One of the Greatest Marvel Films to Date, and That's Saying Something

Rating: 9/10 (16 April 2016)

Guardians of the Galaxy is directed by Peter Gunn and is the story of a human named Peter Quill, who was abducted by an alien group called the Ravagers as a boy. Once in space, he becomes a sort of smuggler, branching off from the Ravagers and doing his own thing. Eventually, a dealer asks him to retrieve a specific orb for him that resides on an abandoned planet called Morag. Upon retrieving the orb, he learns that a warlord named Ronan is also wanting the orb, along with a few others. Peter, and a few friends, have to prevent the vicious Ronan from gaining the orb, and save the day. They're the space Avengers.
I really didn't expect this movie to be good; I thought it was going to be trash. However, Marvel proved, once again, that they can make some good movies, and Guardians of the Galaxy is definitely one of them. Almost everything about this film was great, and exceeded my expectations in every way possible. Guardians is funny, crude, action packed, and pretty deep as well. The script and actors juggle all of these elements so well, and really make for a great time with a movie.
The best thing about Guardians is the characters. Peter Quill, or Star Lord, is great lead character, played excellently by Chris Pratt. Zoe Saldana was great as Gamora, proving yet again that she is really good at playing sexy, multi colored aliens. Although he only repeated the same line in different tones, Vin Diesel was awesome as Groot, and brought a sort of intimidation to the character. Dave Bautista was a perfect choice as Drax, and his traditional way of speaking added a lot of humor to more than a few scenes.
Rocket Raccoon. I honestly thought that Rocket was going to be an annoying little rodent that was supposed to be funny, yet none of his humor would be pulled off well. I basically thought that Rocket was going to be the Jar Jar Binks of this movie. Wow, I was wrong. Rocket Raccoon was one of the best things about this entire film, and I loved every minute that he was on screen. Bradley Cooper did such a good job as this character, and brought so much comedy to the already funny film.
The direction was great. James Gunn did a really great job with the camera, and used a great style during both action scenes and exposition scenes. His limited amount of cuts during the action really helped the movie, considering a lot of the action was space ships flying around each other. That's another great thing about Guardians: the special effects. All of the CG looks great, including Rocket, Groot, and all of the space battles. Particularly during the battle at the climax, the special effects were great.
Now, I did have a problem with this movie, and that problem was the villain, which I was really disappointed with. With many Marvel films, the villain is pretty boring or bland. This includes the Abomination (The Incredible Hulk), Whiplash (Iron Man 2), The Mandarin (Iron Man 3), and Malekith (Thor: The Dark World). Adding to that list is Ronan, the underdeveloped villain of Guardians of the Galaxy. Although his background is covered, it's very brief, and if anybody tunes out his introduction scene, then he's just a bad guy who is bad...and a guy. That's about it. He doesn't have too much character development, and is pretty boring altogether.
Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy was a great movie, and would be perfect in every way if it just wasn't for that villain. You should definitely check out this film, because it's really worth your time.