Guardians of the Galaxy

Special treat today everyone! I saw “Guardians of the Galaxy” today, so I would like to share with everyone what I thought about it. Now this film was released 10 days ago and it’s one of the most hyped up Marvel movies ever. Is it as good as everyone was expecting? Let’s find out:

All I can say is that this film is a terrific swashbuckler. It’s definitely up there with one of the best Marvel movies and one of the best comic book movies ever made.

Scott Mendelson of Forbes stated in his review:

I don’t know if Guardians of the Galaxy will be that late-breaking summer entry that comes to define the summer movie season in a positive light (think Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, The Dark Knight, or Inception). I don’t know whether this heavily sci-fi franchise starter based on a barely known cult property without any out-and-out movie stars will play as well with general audiences as somewhat more Earthbound pictures like the first Thor or Captain America. I do know that writer/director James Gunn and co-writer Nicole Perlman’s Guardians of the Galaxy is an absolutely crackling action-adventure film, a dazzling and engaging bit of optimistic sci-fi melodrama.

The film has inventive sight to spare, but it remains fixed on character chemistry and successful broad-strokes storytelling makes the action moments more than animal moments. The irony of this film being distributed by Walt Disney Studios is that it captures the real swashbuckling fun and wide-eyed wonder that “Star Wars” did so well that you don’t feel the need for another “Star Wars” trilogy.

After an emotional prologue explaining how human adventurer Peter Quill, played by Chris Pratt, ended up in outer space, and a curtain raiser/Indiana Jones homage that puts the story into place, the film really picks up with introducing the supporting cast of unlikely teammates and (potentially) rising superheroes. Quill’s successful capture of an orb gets the attention of bounty hunters Rocket (a talking raccoon voiced by graduate of the Actors Studio in Pace University, Bradley Cooper) and Groot (a mostly silent tree voiced once in a while by action star Vin Diesel), as well as an assassin named Gamora (Zoe Saldana) with a close relationship to both Ronan the Accuser, the film’s main villain (Lee Pace) and the main villain of The Avengers, Thanos (quick cameo by the very beloved Josh Brolin, who is also Diane Lane's ex-husband). Eventually they meet up with Drax the Destroyer, played by former professional wrestler Dave Bautista, a man who wants to avenge his wife and daughter’s death by killing Ronan.

Completely new people may be slightly confused during the first half-hour, but only because the Thanos plot somewhat messes up the sake of making a film that originally was supposed to be released in 2018 or 2019. But once the battle formalities are set up, audiences will know that the scary person in a cape and the scary bald woman, played by Karen Gillian, are the villains and the wise-cracking planet-hopping vigilantes are our main heroes. There are plenty of other supporting characters, and casting directors Sarah Finn and Reg Poerscout-Edgerton were right to cast recognizable and visually different actors, including the beloved John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Benecio Del Toro, Djimon Hounson, and Glenn Close, to make sure that audiences at least know who they are seeing in the movie.

The story perfectly establishes Ronan’s genocidal plot, which involves using the orb to wipe out an entire planet, and you won’t be surprised with the events that follow. But you will be entertained, as the film focuses on the funny chemistry not only between the main characters but also with the number of allies and enemies they meet up with. I’m with Mendelson when he stated, “I don’t want to spoil anything, but the pay-offs, both in terms of action highlights and specific choices that certain characters make, exhibit the kind of old-school showmanship that often feels missing from modern blockbuster entertainments.” Ironically, at its best, the film strongly looks like the hesitant self-sacrifice/surrogate family self-motivated that made the Joss Whedon television shows so engaging.

The overall good feel is there throughout, from the really amusing interaction between the characters to the attractively colorful visuals. Cinematographer Ben Davis and production designer Charles Wood have helped put together an attractively detailed movie, both in terms of the actual lived-in environment to the pure sharpness of the image itself. Mendelson said in his review, “I can’t speak to the IMAX (IMAX Corporation) presentation, which apparently features shifting aspect ratios, but this was some of the most crystal-clear 3D work I’ve seen this side of Avatar. This is just a vivid and splendidly colorful movie, and since my wife is fascinated by the idea of a violent talking raccoon, I may-well find the time to see it again to sample the IMAX presentation.”

The film actually gets better as the movie goes on. Director James Gunn proves himself almost as skilled when he makes the ever-important third act as Peter Jackson or James Cameron. The final situations are just about narrative pay-offs and character arcs as they are about big-scale crowd-pleasing actions. Mendelson said, “One third act detail I will mention is that when our heroes alert the proper authorities about the situation at hand, said authorities respond exactly as you would hope they would.” In today’s society of increasing government fights and in a genre often sheered in “little government versus big government,” it was nice to not see bureaucrats acting foolish on the fact of manufactured difference. Mendelson commented, “How the “cavalry” chooses to respond results in not just a dramatically pleasing development but a rather stunning visual that I wouldn’t dream of revealing.” We get a handful of “big moments” for every major character in the last moment, including one “stand up and cheer” character beat that does a serious denial to the kind of collateral damage we’ve seen in blockbusters of this kind.

Mendelson is right when he said, “This is a fires-on-all-cylinders success.” The character work is great, the action sequences are both clever and consistent, the script is funny and makes sense throughout, and the simple story is told with both intelligence and emotional respect. There are surprisingly a few bad moments, and any kind of nice touches (the way the film plays 70/80’s pop music is really nice) give back for a few narrative misses as the film continues. Funny and exciting from beginning to end, with strong character, strong emotional moments, and just complete eye-candy, “Guardians of the Galaxy” is one of the best Marvel films ever. “Guardians of the Galaxy” is like a great “Star Wars” movie in the same way (the clearly more humorous) “Galaxy Quest” was a great “Star Trek” movie. The film ends with the text “The Guardians of the Galaxy will return” and for the first time in a long time such a mock feels more like a promise than a threat. This is great entertainment, probably on the same level as the Iron Man movies and the second Thor.

Spoiler alert: In a post-credits scene, Tivan, played by Del Toro, sits in his destroyed lab with two of his living exhibits: Cosmo the Spacedog (Fred) and Howard the Duck (“Robot Chicken” creator, voice of Chris Griffin, Dylan Flannigan and Neil Goldman from “Family Guy” and played Oz on “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” Seth Green).

If you are in the mood to be entertained this summer, definitely go to the theater to check this film out, you will love it. It’s not as good as “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” but probably on par with “Thor: the Dark World.” Still, you will like this one if you see it. I consider this another one of my favorites. Well, looks like I have built up the reviews with every Avengers phase movies ever released. Stay tuned when “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is released to find out what I thought of both the Avengers movies.

Check in this Friday for the continuation of Ninja Turtles month.