GUARDIANS of the GALAXY - Grading & Discussion

[davejames]

Pretty fun movie, although I think I'll be able to enjoy it much more on a second viewing. The film throws so many new characters and villains and motives and planets at you that it's all a bit hard to figure out at first (at least for a non-Marvel guy like me).

But the humor was really good, and the main characters are so fun to watch together that the movie eventually won me over. And it's such a fun and cool movie to look at as well.

So for now I'd give it an A-.

 

[JacksonArcher]

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,

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

Oh, I know. However, unlike Iron Man 2, it doesn't feel like the overall story arc is the only plot thread pushing the story forward. I can enjoy Guardians without having to feel like I'm watching an infomercial for Avengers 3 or whatever.

 

[Harvey]

It was a fun movie, although I think a few of the more serious emotional beats failed to land and the villains were rather unremarkable.

Chris Pratt was fun in the lead, Bradley Cooper stole the show as the voice of Rocket, and David Batista was surprisingly good. Zoe Saldana's heart didn't seem to be in it, though, which was odd, since she's made a lot of silly things work by committing to them in the past.

There's a huge supporting cast of superb character actors, some who are used better than others (I could stand to see more of John C. Reilly in the sequel; Glenn Close and Benicio Del Toro...were in the movie for some reason).

Overall, it was nice to see the movie spend much of the running time breaking the Marvel mold. Quite a pleasant summer diversion.

B-

 

[Awesome Possum]

I loved everything about this movie. A+

 

[Yminale]

This movie was great but to me it was below Captain America: Winter Soldier and X-men: Days of Future Past. It suffers from the same problem as The Avengers. There really isn't a plot here except get the group together and force them to work as a team.

 

[Ethros]

Enjoyed it a lot, but I do think yet again Marvel have failed with the villain. Ronan was just another Christopher Ecclestone in Thor: The Dark World (sums it up that I can't even remember what his name was,) coming off as just a poor mans Darth Vader.

Although the dance-off bit eith him at the end was awesome.



Apart from Loki and Hydra in Cap 2, they're pretty much all lame. Villains-for-the-sake-of-being-villains. Here's hoping they do better with Ultron.

 

[Kelthaz]

This movie was great but to me it was below Captain America: Winter Soldier and X-men: Days of Future Past. It suffers from the same problem as The Avengers. There really isn't a plot here except get the group together and force them to work as a team.

Yeah, that's what annoyed me so much about the film. If you take away the humour then there's nothing left. And that's just not true of comedy films. Even silly/stupid comedies like Mrs. Doubtfire, Ace Venture, or Dumb and Dumber have a plot that you're invested in. If the jokes completely stopped at the halfway point you'd continue watching to see how things turned out. That's not true for Guardians of the Galaxy.

That's why, despite being rather lukewarm on this film, I am optimistic about the sequel. Marvel went overboard with the silliness in this film to attract new audiences, but that hurdle has been overcome. Now they can tone the silliness down and have a real plot with complex characterization for the sequel.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Thought the villain was half baked but didn't need to be much more because he was just a lackey who got above his station for the true villain, Thanos, the plot was OK. Nothing spectacular but as noted, it didn't have to be because it was about getting this lot together.

 

[Admiral2]

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

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.

That's not what I meant. I was talking about the scene where the Collector was explaining about the infinity stones. One of the scenes his viewer showed was of a giant figure tapping his staff on the ground and laying waste to a planet. That was a Celestial.

Not to say that Knowhere isn't a dead Celestial. Some of them can get ridiculously big. Just that the figure with the staff actually looked like one.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

If you take away the humour then there's nothing left. And that's just not true of comedy films.

That is VERY true of comedy films. Dumb and Dumber as a drama? Are you serious? It was barely tolerable with the few laughs it got.

You can't judge a movie by saying "Yes, but, take away what they did to create this movie and it's not good." Unless we're going for a captain obvious reward or something, you judge a movie by the final product and the whole package, which is put together the way it was for a reason. If a comedy makes you laugh, then it succeeded. Besides, take away the comedy and you still have great characters with wonderful character beats. Rocket revealing how he was tortured when he was younger was SO well done without a moment of comedy in there, for example.

 

[Kelthaz]

If you take away the humour then there's nothing left. And that's just not true of comedy films.

That is VERY true of comedy films. Dumb and Dumber as a drama? Are you serious? It was barely tolerable with the few laughs it got.

Dumb and Dumber was one example. Don't focus on any individual example. My point is that comedy films need a plot and believable characters to work. Or, at least, they do for me.

You can't judge a movie by saying "Yes, but, take away what they did to create this movie and it's not good."

Sure you can. I do it all the time. I vastly prefer shows that mix multiple genres (Drama, Horror, Comedy, Action, etc.), so a show that's only firing on one cylinder isn't interesting to me. Judging something by breaking apart its elements and evaluating each one separately works for me.

Besides, take away the comedy and you still have great characters with wonderful character beats. Rocket revealing how he was tortured when he was younger was SO well done without a moment of comedy in there, for example.

I disagree. None of the serious moments worked for me. They all felt forced. Normally I love the mix of wackiness and drama, but it just did not work for me in this film.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I can't single out any of the elements as the problem. The only thing I can I could fault in that regard is it felt like there was a separation between the comedy and serious elements as if they couldn't mesh those elements in to a whole.

 

[shivkala]

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.

That's not what I meant. I was talking about the scene where the Collector was explaining about the infinity stones. One of the scenes his viewer showed was of a giant figure tapping his staff on the ground and laying waste to a planet. That was a Celestial.

