GUARDIANS of the GALAXY - Grading & Discussion

You know those fake flowers in a pot that move to music ?

Well :

I WANT A SOLAR POWERED DANCING BABY GROOT !!!!

 

How would you feel if you went to a midnight showing of Guardians of the Galaxy and the theater starting playing... Rise of the Guardians? It happened in Jersey and the movie people paid to see never played. The audience got free tickets for the mistake.

 

We all do.

 

While I wasn't adverse to 3D (I really enjoyed it) I did notice that my theater seemed to be favoring 3D showings over 2D. I know other people have reported seeing this trend, but this is the first time I really noticed it at my theater.

I loved the hell out of this movie. This is really close to being one of my favorite MCU movies, I still greatly enjoyed 'Winter Soldier' so I'm not sure it's going to surpass that, but Marvel keeps on topping themselves (except for Iron Man 3, but eh...nobodies perfect ).

 

How does that even happen? I thought movie theaters had to return copies of movies they were showing when they were done with them. How did they even have a copy of Rise of the Guardians? This is hilarious, but it really sucks for the people who bought tickets and stayed up until midnight to see GotG.

 

Not to mention it's a two year old movie. I could understand if it was another movie that just came out today...but a two year old movie!? They had a two year old movie sitting around ready to que up? That's just dumb.

 

I saw it last night in 3D, which by the way was terrific.

I remember hearing from James Gunn that they spent extra time & care into the 3D version and it showed. It wasn't an afterthought, like the 3D in most Marvel movies. There were times when I actually jumped because of the 3D and I'm not even a legit fan of 3D or anything. I'd go as far as actually recommend people see the movie in 3D.

As for the film itself, I thought it was stupendous. For an adaptation of an obscure comic-book with little known characters and a weirdly cosmic premise, I thought Guardians of the Galaxy might actually be Marvel's best movie yet. It has everything you'd expect or want in a summer blockbuster - an actual storyline that's independent of Marvel's long-going arc, some hilarious moments and characters that you love and can root for. Guardians would have been good, but not great, if had one or even two of these elements but it had all of them and then some. I think it is pretty astonishing when some of my favorite characters from the entire movie are CGI creations. For example, I never thought I would cheer and smile at a walking & dancing tree as much as I did for Groot.

For all of the visual spectacle (and there's plenty) or the one-liners (there's a decent amount and get this - they're all funny and land) what makes Guardians so special are the characters. Unlike The Avengers, where you could ostensibly skip the first 20 minutes until the movie picks up, Guardians starts with a bang. It is highly enjoyable to get individually introduced to every one of the characters. What's even better is that they are all introduced and then forced to interact with one another as a result of a killer action sequence that displays their character (no pun intended) via visual action, even though there's plenty of eye-rolling exposition.

Regardless, the real heart of the movie are the Guardians of the Galaxy themselves. James Gunn did a terrific job at making each and every member of the team complex and multi-layered, although Gamora suffers the most (she's concurrently the most and least interesting main character). Even a character like Rocket (voiced with a terrific Brooklyn gangster accent by Bradley Cooper) has complexity and depth and isn't just there to deliver witty and funny one-liners, although he does in spades. Gunn even took a wrestler (Dave Bautista) and gave his character, Drax the Destroyer - which could have been seen simply as the muscle of the group - with some of the most interesting characterization in the entire movie. If Rocket & Groot are the heart of the movie, then Drax is the soul. He's incredibly endearing and provides for some of the film's most heart-wrenching and funny moments.

I think that's what makes Guardians so good and why it works so well. Gunn balances space opera, comedy and emotional honesty with such aplomb that it almost feels effortless. It's a real testament to co-writer/director James Gunn as a filmmaker and I expect to see him get a lot more offers after this. However, with that said, Guardians isn't perfect. Like a lot of movies of this ilk, even though the heroes are fantastic, well-rounded and fleshed out the villains feel very cardboard cutout and thin. Which is a shame because there's some terrific designs for the villains - Lee Pace gives Ronan the Accuser his all and it's an admirable attempt, especially since he's endowed with such a great visual aesthetic. However, Ronan comes off as very predictable and cliche and while he poses a great threat he doesn't feel all that memorable. He has the typical Marvel movie motivation - he wants to destroy the galaxy because of reasons - and to be honest the villainy reminded me a lot of Thor: The Dark World, which isn't a compliment. It's also a shame because Karen Gillain's Nebula has probably the most striking look for a villain character since Darth Maul and she's completely wasted (which is even more disappointing because Gillain has some decent screen presence). I do hope for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 that Gunn pays just as much attention to the villains as he does the heroes because honestly the lackluster villains is the only thing keeping Guardians down.

All in all, though, Guardians of the Galaxy is sublime summer entertainment that's not to be missed. It's been a really excellent summer for movies as I rank the movie right up there with some of summer's best: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Edge of Tomorrow and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It's been a while since I can count five summer movies that I loved so that's something indeed. Guardians of the Galaxy is a great cap to a great summer for movies and another notch on Marvel's exceedingly excellent belt. I give the film an A- and honestly that's because I wanted more from the villains. Can't wait for Avengers: Age of Ultron now.

And lastly... James Gunn has balls for that end credits tag. Well done.

 

The climax of this movie featured a(n attempted) dance-off! I mean, seriously, how can you get better than that!

I have a few minor nits to pick, but other than that, it was an A+! And most of them have to do with being a fan of the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (collectively DnA) run on Marvel cosmic.

