Hands down the sauciest summer blockbuster of 2014—entertaining as hell!

Rating: 8/10 (14 January 2015)

I don't usually start-off with ratings but I am sure it'll go further up when I see it next :) Every single character in the film packs a punch and you totally (G)root for them. It is one of those rare films maintaining a balance of power between good and bad, all through.
Beautiful build up of all character; each one of them reaches crescendo. Director shrewdly wards off any triteness in screenplay and familiarizes you to characters without traditional flashbacks and too many back stories; he rather lets actions of the characters speak for themselves—audience is settled into knowing and conciliating with them in natural flow of story.
All five heroes—Quill, Groot, Drax, Rocket, and Gamora—have connected well with the audience and are going to stay with us a while. They have the usual, appealing premise: a band of anti-heroes, mercenaries, and brats coming together to save the world. The goodness in them isn't apparent but inherent; now they know it and so does the galaxy! Michael Rooker as Yondu Udonta, with his whistling arrow, was a top-drawer. With all his nonsensical antics earlier in the film, you don't bank on him to wrap it up this good! But boy does he NAIL it against the Kree soldiers :) Always nice to see Stan Lee getting some, dude deserves it all! Looking forward to Cosmos the Soviet Dog taking charge in the skull outpost in upcoming film(s). Howard the Duck was briefly there; maybe Marvel is just pitching the character...and because they can—unlike the counterparts, DC.
When it comes to comics, I was only somewhat familiar with the Guardians, more so to the recent 2008 team, and have never gone deeper in all the Guardians of the Galaxy stories—my to-do immediately.
8.2/10