A movie like “Guardians Of The
Galaxy” makes you think of “The Avengers,” another Marvel
product featuring a great
set of heroes. Both movies have a lot in common, and the former owes
a great deal to the latter. However, in
more ways than one, this is the anti-Avengers. Earth's
mightiest heroes have plenty of tortured backstories and issues
between them, but they are still an elite force who mostly chose to
become the heroes they are.
The members of the “Guardians Of The
Galaxy,” however, are a motley crew of genuine outcasts, who are
assembled by pure chance. They are thieves, bounty hunters,
assassins, many of whom have had their powers inflicted on them by
the cruelty of others.
They're brought together by the movie's
main focus, Peter Quill (the compulsively watchable Chris Pratt), aka
Star-Lord. He was abducted from Earth by a child and raised by a
group of thieves called the Ravagers, who decide to be nice and raise
him rather than eating him. When he decides to steal a valuable and
mysterious orb by
himself, he incurs their wrath and that of quite a few others who
want it for themselves and their own destructive purposes.
One of those is the villainous Ronan
(Lee Pace), a terrorist who seeks to cleanse the universe of anyone
who conflicts with his vision of it. Which happens to be practically
everyone. He sends the hot,
green-skinned assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to retrieve the
Orb, just as a few bounty hunters, the tree-like Groot (Vin
Diesel) and the talking, tech-savvy raccoon Rocket (Bradley Cooper).
Just bear with me. Naturally,
things quickly go awry and they are put in prison, where the vicious
Drax (Dave Bautista) takes an interest in them.
They all become reluctant allies in the
name of self-interest, then something deeper, as they realize they
must team up to break out of prison, then to save the galaxy from
Ronan. The result is a kind of wildly entertaining amusement
park with a new attraction around every corner, where
the humor not only drips from the screen, it dances with joy, much as
Star-Lord does when we first meet him. Who needs comic relief when
every character practically has a zinger a minute?
While the movie's reach occasionally
exceeds its grasp due to too many characters and their rather abrupt
emotional turnarounds, as well an overstuffed plot, nothing that is
focused on feels wasted or boring. The pace is brisk, but rarely
feels rushed, and every shot, every frame feels like it has its
purpose (especially when it tastefully focuses on Zoe Saldana).
Hell, “Guardians Of The Galaxy” is practically an homage to all
the various tropes that make sci-fi so great, since this is the kind
of amusement park that
allows you to see every one of its building blocks without shame or
danger. Plus, it helps that it comes along with a killer retro
soundtrack.
Having never read the comic books it's
based on, I can't say if it does them justice. Maybe I would be
harsher on “Guardians Of The Galaxy” if it didn't have so much
work to do. Anyone who thinks this is an underdog movie should be
laughed out of the room, but the fact remains that we take these
characters seriously, and
derive most of our enjoyment just from their interactions. And those
characters include a talking tree and raccoon. But then, Marvel
always seems to do its best work when their heroes are hard sells
(“Thor” and “Captain America”) and their worst when their
heroes are practically gift-wrapped to appeal (“Wolverine” and
the rather mixed record of the “X-Men” movies). A sequel has not
only been approved, it has a release date for July of 2017. It can't
come soon enough.
Grade: A-
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