First, Ronan, as others have said, was weak. Part of this is the fact that DnA used him to great extent in their cosmic tale and as a hero in the two Annihilators mini-series. He's a complex character and they (as well as others before them, back to his introduction in Fantastic Four) really expanded on how he could go from threatening to the Earth to defending the galaxy.

Second, Drax. Honestly, this is a nit based on Starlin's origin for Drax. In the comics, Drax was a human, who was killed by Thanos arriving on Earth and resurrected to destroy Thanos. His wife and daughter did die, as well, but his daughter was taken to Titan and transformed into Moondragon. Being created to destroy Thanos really defines the character for me. Deciding that he needs vengeance on Thanos (after realizing seeking vengeance against Ronan was wasted time) seems lacking.

On the subject of Drax, myself and the group I went with had trouble understanding him at times.

Third, Nebula was underused. At the start of the movie, except for the fact that it was Karen Gillan playing her, she wasn't that interesting. The more times we saw her, the better she became. I really hope we get to see her again. Especially annoying is the fact that she had better motivation and depth than Ronan.

Man, I hope so. It is one of the most interesting features of the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning series. Are you familiar with the Marvel Celestials?

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Knowhere is a severed Celestial head. That has so much storytelling promise (and it paid off in a big way in the DnA series), though, movie-wise, I doubt they'll introduce the Celestials enough to revisit Knowhere's origins in the movies.

 

^ I wasn't familiar with them. Thanks.

 

I think it has a major part in the overall story arc.

 

Disagree with 'horrible' strongly! That was the greatest soundtrack ever!

Meanwhile, A+!

My most vivid memories of Rocket Raccoon come from the Mike Mignola comic miniseries. This brought that Rocket totally to life for me.

This movie ruled! They even showed a CELESTIAL! For the love of God, somebody do an Eternals movie so they can do more Celestials!

It was funny, engrossing and Lee Pace did a fantastic job as Ronan. Nice Work all around.

 

Amen to that. I loved how they made the soundtrack integral to the movie. I want to know what else is on Awesome Mix Vol. 2!

Again, Knowhere being a Celestial's head is a concept too awesome for words. It's inclusion in the movie is just icing on the cake.

 

Will see this one Sunday afternoon, looking forward to it!

 

Yeah, but to be fair they had their hands full introducing the five main characters and the cosmic setting. You can't expect the secondary villains to get that much development. But she did escape at the end, so I expect her to not only appear in the sequel, but to get quite a bit of screen time.

 

It was the best film of this summer! Loved the cameo at the post-credits scene.

 

Meh. It's okay, I guess. Entertaining and held my attention with some fun characters, especially Rocket and Groot. But it was rather cartoony (yeah, I know, comic book movie) and at times very derivative of Star Wars. Hell, it almost felt at times like this was Disney's testing ground for Episode VII. Also, I was reminded of STID when

Spoiler: scene near the end

we see the Evil Black Spaceship crash into a city.

Karen Gillan was criminally underused in this movie. She was awesome in every scene she was in, even if she was just stomping around and yelling at her underlings to get out of the way. But unfortunately, there was just very little of her in the movie. Maybe I'm biased since I am a Doctor Who fan, but I would have preferred she have a larger role in the movie.

While I don't regret seeing the movie, I wouldn't exactly recommend it either, even if it is one of the better movies I've seen in theatres this year.

 

I feel the same way The Wormhole. As for not expecting a secondary villain to get that much development, Kelthaz, I was trying to say that she got more development than Ronan. Ronan had no development, he was simply angry at the Xanadarians. Nebula, however, had her anger at Thanos for him ignoring her over Gamora, who she was jealous of. Her, "Gee, thanks Dad" comment alone, those three words, equated to more character development than Ronan.

 

While I'm not suggesting it's necessary in order to enjoy the film, there's a two part Guardians of the Galaxy prelude mini-series that includes some great scenes of Nebula and really explores how she and Gamora were brought up.

 

A+. Best film I've seen all year. All five characters were great and when you can get a damn good performance from Bautista, you know you are hitting on all cylinders. Great humor and action.

 

I don't know that I'd call it the best MCU film, but it's definitely the most unique one. A couple of the previous movies (Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World) got criticized in some quarters for being overly comedic, but this one strays into outright comedy for much of its running time, which is perhaps more easily stomached (as well, it's a new property and so distinct from everything else). As well, despite being set in the Marvel Universe, it doesn't really feel like a superhero movie.

I loved the soundtrack of old 70s songs (I hope the next one keeps that up).

They were setting themselves a high degree of difficulty, between the characters being basically unknown and some of them being outright silly, visually (Rocket is the benchmark for successfully incorporating a very comic book idea into film and actually making him cool).

I've been a fan of Chris Pratt since Everwood, so it's cool to see him in a leading role on the big screen. I like Zoe Saldana as Gamora as well, though I think the switch from the character's introduction to her declaring that she's actually betraying Ronan could have been done a bit better; but she also has a lot of my favourite moments (humour, especially), between the music/Kevin Bacon gag and the fact that her grand plan to steal the orb is to walk up, kick Star-Lord in the nads, and then run off with it.

I kind of wish they had cast Djimon Hounsou as Thanos; his voice would have been very cool for that part (he auditioned for Drax, I believe, and they offered him Korath if he wanted to be in a comic book film in a smaller part).