Mildly fun set-piece space opera

Rating: 6/10 (27 November 2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy tries hard to be good, and it almost succeeds! Its ultimate downfall is a lack of compelling villains for the heroes to battle, and no compelling goal for them to aspire to.
The movie introduces a motley crew of characters. Among them, a smart-talking raccoon ( Bradley Cooper as "Rocket") and his talking tree (Vin Diesel) stand out as the ultimate comedian and straight man. After all, how much straighter can you get than utter the same three words? Stan Laurel saying nothing to Hardy's antics would be about it. The pairing works really well, and provides all the interesting characters and comedic sidelines in this movie. Zoe Saldana's green lady and Chris Pratt's overly self-conscious hero are much more lackluster. The rest of the movie is populated with equally one-dimensional stock characters, like the pirate ship captain who abducts Pratt as a little boy and then wants to kill his protégé, only to decide he's buddies, only to decide he's going to kill his protégé, only...
The plot is not very exciting, and involves a string of unrelated episodes. The "rough bar at the edge of the galaxy episode;" the "rough prison episode;" the "thwart attack on innocent planet episode;" the "lab of mad scientist episode" (not necessarily in that order, but it makes no difference).
The weakest point of the movie is its villains. They are among the least inspiring villains in a long while, with petty motives of destruction, guided by a device contrived to allow everyone to hunt it, although its purpose is unclear and its usage artificially tailored to the needs of the grand finale. Villains are much more interesting when they are as sharp as the sharpest good guys (here the raccoon), not when they are mumbling figures with vague motives of galactic destruction. Take in contrast Robert Redford in "Winter Soldier:" he wanted to knock off a few thousand of the worlds most useless bureaucrats and bad government honchos to make our planet a better place. I was rooting for him!
So while Mr. Raccoon and his straight man get a 9/10 from me, the weak episodic plot and the lackluster villains take this film down to 6/10. Definitely not a new Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. But a nice try, worth one watch, and sure to spawn sequels, which might be better than the original, just like "Wrath of Khan" easily outstripped "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." I'll check out #2 in the hope my wish comes true.