A fun ride

Rating: 8/10 (10 August 2014)

I knew nothing of the source material going into this, and it was a pleasant surprise. To be honest at the beginning I had a "wtf is this" feeling, but once I figured out it was a space opera with a lot of purposeful humor I latched on and had a great time watching.
The plot is part of a larger Marvel arc with the Infinity Gauntlet (crazy powerful thing created by assembling some other powerful things) but not knowing much about that didn't hinder my enjoyment. The characters are diverse and very vivid. The humor doesn't get in the way if you don't find the jokes that funny, and the pacing is good as well. You're treated to some cool locales as well.
My only complaints would be that the villain looked like a laughable version of Zartan from G.I. Joe and the movie looked too clean. The latter is kind of a general complaint I personally have with a lot of movies these days though, so take it for what it's worth. I don't know what it is but for some reason when green screen backgrounds are involved no one can look dirty or tattered, and when they do it's very obvious a make up artist did the work ("here let's put some fake dirt on your face").
Aside from those two things, which didn't make or break anything for me, this is a really fun movie I think most people can enjoy or at least sit through even if they're not comic book or science fiction fans. Being a fan of both but not knowing what I was getting into I came out of it very pleased.