Sunday, August 3, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy see it now!

Stunning GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Poster Art by Paul Shipper




Silver Surfer, Terrax, Ego the Living Planet, Uatu, The Shi'ar, Star Jammers, Adam Warlock. Kree, Skrulls, Brood, Phalanx, the Star Jammers and so many more marvel space comics that I could name that give me the red ass.

Then the announcement of the Guardians of the Galaxy and I groan.

Then James Gunn is directing and my head tilts like a dog hearing a noise on the tele. By the way go watch Slither. He directed that and it slimy gross fun! Then go see Guardians of the Galaxy. A lot of the same humor bleeds through. 

Then Rocket Raccoon arrives and I'm pretty much sold.

This is a damn enjoyable film!



The universe is huge and there are powers at work in it. Enter two races with a tenuous peace, a mad titan trying to gather 6 stones to gain power to rule the universe, a rouge warrior with an army of quasi-undead soldiers looking for revenge, a gang of interstellar Fred Sanfords, sprinkle in a lot of great humor, add some fighting, then add explosions and space battles, introduce another Infinity Gem and then throw in a crew of misfits to spoil everyone's plans. That is the gist of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Sounds tired and confusing right? It is soooooo not that!

After years of comic movies and first film back story after back story after rebooted back story here we get none of that. A two hour film and all the character exposition lasts maybe 5-8 minutes. That is awesome.We get thrown right in and it actually works. Thank you for that. I hate origin tales and this cast of characters would take several films to describe everything about them. The same goes for the universal back story. Aliens do stuff and other stuff. Now off to the film. You missed it? Well you're a dink and we'll glaze over it again like an hour later since you missed it. It really felt like that and it still worked!

Peter Quill Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Gamora and Drax all play off each other so well! I am no fan of Chris Pratt and his Andy Dwyer from parks and Rec annoyed me a lot. I didn't just see him as that here. Thank the maker. Zoe Saldana annoyed me as blue monkey cat alien and her Urhua is meh! Here not so much. Draz is a pro-wrassler and that worked. Bradley Cooper is what he is and I don't really care for him, but doing voice work for Rocket, he was great! He stole a lot of the scenes in my opinion, but I have a minor raccoon bias. Vin Diesel had the smallest part by only having to growl and say "I am Groot." As a group they all were really awesome to watch and that was due to their dialogue.

So friggin' cute!

The writing in this movie was great! I'm not talking Oscar snooty foreign film level. I'm talking one-liner, sarcasm and good old humor stuff here. This helped the film more than anything else. The plot premise was crazy and to try and make this really serious like the other Marvel movies wouldn't have worked. The action, story and humor all meshed well to make this fun. A really fun movie that I would happily see again in the theaters.

There were two weak spots for me.The first is the villains, Ronin the Accuser. His motivation is meh! as is his character. However, they are building toward Thanos, so you have to go through some lackeys first. The same for Nebula. I could care less for her (and Karen Gillan-Dr Who bias showing here) and whatever out come she has. Still another lackey on the foot path to Thanos, so I will have to deal with her too.

Secondly if there is a weakness it is the post credit scene and Stan lee's cameo. Enough already with Stan Lee! We get it!. As for the end scene, don't bother. It adds nothing to movie and is just awful. I have a special hatred for it as it has a cameo from one of if not thee worst Marvel character ever. If you haven't seen this movie yet, then go! Then as the credits roll, leave. I have warned you.

Guardian of the Galaxy made me like a Marvel space comic. It made me enjoy Chris Pratt. I gave me an animated sass mouth raccoon with guns. It had a tree that said only three words, but was fantastic straight man and even kicked ass. The soundtrack was super awesome. There were good action sets too. The only thing it needed was a tiny does of Nathan Fillion and it would have been perfect!

Go see this movie! It is a damn good time!


















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