Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy


Guardians of the Galaxy is a Marvel movie, but contains a different type of superhero than you may be used to - to be specific, five different types: a human (Chris Pratt), a green woman (Zamora), a tree (voiced by Vin Diesel), a raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and a large hulk of a man (Dave Bautista). I didn't know much about the comic book or the movie going in to see it, but it's a fun ride, even if it's not quite as fun as The Avengers and others in the Marvel universe.

Peter Quill (Pratt) is "abducted" by a large spaceship when he's young, after his mother passes away. Flash forward to twenty years later, and he's a scavenger, one who finds objects that others want and sells them. The father of Gamora (Saldana) sends her to retrieve said object, but both Gamora and Quill end up in jail, with Rocket (Cooper) the raccoon and his tree sidekick Groot (Vin Diesel) along with them, since Rocket tried to kidnap Quill for ransom. The four must work together to break out of the prison, and also make sure that the evil Ronan (Lee Pace) doesn't destroy the galaxy, because if he gets the object they're all searching for, that is most certainly what will happen.

The music in this movie was awesome, which you can tell by the trailer, too - it's all '70s and '80s music, on cassette tape, that Quill's mother gave to him before she passed away. A particularly funny scene involves Quill singing "Ooh, Child" to Ronan to distract him, because that's one of my mom's favorite songs. The casting was great here too, although Bradley Cooper is barely recognizable as Rocket's voice. I will say that as soon as I recognized Lee Pace as Ronan, under all of that makeup, I couldn't take him seriously anymore, though, because to me he will always be Ned the Pie Maker, from the short-lived TV show Pushing Daisies.

Yes, see this movie, but to me it's a matinee and not a full-price ticket. Definitely see it in 3D if you can, because the 3D was amazing - the film is basically Star Wars meets a superhero film, and the 3D worked well with all of the spaceships flying around on screen. My screening did not have an end-credit scene, but I am betting that if you pay to see the film, you will get one; Marvel generally does have a snippet or two after the entire credits are over. It will be interesting to see how this film does at the box office, because the series is not as well known as, say, Captain America or Iron Man, but at the same time it has some starpower behind it too.

Guardians of the Galaxy is out today, August 1st, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 121 minutes. 3.5 stars out of 5.

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