A Love Letter from Children of the 70s and 80s to Sci-Fantasy

Rating: 9/10 (3 August 2014)

Like lead character Quill/Starlord's many Kirk-esque alien-female conquests, 'GotG' charms our pants off but doesn't just coast along on a lot of that charm and humour. That's not to say that the charisma and quirkiness of the movie are not sincere and artful but that the humanity of one character (Pratt's Quill) is more deeply explored than previous Earth- to-fantasy heroes, including Harry Potter. He is Alice in Wonderland with a cool leather jacket and guns while the myriad creatures and characters around him are enticingly eccentric, have their moments of humour and pathos and become wondrous in director Janes Gunn's hands.
Gunn is a great conductor of an audience - which is a modern rarity in blockbuster effects films - if you look at Michael Bay movies shows what happens when the heart dissolves from a project.
Rather than just tip the toys out onto the playmat, Gunn gives them voice and emotional resonance. However, more than any other director in the cycle of "Geek revolution" comic book movies and TV shows, Gunn has tapped into why many "geeks" retreated into or embraced sci-fi and cult pop culture in the first place. Here is the group of toys or comics that listened when you were bullied. Here are the records mom or dad played in the den while you immersed in kenner playsets or Marvel one-shots. Here are the matte vistas of 'Heavy Metal' magazine with the frenetic edits and dynamics of cartoons like 'He-Man', 'Thundercats' or 'Galaxy Trio' yet couched in human roots (or Groot's) so deftly, it reawakens why you loved such "kid's stuff" in the first place. A love letter from kids of the 70s and 80s.