A refreshing and amusing take on the superhero genre.

Rating: 7/10 (31 July 2014)

I'm quite a casual fan of Marvel comics and their movies, so I didn't know much about Guardians of the Galaxy going in nor was I expecting much.
The blend of action and humour was great. The tone of the film, which I think is balanced very well, was perfectly set in the opening sequence. The comedy especially was actually funny. I think this is largely down to the fact that the characters were so thoroughly well established, with each character having decent screen time. None of them felt underdeveloped and you felt connected to all of the main cast.
By and large the acting was very good, stand out being Chris Pratt. A very strong performance as well as delivering on the comedy. The movie is really hinged on him as a central protagonist, and he did a great job of leading the narrative as well as standing out as a character in his own right. Even former wrestler Dave Bautista did a good job. He didn't exactly have a huge range to deal with, but he delivered the serious parts and he was also pretty funny. The writers definitely played to his strengths which showed.
The writing in general was very good. It is a well structured film, and is kept moving along at a reasonable pace. The dialogue is expertly written, with great gags and jokes delivered in great timing.
The cinematography and visual fx were fantastic. It's a very good looking film, easy to watch and choreographed well. It had a great blend of sci-fi almost Spielberg-esque visuals, which I think gives the film a distinctive look from the other Marvel movies. The CGI was generally very good. Groot and Rocket especially looked fantastic. The only downside here was you can tell that the large portion of time was spent on the main characters CGI (and rightly so), but it means that tertiary CG characters tended to be a bit lacking and not look up to standard.
Unfortunately I felt Lee Pace's performance as main villain 'Ronan' to be quite one dimensional and wooden. He shouted a lot, and put on a deep voice, but what presence was built up around his character I felt fell flat when he actually started speaking.
Also, his character motive was basically him being a religious fanatic. While being topical, I felt that his core motivations was quite a simplified notion of "West vs East" as apparent in the two warring cultures of the Kree Empire vs the Xandarians, to the point where I felt it was exploitative of post 9/11 anxieties and leaning towards patronizing.
Overall though, a very entertaining and most importantly funny movie. Quite different from any other modern Marvel movie, which is a good thing. Recently I've found that some of the post Avengers Marvel releases (with the exception of Days of Future Past) to be feeling quite stale. This film has definitely got a unique and distinct personality which I think sets it apart from the rest, in a good way.
I have to say now though that it is probably in the top three Marvel movies alongside 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' and 'The Avengers'.