hounson, Benicio Del Toro, and Micheal Rooker made their characters come alive.

The great part of this movie (as well as "The Avengers") is that it proves Marvel knows how to do team ups. No character overshadowed another, and I feel fans are all going to have a hard time finding a favorite. I know further down the line I am going to hear battles on the forum on who was the best in this movie, and even further down the line we will find random people that didn't like the movie (seemingly because everyone else likes it and they hate fun). Not saying that you are wrong for not liking this movie, by all means don't like it if it doesn't appeal to you; but, it always seems haters like to come out of the wood work further on down the line after people can't stop talking about it. On another topic, it really seems like I have hard time finding anything wrong with Marvel Studios movies these days. Sure there are missteps in this movie as well as every other movie, but for the most part I was having too much fun to notice the glaring faults. I hope this trend doesn't make me seem biased in the long run.

Final Verdict: Buy it I give out my highest rating very rarely for a reason, so when a movie gets it the rating means something. This will have plenty of action and comedy for the casual viewer to love the movie, as well as plenty of nerdy things for us comic readers to geek out about. See it in theaters, then buy it so you can enjoy it all the time.