A Very Fun Romp

Rating: 8/10 (1 August 2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy is a weird idea from its inception. When you describe even the main characters people will ask questions. It isn't easily understandable why they can't do something because the material asks much more than they can completely contain in a 2 hour film. Guardians of the Galaxy is just a fun romp.
We begin our story with Peter Quill/Star Lord. We start with his mothers death and then we get to go to his space adventures. His trying to collect this sphere which many people want for different reasons that include our main villains Ronan and Thanos. We also got to see this group of crazy criminals to connect into the Guardians of the Galaxy.
I find that each character is very well cast. Chris Pratt is incredible as Star Lord because he can play the silly kind of character that gets thrust into leadership and becomes the perfect leader to this rag tag group. Bradley Cooper's voice is perfect because he is really cocky and you sometimes don't even recognize him in the role. He is absolutely hilarious and you can tell that he put some real effort into the role.
My favorite character is hands down Groot. Groot is something so weird and out there that I didn't know if I would like it. I thought that maybe hiss repeated line of I am Groot would get old, but I didn't get that feeling at all. He is just so well done and Vin Diesel is such a perfect voice that I can't hear anyone else in the role.
If there any weak links in our hear characters, it would be Drax and Gamora. I never thought that Zoe Saldana was a bad casting, but at the beginning she didn't feel like an immediate fit, but I found that as her character developed in the film she got much better. Dave Bautista isn't a horrible casting choice, but I thought his character was really just misused until the last thirty minutes where he finally gets flushed out really well. But both of their characters still deliver some hilarious lines that you can't not laugh at him not understanding the culture of Earth.
Through the source material, there is a lot to explain and I felt that sometimes they were just explaining the back story to the audience and no of this was included in the hilarious prison line up scene. I found that sometimes the story just deliberately explain what was going.
Marvel again spares no expense on the special effects. This movie is beautiful and has some of the best effects in a Marvel film. It is incredible how well our two CGI characters blend with our three tangible characters without feeling like they are talking to a green screen.
James Gunn really had some great direction in this film and his crazy style fits very well to this story and material. I find that the pop culture references are really fun. Sometimes I think they over stay their welcome at some points losing some of this films own identity, but they didn't get on my nerves that much.
The really disappointing thing about this film is that the villains aren't really fleshed out at all. Karen Gillan has some character development and has somewhere to go, but needs some more time to get a true feel of what she is about. The main villain Ronan has no character at all and gets only like 5 minutes of screen time and only seems to do what he does because the script says he does.
I find that some of the minor characters like Glenn Close and John C. Reilly don't hit the mark as well as I wanted it to, but Yondu played by Michael Rooker is a surprise treat that has a lot more to do than I thought he was going in.
This story spreads thin in some spots as well as having some weak characters and mainly villains, but I laughed at a good 90 to 95 percent of the film and just had the most fun watching any Marvel film. The 5 Guardians are great and the writing defies a lot more convention than you might think as well as hiding some really cool tidbits for fans of not only the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the Guardians of the Galaxy comic as well. An enjoyable film that deserves a 3.25 out of 4 stars.
Now I want to hear from you. Have you seen Guardians of the Galaxy? Are you going to check it out? Comment below and let me know. Thanks and remember that I love nerd movies and I am an addict.