Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy

Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace

Directed by James Gunn

Synopsis:
In the 80s, young Peter Quill is abducted by aliens on the worst day of his life.  Twenty-six years later, he is now known as Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), and is a petty criminal working for the people who abducted him, under the leadership of Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker).

While on a seemingly routine robbery, Star-Lord steals a mysterious artifact that seems to be wanted by some very powerful enemies, including Ronan (Lee Pace), who is working for the dark lord Thanos (Josh Brolin).

Ronan sends Thanos' daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to track Star-Lord down, and Yondu himself puts a bounty on him, which raises the interest of bounty hunters Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and his tree sidekick Groot (Vin Deisel).

When Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket and Groot are captured, they're sent to a prison where they meet Drax (Dave Bautista), who has a severe grudge against Thanos.  Together, they break out and go in search of what mysterious artifact Star-Lord has, and why people are willing to kill them for it.

Review:
When I first heard of this film being made, I thought Marvel made a terrible mistake.  They've earned massive success in their film projects because they're placed the most famous superheroes front and center.  Everyone knows Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Captain America...kids even have them on lunchboxes and backpacks.  However, very few people have ever heard of the Guardians, especially one of them being a talking raccoon and the other a tree who, according to the raccoon, states that "his vocabulistics is limited to 'I' and 'am' and 'Groot,' exclusively in that order." 

Throw in the director of "Scooby Doo" and you got the makings for what should've been a box office flop.  However, the total opposite happened.  Somehow, someway, "Guardians of the Galaxy" became August's biggest blockbuster, earning more in its first weekend than any other movie ever released in August.  How did this happen?

To be honest I have no idea.  On paper it shouldn't have worked, but it did.  The film wasn't extremely long (I'm looking at you "Transformers 4"), the story was intriguing (especially bringing in the Infinity Stones), and to top it off they brought in the best actors for the job.  They clearly enjoyed each other and what they were doing, and it brought the audience in along for the ride.  The film had a perfect blend of comedy and action, with the comedy arriving in forms of quick-quips and intelligent one-liners that goes above typical "potty humor" comedy. 

The effects were massive and expansive, delivering the audience into a whole new world that was once only exclusively for "Star Wars" and "Star Trek," bringing a new life to the Sci-Fi subgenre and making it work extremely well.

Summary:
"Guardians of the Galaxy" was able to turn Marvel's B-team into an amazing A game epic.

My Rating: A+