Marvel-ous

Rating: 9/10 (3 August 2014)

Proving without a doubt that Marvel do their best work when putting themselves out on a dangerously twiggy limb without a safety net, Guardians of the Galaxy has made one hell of an entrance.
I was prepared for it to be little more than a curio. With Marvel's standard teaser trailers revealing some out of context attempts at humour and little in the way of storyline I'd already made my peace with the possibility that this would be Marvel's first, well-meaning misstep.
On paper, it's a potentially epic fail. A largely unknown property that straddles the no man's land between comic book fantasy and space opera, populated by a cast of not exactly household names and fronted by the chubby guy from cult (i.e. beloved but little seen) mockumentary Parks and Rec, it features a band of initially charmless felons that include a talking tree with a 3 word vocabulary, a double crossing thief and a trigger happy raccoon.
Instead, like the Jon Favreau's Iron-Man and Joss Whedon's Avengers, James Gunn's Guardians is - in defiance of all logic and expectation - a beautifully bonkers triumph.
Like the best comic book movies, it downright revels in the flaws of its heroes from the monosyllabic Groot (surely the easiest paycheck Vin Diesel has ever earned) to the narcissistic self regard of roguish leader Peter Quill aka Star Lord aka the newly buff Chris Pratt. It's also laced with Marvel's trademark tongue-in-cheek humour which, as ever, extends to the slickly conceived comic book violence (watch Groot take out...pretty much anyone).
If anything, between the wisecracking Quill and Rocky Raccoon (Bradley Cooper in possibly a career best turn - and yes, I have seen Silver Linings Playbook) and the beatific Groot, Zoe Saldana's Gamora and Dave Bautista's homicidal Drax do come across as marginally less interesting.
But faced with the challenge of introducing an entirely new galaxy to an entirely new audience in 121 all too brief minutes, Guardians breathes heart and soul into its cornucopia of heroic freaks with cunning efficiency while still finding time for hordes of cameos (not least the end credits, which features the most unlikely comeback of all time).
Confronted by near omnipotent villains (Liverpudlian Lee Pace doing a storming job as an interstellar terrorist), and infused with an almost childlike nostalgia (aided and abetted by the gleefully retro soundtrack - on a mixtape no less!) it's little wonder that whispered comparisons with Star Wars can already be heard.
I count myself among those mildly alarmed by the departure of Ed Wright from the upcoming Ant-Man, but between Guardians and The Winter Soldier, my wavering faith has been sufficiently buoyed. I may not have a clue what Marvel are up to, but as long as they do who am I to argue with these comic savants when they're capable of such cinematic alchemy?