Very watchable, occasionally very entertaining

Rating: 6/10 (7 February 2016)

"Guardians of the Galaxy" is a successful American movie from 2 years ago and successful is actually quite an understatement. The film made the IMDb top250, got lots of love from audiences and critics, finished no°3 of the year in terms of box office and was nominated for two Academy Awards. The cast includes a handful pretty famous names, but it was especially a breakthrough for Chris Pratt, who was probably only known to fans of "Parks & Recreation" before. The story is a bit similar to "Despicable Me" as we have a criminal here as well who changes sides. Actually, it is not just one criminal, but a whole bunch. Writer and director James Gunn made very smart decisions here by how he chose to make the bad guys look likable. The raccoon and the tree are just cool, but Bautista's character for example only really became evil because of what happened to his family.
Speaking of James Gunn, he is known to be a director who had quite a few flops during his career, in terms of box office, but also in terms of critical reception, so it was quite surprising how well he did with this film here, certainly well enough that there will be a sequel, probably more than one unless this sequel really bombs, which is almost impossible I think. I myself enjoyed the movie too. Its biggest strength are definitely the characters who are all so memorable and unique that it is a delight to watch them. The only one I do not count among these is probably Ronan, who seemed a bit one-dimensional to me as the main villain, but even he wasn't bad, just not as notable as the other characters I guess. I am not a great fan of Vin Diesel or Bradley Cooper I must admit, but their characters are simply amazing in this film.
I am probably a bit biased because I almost always enjoy superhero films, but this one was certainly worth the watch. One thing I liked about it is that it never gets lost in boastful action sequences as many of these genre films do, but this basically only has an extended scene of explosions etc. near the end and that is very much acceptable. The rest of the film focuses a lot more on character development and creating a smart story. And this was very much needed with so many characters. This is far from a one man show à la "Iron Man". Every (anti-)hero gets his fair share of screen time. I recommend "Guardians of the Galaxy" and I will probably also watch the sequel once it comes out. Also nice that they did not try hard to push this film towards the 150-minute mark. It works very well at approximately 2 hours. Thumbs up, go check it out.