A Glimmer of Hope, However Faint...

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2014)

Despite its smart casting and often undeniable craftsmanship, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (TM) has really been testing my patience of late, and what was fresh in 2008 is starting to feel stale and contrived. Marvel has its story lines so tightly intertwined that every film feels forced to reference at least 2 others in the franchise at this point, and we've reached a point of suffocation. Not helping matters any is a sense that they're basically making the same film again and again, even if they're mostly making it very well.
So, on the Guardians of the Galaxy... finally a universe mostly divorced from the Avengers (back to that in a minute) and feeling worlds away from that studio's recent output. Fun, cheeky, self-aware and with much more memorable characters (Groot and the Raccoon being the standouts) than your standard superhero fare, Guardians is at its best when it really lets go and embraces its silliness. It also boasts an endlessly hummable soundtrack.
Marvel being Marvel, however, the result is much less perfect than the current IMDb rating would have you imagine. Reused plot tropes are legion, from a distant demigod underwritten super-villain (+ an arch-villain confusingly introduced with no bearing on the plot) to yet another "destroy-a-city" climax, Guardians is often handicapped by its narrative similarity to preceding films, and you can't help but wish it had been released before all its mostly inferior cousins. Thankfully though, it is denied the cruel fate Captain America was given, force-projected as he was into the Avengers time period for the sake of corporate synergy.
Is this a great film? No. But it is an often very entertaining one, with hugely likable characters, and it offers a glimmer of hope, however faint, that Marvel might relax its centralized creative hold and allow for more original ideas to break through. If that ever happens, the age of superheroes will truly be one of movie magic.