Guardians of the Galaxy review

I saw the Guardians of the Galaxy on opening night, and I was extremely pleased with it. This was one of the big upcoming films I’ve been anticipating, and it turned much better than I even expected. Now, I’ll be honest. While I do have a moderately extensive knowledge of the Marvel universe and consider myself a casual fan, I certainly don’t know everything about it, and I’ve certainly never known anything about the Guardians of the Galaxy before, so I am going into this as a new experience with nothing to compare it to. That being said, the modern Marvel movie team did an unbelievable job, as always, of packing the film with loads of Marvel content and generally accurate depictions/stories for the hardcore fans to enjoy, and yet lots of humor and drama to please the non-Marvel-nerd movie-goers. It’s a perfect blend to satisfy all audiences. I would go as far as to say it’s better than the Avengers.

First off, I’ll cover the characters. The lead, Peter “Star Lord” Quill is extremely likable. His silly attitude and constant Earth-referencing-wit made him hilarious, and reminded me a lot of one of my favorite sci-fi characters of all time, John Crichton from Farscape (I’m a pretty huge fan of Farscape). With just the right touch of sadness added to his humor, coolness and action-packed antics, Star Lord makes for an incredibly fun character. We also have Gamora, the love interest of Quill and the tough-as-nails “daughter” of galactic tyrant Thanos. While Gamora certainly has some funny lines, a likable personality and cool action scenes, she’s probably the most boring of the team in my opinion. Zoe Saldana plays her, and although Zoe’s a very pretty girl, I don’t find her body nearly meaty/curvy enough to be called “sexy” in my book, though most of the world seems to find her super sexy so, of course, she is a little more boring than the others because the “hot chick” can never act as goofy as the guys in movies for some reason. She’s still cool, though, even if her bod and outfit were way sexier in the comics (I know, girls don’t NEED to be sexy, some of you are probably thinking I sound like a pig right now, but these days when Hollywood still tries to market a girl as being sexy, they always seem to get some underfed scrawny girl). We also have Drax, played by wrestler Dave Bautista. I thought he was awesome in this, and funny as hell when he needed to be. Casting Bautista was considered a big risk since he hadn’t exploded as an actor yet, but I thought he was perfect for the role. And of course, there’s Rocket and Groot, the unusual team of a talking Racoon and a humanoid tree. Rocket was hilarious and a total badass. He’s a dirty-mouthed tough bastard who doesn’t take crap and always has a plan. This character was done perfectly. Groot, “played” by Vin Deasel, may only say one line, but this character has a lot of heart and makes for another lovable member of the team. All other characters, I felt, were portrayed incredibly as well, and Thanos looks awesome. I seriously felt like I was looking at the real-life version of him. There are lots of other supporting characters who were all well-designed and well-acted, with many characters from the Marvel universe included (the cameo in the last scene is awesome).

As for the visual and audio departments, it wins. The movie is loaded with great 70s songs as part of Peter Quill’s “awesome mix” tape, that really helps set the fun, often comical and off-beat mood of the movie. The sceneries are amazing to look at, and all the effects and characters look pretty good. I give it two thumbs up in that department.

The story is fun, easy to get into, action packed, and full of just the right balance of humor and drama. The jokes are actually funny, not like many action movies that have the sort of humor you laugh at just because you know it was supposed to be funny but wasn’t. Guardians actually made me crack up on many occasions, and the actors all worked extremely well with each other. Each character has a tragic side, but rather than exaggerating it and putting all the focused on overly morbid melodrama like DC films do, they just make the characters act more real, and usually fun. Guardians is really damn good. I can’t really think of anything bad to say about it. Sure, there were parts that were impossible, but what action movie isn’t filled with such feats of unparalleled strength. I can’t shoot enough rainbows up this film’s ass. It’s great as a super hero movie, a sci-fi movie, a comedy, and an all-around story. Go check it out, you will not be disappointed. Best movie of the summer so far.