Guardians of the Galaxy, best Marvel movie to date

Rating: 10/10 (11 December 2014)

***Spoiler alert***
In Guardians of the Galaxy we have Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) a scavenger that was picked up from Earth as a young boy, locating an orb that contains one of the infinity stones. While on Nova he gets in a fight with Gamora (Zoe Saldana) for the stone. Meanwhile Rocket and Groot (Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel) are trying to capture Quill. They are all arrested and sent to the Kyln prison where they meet up with another inmate Drax (Dave Bautista). They may fight and bicker but they come together as a team and a family to defeat Ronan (Lee Pace) before be can destroy Nova.
This leads us to the theme of the movie, teamwork. The first time they work as a team is when break out of the Kyln. They all gathered the items that Rocket needed to break them out. Even though they worked as a team they still hadn't gelled together yet. That came at the end of the movie during the battle with Ronan.
If this theme sounds familiar to you it should. It took place two years earlier on Earth when Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) brought together a group of extraordinary superheroes called the Avengers. It can also be found in the Fantastic Four from 2005 and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in 2003.
A technique that we saw used during the film to show the development of the theme was developing characters. This is the most evident with Drax's character. When he is introduced in the Kyln he is all about revenge and killing Gamora. The change in Drax happens on Nowhere when Groot saves him from drowning when Ronan throws him in a vat of liquid. The development finalizes on Ronan's ship, the Dark Aster, when they are walking to the bridge and he realizes that the rest of the Guardians are his friends. Another technique used during the film is ensemble acting. While all five of the Guardians have different backgrounds and came from different places they all have different skills that help out the team. For example Rocket is very good with building weapons for the team to use while Gamora can use her intellect and military training.
Like I mentioned the theme is teamwork. Like Loki (Tom Hiddleston) for the Avengers and Professor M in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Richard Roxburgh) the Guardians used a common cause to bring them together. That was Ronan in this film. They now have a bond that will serve them well against other foes.