Not to say that Knowhere isn't a dead Celestial. Some of them can get ridiculously big. Just that the figure with the staff actually looked like one.

Ah, good catch. Any idea on who the beings were who attempted to join together to contain the stones? Seems to me, that they could have been Celestials, as well.

I wonder if the Celestial armor helped them contain the stones' power.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

 

[Mister Fandango]

I didn't get the impression that it was a Celestial's head. More like one of Galactus's cosmic peers. Sure, the Celestials are on the same power level as the big G, but I don't recall them ever being shown to be of the same physical size as him. They're closer to about 2,000 feet in height, hardly big enough for one of their heads to serve that role.

 

[davejames]

Enjoyed it a lot, but I do think yet again Marvel have failed with the villain. Ronan was just another Christopher Ecclestone in Thor: The Dark World (sums it up that I can't even remember what his name was,) coming off as just a poor mans Darth Vader.

For me what was more tiresome was having yet another mystical artifact with the power to make someone all-powerful/eradicate worlds/destroy the universe/etc.

I know it's kinda the main plot device that unifies the entire Marvel movie universe, but it's just getting reaaaally old by this point.

That's why, despite being rather lukewarm on this film, I am optimistic about the sequel. Marvel went overboard with the silliness in this film to attract new audiences, but that hurdle has been overcome. Now they can tone the silliness down and have a real plot with complex characterization for the sequel.

Tone down the silliness? Really? That was kind of the main thing that kept me engaged in the story, and what made it stand out and feel so unique. We already have enough superhero movies that take themselves far too seriously (even ones that really shouldn't, like the Spidey movies), so it's refreshing to see one that just wants to have a bit of old school fun.

 

[Harvey]

If you take away the humour then there's nothing left. And that's just not true of comedy films.

That is VERY true of comedy films. Dumb and Dumber as a drama? Are you serious? It was barely tolerable with the few laughs it got.

That's probably why I don't like Dumb and Dumber. I think it's a fair criticism of the movie, although I wouldn't want a sequel to tone down the silliness (without that...you'd have almost nothing left here).

The writers of Airplane! and Top Secret gave an interesting interview recently, where they discussed why the former filmed worked better than the latter, which I think is instructive.

Jerry Zucker: That’s part of the problem of doing a second movie after a big hit, everybody says, “Well, you must know.” And the fact is, we didn’t. We knew how to tell jokes, but we didn’t understand yet how to make a movie. I don’t know why nobody said, “Hey, take a structure course.”

David Zucker: We thought we hit it out of the park, because it was so funny. We knew we had the jokes. But I think we learned a lesson.

Jerry Zucker: I think some of our best jokes are in ‘Top Secret!,’ but it’s really hurt by not having a story. It doesn’t have much of a story or a hook … joke-wise, we started to run out of gas at the end of ‘Airplane!.’ But the movie doesn’t run out of gas.

 

[Evil Twin]

B+

Fun movie overall, but the plot and the villains were terribly generic.

Knowhere really reminded me of Omega from Mass Effect.

 

[Noname Given]

This movie was great but to me it was below Captain America: Winter Soldier and X-men: Days of Future Past. It suffers from the same problem as The Avengers. There really isn't a plot here except get the group together and force them to work as a team.

Yeah, that's what annoyed me so much about the film. If you take away the humour then there's nothing left. And that's just not true of comedy films. Even silly/stupid comedies like Mrs. Doubtfire, Ace Venture, or Dumb and Dumber have a plot that you're invested in. If the jokes completely stopped at the halfway point you'd continue watching to see how things turned out. That's not true for Guardians of the Galaxy.

That's why, despite being rather lukewarm on this film, I am optimistic about the sequel. Marvel went overboard with the silliness in this film to attract new audiences, but that hurdle has been overcome. Now they can tone the silliness down and have a real plot with complex characterization for the sequel.

^^^
Pretty much sums up my thoughts too. I did like the film (B+ for me), but not as much as other Marvel Studios outings; but I agree, I would still be interested in a sequel and seeing where they take GoG from here.

 

[DWF]

Enjoyed it a lot, but I do think yet again Marvel have failed with the villain. Ronan was just another Christopher Ecclestone in Thor: The Dark World (sums it up that I can't even remember what his name was,) coming off as just a poor mans Darth Vader.

For me what was more tiresome was having yet another mystical artifact with the power to make someone all-powerful/eradicate worlds/destroy the universe/etc.

I know it's kinda the main plot device that unifies the entire Marvel movie universe, but it's just getting reaaaally old by this point.

There are six infinity gems and Thanos them all, so you haven't anything yet.

 

[Admiral2]

I didn't get the impression that it was a Celestial's head. More like one of Galactus's cosmic peers. Sure, the Celestials are on the same power level as the big G, but I don't recall them ever being shown to be of the same physical size as him. They're closer to about 2,000 feet in height, hardly big enough for one of their heads to serve that role.

But, like I said, there are bigger ones. In a multi-issue story in his comic series, Thor once took on a Celestial called Exitar the Exterminator, who is depicted as being at least ten times bigger than Arishem the Judge, one of the two-thousand footers you're talking about. And an issue of the Fantastic Four which showed the team pursuing the Beyonder through the Multiverse depicted them passing through a universe with nothing but Celestials in it. No planets, no stars. Just Celestials. Under those conditions, who's to say one can't get big enough for his severed head to serve as a mining planet? Of course the movie doesn't give evidence either way as to Knowhere's origins. All I'm saying is there's enough evidence in canon not to completely rule the possibility out.

PS: In the comics Galactus is actually much smaller than a Celestial, because though he's depicted as a giant he's not - unlike the movie - depicted as a giant gas cloud.