Guardians of the Galaxy

2014 space adventure

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Five misfits team up to help Gabe Kaplan coach his way to a college basketball coaching contract.

These Marvel movies are all pretty much the same. If you were to lay them on top of each other, you'd see that their ebbs and flows are all similar. I don't think that makes them any less likable or anything, but it's something that should be pointed out. They all build to a big climactic battle scene that is a little too long and probably doesn't make too much sense. This one gets all purple and explode-y, and I really lost track of what was even supposed to be going on. This also struggles to have a consistent tone at times. The predominant tone is light with a story and characters who aren't taken too seriously by the screenwriters. But then there are the flatly-written bad guy characters who all talk like they think they're in Dune or something. You know, that stilted sci-fi deep voice talking. And they're talking about orbs, the type of thing we've been seeing in science fiction adventure tales for years. Add a little romance and some half-assed angst because that's supposed to give the movie more heart or something. Luckily, the characters are all so damn likable, so the cliches are easier to forgive. And those guardians are anything but cliches. Rocket's voiced perfectly by a Bradley Cooper who doesn't sound like Bradley Cooper. He's humorously mean-spirited, just the cutest little guy. Green Woman (Sorry, I'm not dorky enough to remember the name or a good enough blogger to look it up) your typical female sci-fi action hero. Groot (an easy name to remember) is a character I figured would be pretty useless before I actually saw the movie. I mean, he's a tree. I expected a wooden character, but they manage to give the thing some personality, like a barky Chewbacca, and it's easy to understand why he's a fan favorite. I might have liked the heavily-flawed but hilariously literal Drax, played by wrastler Dave Bautista. And I like Chris Pratt because I'm a Parks and Recreation fan. He's not exactly showing off any range here, but there's something very likable about his Star-Lord. Of the bad guys, I liked blue Yondu played by Michael Rooker with no attempt to hide a thick Southern accent. The characters' personalities almost popped off the screen, and there were a lot of interesting fringe characters as well, the kind of thing you expect from a Star Wars film. In fact, this entertained about like one of the prequels and had the same kind of glossy space battle scenes. The climax has a sword fight (a sword cat fight, in fact), some spaceships shooting at each other, and some characters trying to sneak into a place which really reminded me of the action juxtaposition from The Phantom Menace. And yes, I might just be typing that to piss off geeks. It seems like the kind of thing I'd do. This was funnier than Episode I though even though there wasn't a Jar-Jar to be seen. Unlike Dune--this movie could easily have been just as much of a failure as Dune, by the way--this has a character making a reference to eyebrow weirdness, and I really liked how there was comedic confusion with idioms two or three times in the dialogue. You don't think about linguistics during a sci-fi movie, but if people on earth get confused by idiomatic expressions, of course people across the galaxy will. I liked the movie's humor, something that added to the fun. I didn't like the sentimentality, however. "We are Groot" and "Take my hand" brought this to absurdly sentimental places while a pre-Marvel comic swirl and credits sentimental goopiness got things started off badly. It certainly is a great-looking movie though. The world building and space fight scenes are incredible. I loved the imagery, especially during the first sci-fi scene where Pratt is walking around with that cool mask with the red-glowing eyes. The whole thing clashed beautifully with whatever song played on his mix tape and his dancing. The mix tape soundtrack is a cool idea, by the way, something else that gave this movie a unique science fiction flavor. The special effects weren't all good though. There were some really sketchy movement effects--Superman's leg syndrome--during some scenes, and a lot of explosions just didn't look right at all. Of course, it didn't matter much since you're basically watching a cartoon anyway. All in all, this isn't the masterpiece that some people made it out to be, but I do look forward to more installments in the Guardians story, even if they are structured almost exactly the same as all the other Marvel movies.