These meager pleasures are swallowed up

Rating: 7/10 (12 December 2014)

The term 'superhero fatigue' has been floating around for a while now and you've either got it or it's gonna be setting in soon. The fact is that in the last decade (give or take) there's been an influx of people with powers dominating our cinema screens and ever since Robert Downey Jr. made Tony Stark a pop-culture legend, Marvel Studios has been the main offender; pumping out sequels and prequels of guys with hammers and anger issues and spangle outfits. Their crown jewel, The Avengers, put the whole gang in one big flying fortress and then burned down the box-office to the tune of around a billion and a half in ticket sales. As well as the Disney/Marvel juggernaut, Sony has Spidey and the five movies he's starred in, Fox has the X-Men and around a half-dozen movies of varying quality and Warner Brothers has Batman, a phenomenon unto himself with Superman occasionally showing up in various combinations of performer and tone. Safe to say, people in capes are no longer the exception, they're the norm when it comes to picking a movie for the weekend. And with Marvel's newest cab off the rank, Guardians of the Galaxy has set its sights on a pretty risky set of characters.