Live Action Comic At Its Best

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2014)

Plot
Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is exploring a planet and finds a sphere that he plans to sell for a few bucks, but he is not the only one who is looking for it. Little does he know that this sphere contains god-like power that could destroy a planet. While he is transporting this object he is detained by the authorities and incarcerated with Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel) and Rocket (Bradley Cooper). Together they escape prison, but lose the almighty sphere. Now it is a race against time and space to stop a madman before he can extinguish countless lives in an instant.
Character Development
Peter Quill does development slightly, which is to say there is a basic hand-off from the storytelling in beginning of the story to the end. A very clever device, where some of those dots were connected and where some of them were not, but the Peter Quill character doesn't have a lot going on below the surface. None of the characters really did. These are some pretty sketchy individuals, which were far more animated by the actors playing them than what is written about them. They seem to have been given just enough motivation to get from scene to scene.
Acting
Two of the main characters are computer generated and look as good as the other three that are played by human begins. Zoe Saldana is an odd addition to the human side because she played a digital character in Avatar (2009). Mostly everyone's acting was either played for laughs or for comic book violence, complete with dull weapons and no blood.
Overview
I think we have reached a point in filmmaking where you can have CGI characters without them looking like CGI characters. In this film you are going to know right away that the talking raccoon isn't real, but in this film it is made to look real and far more enjoyable to watch than other CGI characters that have spent far too long on the screen. The digital characters in this film seemed like they fit in with the rest of the cast mostly because this film didn't take anything seriously. It is far easier to have a talking tree and talking raccoon with the rest of your cast when your protagonist is a stand up comic.