Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) – Film review

You’re welcome.

As recently as 15 years ago most studios would have balked at the idea of a big budget superhero movie; instantly conjuring terrifying images of Joel Schumacher’s benippled Batman & Robin throwing millions of dollars down the drain into Gotham’s sewers. Long gone was the majesty of Christopher Reeve as Superman, and even Tim Burton’s darkly entertaining Batman films was almost forgotten thanks to the horrendous memory of Arnold Swarzenegger as Mr Freeze. However, despite the laughing stock that movie superheroes had become, Marvel managed to ease us back into the world of superhuman feats with X-Men in 2000, before blowing audiences away with the resounding success of Spiderman two years later. These days, Superheroes are huge business. Marvel repeatedly rocks the box office with instalment after instalment of Thor, Iron Man and the gang, and DC transformed Batman into the hero we deserve by introducing the fantastically powerful and gritty Dark Knight series. Which brings us to the present, where any studio would bend over backwards to accommodate a superpowered star and the weirder aspects of the Marvel universe are starting to creep onto the screen and garner acceptance from the audience. It is almost as if Marvel have been testing the water on the run-up to their more unusual creations – dipping our toes briefly into the absurd and the bizarre and watching to see whether we recoil, before just lifting us above their heads and chucking us into the unusual depths of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Guardians of the Galaxy is sort of like a comedic space opera with a Marvel glaze: The Avengers meets the oddball cantina from Star Wars, but with a much less repetitive soundtrack. The film follows Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), who also goes by the self-assigned nickname Star-Lord. Quill is a petty space criminal who has spent most of his life travelling with a gang of space mercenaries ever since he was abducted as a boy. Circumstances soon change when the galaxy comes under threat from galactic warlord Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) and Quill is forced to team up with Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a deadly assassin who has recently betrayed Ronan; Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), a psychotic warrior seeking to avenge his murdered family; Rocket (Bradley Cooper), a gun-toting, technology-wielding bounty hunter, who also happens to be a genetically engineered raccoon; and Groot (Vin Diesel), Rocket’s loyal companion, bodyguard and … erm … tree, whose vocabulary consists of the words ‘I’, ‘am’, and ‘Groot’ – exclusively in that order. It is up to this rather unlikely band of misfits to save the day.

As you may expect, the journey is rife with action, adventure and space battles, and it’s all incredibly well done. The CGI is as brilliant as we’ve come to expect from Marvel, and the scale of the whole film is just massive, with one sequence even playing out in a mining colony that is housed within a giant moon-sized skull. The pace of the plot soars along with barely a hitch, not even breaking its flow to inject the frequent doses of charm and humour that highlight the amiability of the entire ensemble of characters. All of this is managed without GotG ever losing track of the plot and wobbling out of orbit – something that so easily could have occurred. The whole cast, voice actors included, are fantastic, but Pratt truly is the star here. He has launched himself into the public eye since his days as the chubby, lazy boyfriend in Parks and Recreation, and looks set to keep on rising. His screen presence is greatly aided by the kind of loveable charisma that we know Dwayne Johnson and Will Ferrell for, and his chances of success in Hollywood definitely won’t be hindered by the 60lbs he lost and the six-pack he gained while training for this role. An honourable mention should also go to Vin Diesel, who surely thought there had been a printing error when he received his script and flicked through the dialogue he needed to learn. He may only have a limited selection of words to say, but he really does convey a colossal range of emotions with them, and stands a very good chance of causing a few teary eyes, and a lot of loud guffaws.

There are really not many negative points to make. The plot is formulaic, following the same pattern that many of the Marvel films have used previously. But when you look at the amount of money and number of new fans that the formula has produced, you really can’t blame them. It has worked before, it still works and it will work again – so there is no need to fix it yet! Apart from that, the only faults or annoyances were minor to the point of being negligible; the space battles sometimes felt a bit cluttered, but that is the nature of space battles, etc. Every minor flaw was countered by a resounding success in another department, and the film carries you through at warp speed so you don’t even notice the little problems.

The Avengers was Marvel’s masterpiece and nothing has quite reached those heights yet, but Guardians of the Galaxy is a very worthy adversary. There’s never a moment where the enjoyment lets up, from the curiously dark opening to the climactic finalé, and the ’80s soundtrack is quite possibly one of the best musical accompaniments to a movie that I can think of; the soundtrack has been described as being like a character all on its own, and I agree with that.  GotG is a phenomenally enjoyable film. I plan on seeing it again soon, and I can’t wait for the sequel.

Rating: 

Certificate: 12A
Director: James Gunn
Starring: Chris Pratt, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista
Running Time: 121 mins

Guardians of the Galaxy trailer released

As somebody who doesn’t read comics, I know next to nothing about Guardians of the Galaxy. However, I have been keeping an eye on this film for a while and it’s great to see that we finally have a trailer to watch. I didn’t realise the tone would be so comedic – it looks a lot more focused on humour than the likes of The Avengers, which has a fairly even balance of humour, action and drama – that might just be the tone of the initial trailer though. Whatever the case, it looks like it will be a lot of fun! Anyway, enough speculative rambling from me. Take a look and leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Tim from Tim’s Film Reviews has done a really interesting breakdown of the trailer with a nice bit of knowledgeable input thrown in. To read the opinion of someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, click here and head over to his Blog.