Chix Chat on Film review: A Marvelous tale

Rating: 9/10 (3 August 2014)

For a Sci-fi film with enviable comic relief this story had to have one of the saddest opening scenes ever when we first encounter a young Peter Quill (Wyatt Oleff), who appears to be just any small town USA young boy experiencing a devastating hardship, then his life takes an incredible turn for the unexpected. What this scenes does besides pose a question of who fathered him it sets up the soundtrack that accompanies the entire film, since in 1988 everyone had their Sony Walkman and Peter was no exception. We immediately fast forward to 26 years later and find an adult Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) who is a bit of a scalawag, on a commissioned job to retrieve a mysterious orb, which leads to unimaginable adventure. The story of how the Guardians came together was happening on the forefront, but there were also some other major stories taking place like a maniacal Ronan (Lee Pace) bent on destroying a world, Drax (Dave Bautista) driven by revenge, whatever the heck was going on with Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker) who was some sort of space pirate and a sibling rivalry that made for one of the great fight scenes. There were a number of things that tied this film to other stories that have been told focusing on the Marvel Universe including Benicio Del Toro reprising his role as the Collector who we only encounter briefly in Thor the Dark World (after credits) and Thanos another after credits character previously introduced. The special effects in this film were as big a star as the actual stars especially for the only characters who were already in league together, Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel). These characters always felt as real as Star-Lord, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Drax. Who would have expected to come to a movie and feel any kind of emotional attachment to a raccoon?! If you stick around through the credits you will understand why the effects were first rate, there had to be at least ten animation companies credited. As with all the Marvel films there is an after credits scene, however the thing is if you are too young to remember the pop culture of the 80s you may not get the joke. This was storytelling at its best, and was very entertaining from beginning to end.