Guardians Of The Galaxy Review

I’d like to point out two things before I begin reliving my complaints about this feature film. First, I rarely get to see movies on opening weekend so I wouldn’t get too attached to movie reviews on this site. Second; I have to admit that I grew up a huge comic book nerd, reading any colorfully printed hero I could get my grubby hands on and I knew absolutely nothing about these so called “Guardians Of The Galaxy” going into this movie. I do remember seeing Rocket Raccoon in a handful of other comics but never knew his story, and I knew Thanos played in a role in the movie; someone every Marvel fan should know. That being said, this was extremely weird for me. I never gone to see a comic book movie without having the knowledge to test it. I mean, I even knew Elektra‘s origin story when the 2005 film came out.

My first point of complaint is the promotion for this movie. With a great story line, and opening multiple worlds for the Marvel universe; the only actual promo I saw for this movie was Chris Pratt’s several interviews. No one I knew shared the trailer, but everyone’s been talking about Pratt. As a true comic book nerd, this bums me out a little. Sure, it’s good that Marvel is making millions and bringing the comic world to Hollywood; but seeing how glorified Tony Stark and the Avengers have become, I’d like to see us get back to the love of the fictional world and not Robert Downey Jr’s personality.
Of course Pratt is the main character in this movie, but it has an amazing cast that no one is talking about. Avatar’s “Neytiri” (Zoe Saldana), WWE’s “Batitsta” (Dave Bautista), Vin Diesel as a one-line speaking tree (Groot), Bradley Cooper as Rocket, The Walking Dead’s “Merle” (Michael Rooker), John C. Reilly, Benicio Del Toro, Glen Close, and even The Gilmore Girl’s “Kirk” (Sean Gunn) are just a few of the characters. That being said, it’s odd how Marvel piggy-backed on Pratt’s interviews for their sole promotion.
Besides humanity’s failure at promoting this movie and talking about the cast, the movie had more than a handful of complaints from me. First and foremost, let’s talk about how unrealistic this film is. I know, I know. “It’s a fictional world!” but a few things should not have been tossed in so unamused. Although the characters are in and out of space ships mid universe, there’s not one air lock (they just fall in). Although the lack of gravity is mentioned pretty early in the movie, it isn’t carried on throughout the film at all. Everywhere they visit has the same gravitational pull as earth, with no artificial reason behind it. Even though gravity is normal by our standards, these space ships casually float in and out of orbit with absolutely no limitations. Now, I know it’s just a movie and it shouldn’t bother me but with how many 80’s references this movie hangs on, is just a reminder that 1977 George Lucas took all of this consideration for his Star Wars series. Also, Pratt’s character carries around a walkman and cassette the entire movie, which plays high quality music. Anyone who’s owned a cassette would know that a mix-tape from 1988, played constantly would not be playable 26 years later.
Random note: After doing some research it appears the Silver Surfer played a big role in “Guardians Of The Galaxy”. Come on Marvel. You have a chance to re-boot a character we all want to see! Ok, back on topic.
With my complaint about general physics aside, the story line was mediocre but it wasn’t completely bad. As most modern box office smashes are, the actual plot is generic at best but it’s how they pull it off which Guardians did well. There’s a super weapon that could destroy entire planets, and the heroes have to stop the bad guys from getting their hands on it. Sound familiar? *cough* Avengers.The one thing missing from Marvel’s regular formula is the lack of an origin story. The movie opens with about 3 minutes of Star-Lord’s (Chris Pratt’s) childhood and then is thrown right into the mix of things. If you’re looking for an actual origin, you’ll have to pay attention to the dialog as it’s briefly mentioned throughout the entire movie. This is abnormal for any Marvel film, considering everyone in The Avengers got an origin movie (Iron Man got 2), and even Ant Man (seriously) is getting one later this year.
So what was good about this movie you ask? Well how incredibly amazing it was directed and how realistic the CGI looked. The whole time I was thinking “Man, this is what Green Lantern should have looked like!”, which I’m guessing is kind of what Marvel wanted considering Guardians Of The Galaxy seems like their answer to the Green Lantern Corps (I don’t know what came first). As someone who can usually spot errors in any computer animated movie, this one had me in awe at it’s incredible seamlessly live-action-to-CGI action.
With all that being sad, I truly this believe this movie is being over-hyped. I don’t know what we’ve done letting Marvel gross $100 billion on everything they release, but I think we’re going to start seeing the repercussions soon. Between Ant-Man, and the stinger (credits scene) character at the end of Guardians, I expect some serious flops coming our way, and I expect the same level of hype for each of them.