by Dalton Belcher
From the opening moments of the film, which play out more like a twisted Disney trailer with a cold opening that leaves you wondering “Is this part of Guardians?” “Is this another trailer?” and, finally, “Why is this so sad?” Guardians of the Galaxy pulls you in.
Marvel has established themselves quite a track record of outstanding movies in the past couple years, notably with Captain America: Winter Soldier, Iron Man, and the blockbuster team-up Avengers just to name a few personal favorites. Guardians’ is an entirely different animal in its own right. Leading man, Chris Pratt, of NBC’s Parks & Recreation isn’t playing a brilliant philanthropist like Tony Stark or an All-American Hero like Steve Rodgers. Pratt’s Peter Quill is more Han Solo than hero and his ragtag bunch of enemies-turned cohorts-turned friends aren’t your run-of-the-mill side characters. This is where Guardians succeeds, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it paints neon with beautiful CGI and attaches and 80’s soundtrack to it that never felt out of place. Is it perfect? No. Is it Citizen Kane? Not really. But it never tries to be, Guardians knows it’s wacky and it plays to that strength. There’s the Bradley Cooper voiced “Rocket Raccoon”, Vin Diesel voiced “Groot”, Zoe Saldana’s green-skinned “Gamora” and “Drax”, a bluish Dave Bautista. The characters (apart from the Quill opening) don’t have flashbacks to tell their backstory, we don’t need them, they are nicely woven into drunken outrages and the team’s motivation for teaming up with Quill, instead of killing him and taking the highly sought after orb he possesses.
The Avengers is serious, with apocalyptic implications and the stakes are just as high as Guardians, but when the wonderfully zany ending comes along, you realize it’s being handled just the way Guardians should be handled: with humor. Guardians ties nicely into the Marvel cinematic universe thanks to the outer space setting and the connections to other Marvel films (here’s hoping for a Guardians/Avengers team-up in the near future, because who doesn’t want Rocket Raccoon’s wise-cracking versus Tony Stark’s dry wit?) and because it balances story, character development, action, and humor so well.
From the opening moments of the film, which play out more like a twisted Disney trailer with a cold opening that leaves you wondering “Is this part of Guardians?” “Is this another trailer?” and, finally, “Why is this so sad?” Guardians of the Galaxy pulls you in.
Marvel has established themselves quite a track record of outstanding movies in the past couple years, notably with Captain America: Winter Soldier, Iron Man, and the blockbuster team-up Avengers just to name a few personal favorites. Guardians’ is an entirely different animal in its own right. Leading man, Chris Pratt, of NBC’s Parks & Recreation isn’t playing a brilliant philanthropist like Tony Stark or an All-American Hero like Steve Rodgers. Pratt’s Peter Quill is more Han Solo than hero and his ragtag bunch of enemies-turned cohorts-turned friends aren’t your run-of-the-mill side characters. This is where Guardians succeeds, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it paints neon with beautiful CGI and attaches and 80’s soundtrack to it that never felt out of place. Is it perfect? No. Is it Citizen Kane? Not really. But it never tries to be, Guardians knows it’s wacky and it plays to that strength. There’s the Bradley Cooper voiced “Rocket Raccoon”, Vin Diesel voiced “Groot”, Zoe Saldana’s green-skinned “Gamora” and “Drax”, a bluish Dave Bautista. The characters (apart from the Quill opening) don’t have flashbacks to tell their backstory, we don’t need them, they are nicely woven into drunken outrages and the team’s motivation for teaming up with Quill, instead of killing him and taking the highly sought after orb he possesses.
The Avengers is serious, with apocalyptic implications and the stakes are just as high as Guardians, but when the wonderfully zany ending comes along, you realize it’s being handled just the way Guardians should be handled: with humor. Guardians ties nicely into the Marvel cinematic universe thanks to the outer space setting and the connections to other Marvel films (here’s hoping for a Guardians/Avengers team-up in the near future, because who doesn’t want Rocket Raccoon’s wise-cracking versus Tony Stark’s dry wit?) and because it balances story, character development, action, and humor so well.