5 points for the clichés + 1 point for dialog

Rating: 6/10 (14 August 2014)

I'll try to make this quick, although I kinda enjoyed myself, you fan boys have got to calm down. This is not the "BEST MOVIE EVER OMG".
The good parts : the dialog : it's not EXTRAORDINARY, but at the very least it's still a lot better than the average earache you get honored with in contemporary blockbusters. It's a lot wittier and funnier than the usual downpour of clichéd overused mindless lines you so commonly endure. It also sounds quite real and spontaneous, surprisingly refreshing and practically makes the film worthwhile (the main cast is OK to meh; dunno why everyone is raving about Chris Pratt though). The main characters are visually pretty interesting and go along well, unfortunately they are poorly fleshed out and rather generic. The goof-ball antihero, the mindless brute, the female assassin, the innocuous terror-critter etc etc etc etc...but a wide array of alien species (SW style) and awesome secondary parts played by actors that have more acting experience and skills than the main cast (!?!) save the day; always nice to see Michael Rooker, John C Reily or Glenn Close (!?!), and cheers to them. This film also (kinda) works because it doesn't takes itself too seriously, so you're a lot less inclined to bitch about the usual truckloads of stupid and juvenile nonsense mandatory to superhero movies (and superhero movie it is not, it's a space-opera); it's got a hint of a hardcore attitude to it, but sadly that gets annihilated pretty quick by the overwhelming Disney vibe, so let's stop talking about that, and start talking about what sucks.
THE BAD PARTS : get ready to be stumped : most of the flick is VFX ridden, indecipherable, seen a thousand times looooong-lasting action scenes, just for the sake of it. The story? The plot is three sentences long. Hey, let's ramp up screen time with the eye-shattering spaceship dogfight, the pointless pursuit, the confusing brawl and voila : you end up with a mind-numbing film that is a jumble of situations that we've all scene far too many times before and that have practically no links with one another (should I rewrite this sentence? naah, f*** it, it illustrates the film pretty well). I'm starting to think the average Hollywood writer has a box with a hole and bits of paper inside it on his desk. He has to pick twelve (without watching), sort'em out in a crescendo kinda a way and BAM : here's your script. If you have no ending, just copy the end of Return of the Jedi, so all the geek boys around the planet will spray they 30 something shorts when they "get" the "tribute" (did YOU get it? the final three-scenes-in-one, part sword fight, part dogfight, part team fight?? MAN THAT WAS SUBTLE). So this is what drags this movie to the near-average : Hollywood thinks "space opera", does "Attack of the Clones" all over again. I know it must be hard nowadays with video games, movies coming out at an exceeding rate, the sheer amount of competition coming from every possible media from every possible country to do something FRESH.
But c'mon, it's Hollywood, they have LOADS OF MONEYZ. James Gunn IS a good writer(he's from Troma and wrote Dawn of the Dead, blessed be him). Give him time to polish an original script, or if he can't do it hire another writer to help him out. Use less cash in VFX and more cash in writing, there is no need to see a thousand spaceships on screen every 5 minutes. Just stop throwing the same old same old scripts and situations over and over and over again, ad nauseam, until every movie just looks the same. I find most modern blockbusters today are HUGE PILES OF BORING SH*T (excuse my french) and I have generally given up, and that's what p***** me off the most with Guardians of the Galaxy : I was ready to give it a shot, it had soooo much potential and a real chance at doing something fresh and new in terms of tone and approach, but thanks to Hollywood it f**ked up : 3/4th of the film is riddled with all the usual clichés and shortcomings that make today's blockbusters so appallingly dull and repetitious.
So no, it's clearly not the movie of the year IMO, but thanks to the humor, the dialog scenes, the characters and the second degree tone, I won't have completely forgotten about it in six months and will maybe even recommend it.
PS : If it had actual swearing I would have given it 6.5. Thx Disney. Yeah I know there's no 0.5 rating on IMDb, but I can't give it 7.