Nothing New

Rating: 4/10 (23 August 2014)

In a galaxy far far away, a part human, a green lady, a brute, a talking raccoon and a walking tree set out to save a purple stone, which can cause a purple explosion, from falling into the wrong hands. That is Guardians of the Galaxy. There is nothing more to it.
All the characters are one-dimensional with generic interests in the mission; Peter Quill, the part-human outlaw (Chris Pratt), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and the magic tree (Bruce Willis) are only interested in the payoff and of course in the end they change their motive to saving the world, without any apparent reason. Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the obligatory lady in the team, knows how evil the villains are and wants to stop them. The extremely annoying Drax (Dave Bautista) wants to avenge his murdered family. And the villains want the purple stone to take over the world. Why do they want this particular stone, don't they have any other explosives with them? Who knows.
There is the overused cliché of circumstances bringing the motley bunch of heroes together, them having an adventure and becoming friends at the end of it. But none of them share any chemistry between them and is it hard to see what made them become friends. Not that we care though; we know they would all end up as friends and so they do.
We don't care about anything else in the movie either. We hardly know our heroes and since it is the Marvel Universe, we know none of them would die. The planet, the villains are threatening to destroy is alien, we know nothing about its denizens and again, we know it is going to be saved. The stakes never seem high.
The movie, however, is visually pleasing. 3D has been used innovatively. CG is realistic and the worlds created using it are beautiful. The action is good. There are some funny moments and good one-liners. There is nothing new though. It has a run-of-the-mill feel to. Watch it if you like generic action flicks or a die-hard fan of Marvel comics. Give it a skip otherwise.