8/10

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2014)

A great sci-fi adventure, a marvelous piece of entertainment, a fantastic, sky-above-average summer movie, yet a mildly disappointing comic-book adaptation. Lets get one thing out of the way: there is no way in which I will judge this movie without thinking as the comic-book nerd I am, in particular the cosmic-comic-book nerd. I have been reading comic books ever since I had the ability to read, before that my dad would read them to me. For all my life I have loved Marvel Comics and loved the most the Marvel cosmic comics, they are some of the best fiction ever invented, so forgive me if I will complain about things that only 0.1% of the population cares about.
Before going off and raving about how good the filmaking in this movie is, despite some minor flaws: uneven first act, 10 minutes too much in length and underwhelming villains, I want to address why this movie didn't make a higher grade for me. You see, looking at this movie as it is, it could have very, very easily been a 9 (or more) for me, but I was repeatedly taken out of it because of a problematic adaptation of the source material. I'm not saying that the film butchered 100% of the comics, what I'm saying is that it butchered a good 15-20% of the core mythology of the universe. And I would be perfectly OK with that! I have been time and time again in the past years because I understood the necessity of the changes. And that is the key point. The changes made were simply put, useless and foolish. This is the second time in my life I get angry because of comic book movie changes, so don't take me like the marvel fan-boy whining idiot, because I am a film-nerd too. The reason why these changes bothered me so much is because they could have been changed in a one hour re-write and made the movie excellent, but they are not there. But making Ronan the character he is was a mistake, totally changed who he truly is. The marvel cosmic array of villains is so vast no one can remember them all and out of all of them they changed one of the most iconic and complex ones and made him a throw-away idiot without clear motivations. The whole Ronan-Xandar thing was about of nowhere too. Don't even get me started on the Kree and Nova Corps representation that was so, so, so disappointing. I feel like all of the changes were made for pure fan service-name recognition, but still were totally unnecessary. If you want to use the nova corps, use them, but do them right, don't make them this bunch of throw away soldiers with John C.Reily in the middle in a totally useless and stupid role. It simply is a partial disappointment for a lifetime comic book fan like me.
But enough of that. Still I am very happy with the movie and hope that with the future they will correct their few mistakes. They certainly establish enough ground for it. The cast is simply amazing. Chris Pratt is perfect and Zoe Saldana and Bautista are perfect for what they're given, there characters are a little under-represented, but amazingly performed and depicted on screen. Rocket and Groot are 100% successful in their transition and probably the best part of the movie, plus their CGI is totally flawless. The action scenes are breathtakingly stunning and the effects amazing. Moreover the movie is really, really funny and adds up to a massively entertaining time at the cinema. The production value is very satisfying, the pacing perfect, the score and the soundtrack are flattering, I thought the main theme of the score was brilliant. Plus, the fan service was really very good, yes it failed in a few things pointed above, but it succeeded in many others.
Overall, I really, really liked the movie and I am looking forward to seeing it again in theaters and possibly change my mind over some things, but most of all I can't wait to see where they will take the story from here.