Winner of Most Underrated... and probably a few Oscars

Rating: 9/10 (26 August 2014)

My honest opinion on why this movie has done well and is doing so well is because of the low expectations everyone had going into it. 1. Its ANOTHER formulaic, predictable, load of bullshit to make wealthy Hollywood producers more wealthy. There will be a kick-ass transformation or emergence of a superhero, the bad guy will whoop his ass the first time they meet, the character deals with some inner conflict and wins in the end possibly with the help of trusty/busty sidekicks. Seen it all before. 2. I've never heard of them before. (I'm not really into comics) It's that simple. 3. Starring in it are the fat funny moron from Parks and Rec, an animated raccoon and Vin Diesel as a tree, and the hot girl from all the Science Fiction movies but is green still hot? Let's just say the advertisements at Subway were weird and not nearly appealing as my Meatball sub.
HOWEVER, the entire movie surprised me. The beginning was the emotional mandatory death of a parent. (nothing new) It wasn't as good as the beginning of "Up," but it was OK. The mysterious superhero introduction of Chris Pratt... was... perfect. I laughed my ass off because it was funny. I am 19, probably much younger than the average critic which you can most likely tell from my writing. They are marketing to my demographic I guarantee it. So when I say that I prefer this movie over almost all of those that I've seen in the last year or two. It is no beginning of an epic series such as Hunger Games, Harry Potter, LOTR, or Star Wars, but as a stand alone action film it was excellent and entertaining.
I won't go too deep into the details of the plot. It wasn't anything too special or crazy but it was at the very least decent. The three way fight was cool and dramatic. The prison break was very well done and a great action sequence. The space battles looked like a cross between Star Wars and StarCraft which is a compliment. I don't want to spend too much time on the plot but I will say that even though it was 2+ hours I never once checked the time or felt fidgety.
There are plenty of other areas that this film excelled in. The CGI was very well done and I'm guessing very expensive. The score was also surprisingly good for a Marvel movie. It actually made it stand out among other superhero movies, but who the hell is Tyler Bates? Why have I never heard of him? Character development, for having 6+ main characters (except for Gamora) there was a decent amount of individual depth for each character.
What I really wanted to comment on and give attention to was the brilliant writing and humor that went into this movie. The dancing at the beginning was funny. When Rocket said he was kidding about needing the prosthetic leg, I actually laughed out loud. When Drax said he was "thinking about something else," it was hysterical! Why isn't this type of humor more common in the movie industry!? This is why people are watching far more TV dramas than movies these days. A lot of critics on here disregard the jokes in this film as "average superhero one-liners." Umm I thought they were funny. As I said before I think many people went into this movie with their mind already made up and with the film in its categorical box. This movie is VERY different than most modern superhero movies. Chris Pratt wasn't trying to be a Robert Downey Junior Iron Man or an obnoxious punk, rebooted Spiderman. Chris Pratt plays his own unique, off beat, charming, ORIGINAL character. (I think some of the credit should go to the under appreciated writers by the way *cough cough*) And yes this movie was packed with pop culture references such as StarLord's mix tapes filled with retro pop songs. Why are pop culture references looked down upon in movies? Television dramas such as Sherlock, House of Cards, and Parks and Rec thrive on pop culture references. Look how well all of those shows are doing.
There were just a few things that I absolutely loved about the writing though. Now whether it was scripted or improvised, Chris Pratt's dancing was just perfect. When do you ever get to see a white man not suck at dancing in a movie? Its light, comedic, fun, it gives us kind of a break in an intense action movie. I don't know it was just different... The other thing that I loved was that the evil Ronan never got to finish his evil monologues. Why is it that in the midst of the most hellish, chaotic battles or fight scenes that the bad guy always has time to give a brief autobiography, an in-depth explanation of his evil plan, tell us what what he's majoring in, and why his favorite color defines his personality or whatever? I'm pretty sure that this only happens in Hollywood (I'm guessing). In GOTG every time he is in the middle of his diabolical speech he gets interrupted by the metal hull of a ship or Chris Pratt's dancing. It's just something I wish would happen more often. I just loved Ronan's "what the hell is going on" face, it made me chuckle.
I'll wrap this up by saying that I went in only hoping that Stan Lee's cameo would be funny (which is was) and that by the end I would learn a little about the modern struggles of a talking raccoon from his point of view. I ended up being fully satisfied for two hours and two minutes. Great job everyone!
P.S. why wasn't the dancing Groot clip the after-credit surprise? The other one was lame as hell and I had to pee :(