Please don't feel like you HAVE to laugh.

Rating: 7/10 (8 August 2014)

There's a moment in Guardians of the Galaxy when Rocket, the film's talking raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), is accused of faking his laugh; coincidentally, there were quite a few people in the cinema I went to who I could have hurled the same accusation at. Yes, GOTG features a couple of genuinely funny moments, but it also has more than its fair share of gags that fall flat and certainly do not warrant the kind of belly laughs that I could hear (probably coming from deluded Marvel fan-boys).
However, even with its frequently-less-than-hilarious comedic moments, this big-budget dollop of sci-fi comic book silliness still manages to be quite a lot of mindless popcorn fun, delivering enough weird and wonderful characters, fantastic worlds, spectacular action set-pieces and impressive special effects wizardry to guarantee a reasonably fun time. Director James Gunn's eclectic and vibrant universe is brimming with such imagination and visual splendour, all accompanied by a poptastic '70s/'80s soundtrack, that the film proves a treat for the senses despite its obvious shortcomings elsewhere.