Terrifically fun

Rating: 9/10 (28 December 2014)

Having seen most of the recent movies in the "Marvel Universe" series, of which this is purported to be a part, I was surprised by how little it has to do with Captain America or Iron Man. It is actually a very different movie, close in effect to making a movie about Hans Solo before he got involved with all that good guy stuff, told at the lightning pace of animated films like The Incredibles.
The performances are terrific, especially the lead, who is a revelation for those who only knew him for his amusingly shaggy TV role. The movie is incredibly funny, yet occasionally slows down just enough to offer a moment of character insight that prevents it from falling into the noisy-special-effects trap of a lot of big-budget action flicks.
While I rarely read comic books, and thus am not familiar with the source material, I would have expected this wacky story and structure to come from some weird indie graphic novel rather than a big publisher like Marvel. I like some of the other Marvel movies, but this one, which stands on its own little island far away from Samuel Jackson, is the best of the bunch.