GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Guardians of the Galaxy

Grade: B+

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Benicio Del Toro and Glenn Close, with Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket and Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot

Premise: A diverse group of outcasts, loners, and thieves become allies when a powerful device hunted by an evil warlord falls into their hands.

Rated PG-13 for violence and intense action, scenes of peril and destruction, language and crude humor, and some emotional content

The Marvel Comics movie craze has by this point touched on nearly all the best-known Marvel comics heroes (Spiderman, the X-Men, the Avengers, etc…), but with cash continuing to flow in for superhero movies, Stan Lee and his friends have reached a little deeper into the vault for a new project. Lacking the angst of Spiderman or the smugness of Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy is based on a comic of the same name by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who, judging from the adaptation of their work, clearly used their comic to live out their epic space geek fantasies and to have more than a little fun. Thus, the movie is part hilarious, rollicking entertainment and part confusingly generic sci-fi hooey. To audiences who aren’t expecting more than that, it’s sure to be a hit. To me—well, I did laugh an awful lot.

Plot

Once a confused, lonely orphan on earth, alien abductee Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) has grown up to become a thrill-seeking, star-hopping, womanizing wise-cracker (codename: Star Lord) who likes to make a big statement, but really just wants to line his pockets. Early in the movie, he lands on a deserted planet and grabs a mysterious orb. Figuring it’s obviously pretty important/powerful since he had to escape a band of lethal-looking space junkies to get it, he figures he’ll head to the nearest civilized planet and sell it to the highest bidder. Turns out the orb is an object coveted by Ronan (Lee Pace), a blue-skinned, nearly invincible space baddie feared across the galaxies for his lack of mercy. When Peter brings the orb to Nova—an Earth-like planet populated mostly by humans—Ronan dispatches his right-hand woman, trained assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), to retrieve the orb. She first attempts a seduction, but she’s thwarted in her attempts to grab the orb by a pair of bounty hunters, Rocket, a walking, talking Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and his friend/attendee Groot, a nearly mute but incredibly strong humanoid made entirely of ever-growing leaves and vines (and voiced, when he does speak, by Vin Diesel). When the four make a big public scene trying to grab the orb from each other, they’re tossed into a high-tech space prison.

In prison, it doesn’t take long for the inmates to recognize a minion of the infamous Ronan, but Gamora is saved from a bloodthirsty gang by the unlikely person of Drax (Dave Bautista), a hulking, tattooed humanoid who lost his wife and daughter to Ronan and who is persuaded by Peter that Gamora is his ticket to revenge. Since Peter has a buyer for the orb lined up, they all agree to break out of prison together, hand the orb over, and split the money, at which point Gamora can return to Ronan and Drax, stowing away on her ship, can kill Ronan and get his revenge. But the buyer turns out to be the unsavory person known as The Collector (Benicio Del Toro), who reveals that the orb has incredible destructive power. This persuades Peter to change his mind about selling it off, but the orb is snatched by Ronan’s minions in a surprise attack. Now Ronan, who’s under the thumb of an even more fearsome warlord named Thanos, sets a course to use the orb to destroy all the planets that oppose him, starting with Nova. Whether seeking to do good or to get revenge or just try to somehow wrangle money out of possession of the orb, Peter, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot decide to stop Ronan, and either hide the orb or find a way to destroy it.

What Doesn’t Work?

As ever, I’m being deliberate in my plot synopsis not to give anything too crucial away, but I could hardly give a better description even if I wanted to. Guardians of the Galaxy may be the least-relatable Marvel movie made yet. Only a brief prologue is actually set on earth, and all the galaxy-hopping and humanoid supporting characters mean the audience is showered with a barrage of names of people, places and things that often are either difficult to remember or hard to tell apart. Some people will undoubtedly try to refute this, but the movie gets a little confusing. At the same time, the central dynamic of the story is one that, though talked up, has been done more than once before (there’s a reason I called this movie “confusingly-generic”). It felt, to me, almost identical to the central premise of last November’s Thor: The Dark World—a baddie set on world/universe domination tries to get hold of a powerful MacGuffin that will either kill him or make him all-powerful, and the good guys try to stop him even though they (supposedly) can’t control the power of said MacGuffin, so their efforts are in vain unless some solution happens to exist that can stop the baddie in his would-be dominating tracks.

What Works?

I’m not trying to be a Grinch. I didn’t fully understand the plot, but what I could make of it seemed awfully familiar. Feel free to call me/message me and let me know how it actually is if you’re reading this and believing I’ve misunderstood it.

I’m not trying to knock Guardians too much, though, because I really enjoyed it overall. It’s hilarious, for one—I laughed out loud many times.  The CGI is spectacular, matter-of-factly creating war ships, cities, alien creatures, epic battles, and even entire galaxies that are stunning to behold. And despite that obviously-huge spectacle, we don’t lose sight of the characters, one of the most likably-entertaining groups yet in a superhero movie. Chris Pratt has the makings of a huge star, what with his leading-man looks and comedy sidekick’s sense of humor. He’s terrific as the devil-may-care hero, and his self-professed codename is funny just because it sounds like the online usernames of geeky fanboys who will adore this movie. Pratt's primary ally/foil is Zoe Saldana, who’s quickly becoming the go-to gal for anything big that doesn’t require a generic blonde, and for good reason. She’s gorgeous whether she’s allowed her normal looks (i.e. as Uhura in Star Trek), given a green and scarred visage (as she is here), or made over as a blue cat/alien humanoid (as Neytiri in James Camero’s Avatar), and even though she’s typically tough, she always shows just enough vulnerability for us to fall for her. Her presence is always welcome. As Drax, Dave Bautista is mad, blue, and covered in tattoos, but he provides some of the movie’s biggest laughs with his character’s utter lack of humor or irony (when told a joke has “gone over his head”, Drax curtly replies “nothing goes over my head. Nothing can go over my head. My reflexes are excellent. I would catch it.”). Vin Diesel’s voice is barely heard coming out of Groot, and he famously only says a couple words, but the woody creature presents plenty of laughs by virtue of his animalistic curiosity and naïveté. You’ll be surprised how much you come to adore Groot. And a gun-toting, curse-spouting, fully-CGI raccoon turns out to be the perfect role for Bradley Cooper; often aggressively over-the-top in his onscreen acting (American Hustle, Wedding Crashers, The Hangover), his sharp, caustic arrogance perfectly suits this pint-sized mercenary. This group is worth watching; tough, hilarious and heart-warming, they make you want a sequel.

*Speaking of sequel, there is a short scene at the very end of the credits, but I doubt it’s a real harbinger of things to come, unless someone really is thinking of bringing back Howard the Duck.

Content

There’s a tough scene right away, where a young Peter gets some last anecdotes at his mother’s deathbed, and a good bit of the movie’s action is a bit heavier than the more cartoonish stuff in most comic book movies. There are also plenty of cusswords, many of them spoken by the raccoon. Guardians is wild and full of wall-to-wall action, often with very high stakes, but there’s nothing here anyone used to PG-13 movies will be shocked by.

Bottom Line:

Guardians of the Galaxy feels like a scrappy little brother to the likes of Spider-Man, X-Men and Captain America—it might not have quite the prestige, nobility, or emotional depth, but it’s twice as hip and three times as funny. With a central cast you’ll welcome back to the big screen, constant pell-mell action and dazzling, flawless special effects, Guardians is as much fun as superhero origin stories get, and it’ll keep you entertained for sure.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Directed by James Gunn

Screenplay by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman

Based on the comics by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

Rated PG-13

Length: 121 minutes