A step down for Marvel

Rating: 6/10 (30 November 2014)

Don't get me wrong, 'Guardians of the Galaxy' has everything one might expect from a MCU (Marvel's Cinematic Universe) film - a bunch of superheroes fighting iconic villains, special effects explosion in the climax, an after credit scene and some other scenes here and there to show linkage between films in the franchise. This one also has nice warmth and has its heart at its right place unlike the more dark 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' but it fails to reach its levels in terms of direction and execution. I just felt like this film was trying to be too simple not quite taking it self seriously which some people may like but the script is neither innovative nor interesting.
Chris Pratt plays "Peter Quill"(aka Star-Lord) who is kind of professional thief. But when he steals an orb which we all later find out is much more than a normal orb all kinds of troubles step- in. On his adventures he is accompanied by Gamora(Zoe Saldana),Drax the Destroyer(Dave Batista) and two most-interesting characters; one called Rocket Raccoon (voiced-Bradley Cooper) who is genetically modified talking raccoon and another called Groot(voiced-Vin Diesel) a mysterious humanoid tree. Both groot and rocket are best friends and partners in bounty hunting, their pair is the best thing in the whole movie. Things get dangerous when our villain some Kree warrior Ronan pops up looking for the Orb and he is the weakest point of the movie. Ronan plans to destroy a planet Xandar and many other planets later using the orb in vengeance of death of as he says "my father and his father before that". Ronan just keeps repeating those lines whenever he is supposed to look dreadful which I just couldn't bear. His character was poorly developed which was setback for the whole film.
Even though I was overall not happy and disappointed(as I high expectation looking at the reviews) still it has quite many positives going in favor. Special Effects, CGI wise very good but which film in these days doesn't satisfy that? Chris Pratt was quite cool as Star-Lord and his nostalgia for 80s music and dance was also pretty enjoyable. Gamora and Drax seemed a little bit odd but the make-up and styling for them was pretty good. Groot whose vocabulary is limited to "I am Groot" is lovable but its the Raccoon who steals the show with his witty and funny dialogues. Comedy wise the movie has lot to offer, I was laughing hard quite a lot many times thanks to rocket,groot,even the others sometime.The music and score was good. But all this was entangled in a weak plot and the story which follows. We have the same story where our heroes need to protect some dangerous item from falling into wrong hand,the bad guys then find it and just before use it for destruction they are stopped in a action-packed climax. I know most of marvel movies follow similar path but there is something new here and there but here I felt this was the weakest film of Phase 2.
Another thing is the movie is being popularized by many as best sci- fi movie of all time and all. It was just a good action- adventure- comedy and the sci-fi elements in the film weren't properly developed thus I feel it barely falls into sci-fi genre. Many might enjoy it a lot, yes its nice popcorn flick it sit around and watch with friends or kids. For me, it was just one-time watch and slight disappointment looking at the hype of the movie. Still I would give it 6/10 (instead of 5/10) thanks Mr.Raccoon in there, he was one best characters I have seen this year.
RATING:[3/5]