Review of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) by Vance F — 20 Jul 2016

In it's riskiest movie to-date, Marvel takes an obscur comic book and makes it outstanding!! This movie could really have been bad, but Marvel's creative team made this space opera fun, and relavant in the Marvel Comicbook Universe.

We really have to commend their marketing team to effectively increase awareness to this film, and doing so in a fun entertaining manner. Also, visually this is one of Marvel's more stunning movies.

The crux of Marvel's success in GOTG is the casting of Chris Pratt. It's right there next to casting Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark. Pratt brings his everyman charm to the role and captivates the audience. His charisma pulses in each scene. He's like a modern day Han Solo; mostly concerned about saving his own kneck, but then through some conflict he becomes the hero we all knew he really was. From there the other characters come together in a mishaped jigsaw puzzle that works. The five word Grout pulls at your heart. Drax's straight literal character is a great counterpart to the sarcasm of Starlord and Rocket. And is there a color Zoe Saldana can't take and be beautiful?!

An unheralded component that makes this movie so entertaining is the music. Sprinkling in some great classic 80's like music made the movie even more relatable. It's not unlike Forrest Gump. How more entertaining is that movie because the score uses awesome songs we know and love to further draw the audience in?! When I hear those songs now I think of Starlord challenging Ronan to a dance-off.

Overall, building an incredible cast, with a fun tone, this underdog comic is in the upper echelon of movies in the MCU.