a winning combination of comedy, characters, and special fx (and a little heart)

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy was something I saw this past summer, and by now it should be gone from my memory, or rather a little faded. Summer blockbusters should be fun as disposable entertainments (or on the flip-side can be detrimental to your brain and well-being if they're not), and yet Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios' 10th feature film in eight years, has a little more to offer than the usual. At least, it should be said, with its characters and most of its cast. Plus, it's a comedy deep down - with some tragic roots that aren't totally ignored - and it stays true to that and makes it more memorable on those grounds. If it's not THE best of the MCU flicks yet, it's probably the funniest by way of its ensemble.
After little "Starlord" (yeah, it's not his name, but might as well) loses his mother at the start of the movie (and yeah, a bit of a dramatic start, but director James Gunn makes it real and impactful) and happens to get, yes, sucked up into a spaceship by some mysterious group, it cuts ahead to twenty years later as the boy is now a man (Chris Pratt), a kind of bounty hunter but for objects instead of people. Somehow one thing leads to another and he winds up in a prison, alongside a motley crew of other 'low-lifes' like Rocket Raccoon (voiced by, yes, Bradley Cooper), his companion/partner/Tree-Monster Groot (Vin Diesel), a woman (Zoe Saldana) who is actually from a family of royalty but gets shuffled out by a betrayal of sorts, and Dave Bautista as a Big-Headed Lunk named Drax who's one crutch is that he takes things very literally (including gestures that seem self-explanatory).
This central ensemble is cast and played with excellent timing and a strong variety. No one member is alike, even though there's plenty of sarcasm to go around - Starlord is like a Han Solo, but to a point so is Rocket Raccoon, and of all things it's the latter who is the most 'bad-ass' of the bunch with his technical skills, though also the most unbalanced - and quirks and distrust is a-plenty. There's a lot of comedy in the writing, including some off-kilter sexual references - which, for me as a summer movie presumably meant for kids, made me giddy that they could get away with it, and more importantly that they were hilarious - but also Pratt has excellent timing and chops with everyone. And yet he doesn't play it all for laughs all the time, and when called upon to be serious or call back to his character's mother and past, he can go there too.
The fact that Gunn can get the audience so worked up about this group is really endearing (he described the difference between them and the Avengers like the difference between the Stones and the Beatles, similar songs to play in a group, but varied approach to the music with Guardians being harder edged), including, yes, a giant tree and an over-bearing Meat-Head like Draxx. And there are a couple of solid supporting players who have just delightfully bizarre science-fiction/space-opera get ups (this is also a variation on Star Wars of course); Benicio del-Toro in his one scene and Michael Rooker, the best 'villain' type character of the film as Starlord's a-hole mentor, steal their scenes completely.
I mention all this good stuff, not to mention some winning action set-pieces and occasionally truly spectacular special effects, because the main plot of the film isn't all that great. It's a little been-here-done-that, the Magic Item (one of the items that will eventually make up the Infinity Gauntlet) that has to be saved and protected, and a main villain via Lee Pace that just isn't interesting or compelling. He does what he can, but there isn't much room to do past what is required. It's almost as if Gunn and Nicole Perlman (the writers) knew they had to work with this boiler-plate sci-fi story, did decently, served the franchise that's continuing, and decided that the best way to make this worthwhile would be to give the really choice stuff to the heroes. For me the only thing keeping it back from the heights of The Avengers is a really captivating villain or stakes in that regard.
But if you watch it for these main players, their rapore with one another, the awesomely self-conscious soundtrack (you laugh when certain songs come up, and tap your feet at the same time), and some of the wilder visuals that can come up for these planets and settings - and did I mention a f***ing raccoon is one of the great characters of the past several years in mainstream films, it must be said again - it's popcorn bliss for a couple hours and change.