Review of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) by Dillinger P — 14 Jan 2016

Riding high on their huge success, Marvel continue their commercial domination with a slightly more tongue in cheek and less grating outing than The Avengers, although far from perfect, Guardians Of The Galaxy offers so much more individuality than most Marvel outings combined.

We follow the story of a rogue adventurer called Peter Quill, a sarcastic, jokey raider who stumbles upon a mystical orb, an orb everyone in the galaxy wants their hands on, especially a powerful being called Ronan.

Soon Peter finds a huge bounty on his head, which forces him to make some unlikely friends in order to not only save his life, but help him sell the orb, only it soon becomes clear that this sought after item, actually contains something more powerful than most people could imagine.

I have always appreciated what Marvel have tried in the past to achieve, bringing the fun back into comic book films, making loud and sugar coated action adventures and filling their worlds with bold and quirk filled characters and although Guardians is completely no different, it has something that no other Marvel film can top, the evident fun that every single member of the cast is having.

Its a wonderfully eclectic cast as well, Chris Pratt is every bit as lovable and charismatic as Peter, Zoe Saldana is hypnotic as Gamora, Bautista is surprisingly quirky as the battle tank Drax, the voice work of Bradley Cooper and and Vin Diesel as bounty hunters is well realized, Karen Gillan, Lee Pace and Josh Brolin all get the job done as the main villains, and even Michael Rooker, Glen Close, Michael C.

Rielly, Benecio Del Toro and Djimon Hounsou all partake in some strong supporting roles. It's a cast filled with a barrage of different range and it makes all the difference, especially when everyone gets together to either battle it out or just run insults past each other.

And luckily the script is a whopping breath of fresh air, allowing a sense of humor that doesnt feel forced or over polished and at times allowing actors to improvise and stick with them. That's the kind of movie this is and Gunn is more than confident with his correct choices, which makes the experience all the more enjoyable, everything happens for a reason, characters actually feel like characters and the world feels as real as a CGI filled world can.

Another high point, apart from the brilliantly compiled soundtrack, is the production design, character design and sets all look like a huge chunk of time have been spent on them, everything looks unique and standout, in fact were it not for the constant reminder that this is indeed a Marvel film, a large portion of the audience would feel that they were watching something entirely fresh and that's not a bad thing.

The Set pieces, which are plentiful, are all fast, frenetic and extremely well handled, including the final battle sequence that juggles so many threads, in such a well paced and surprising manner it will catch you completely off guard.

Guardians will not bore but that doesn't mean its perfect. As with most Marvel films, there are glaring issues that completely pulverize any immersion any non fanboy of the franchise will constantly try to obtain, a huge deal of this is down to an over abundance of CGI.

I get it, its needed for huge scale productions like this, and a lot of it is well executed here, but Guardians is a little too over reliant on its digital imagery. Every single scene, minus some CGI characters, is completely coated in computer effects, not polished off with, or enhanced but built from the ground up.

It's sad and literally distracting, there is nothing worse than enjoying a ground of bizarre hero's busting their way out of a maximum security space prison, and having 80% of everything on screen been animated, in a live action film, it feels like a get out of jail free card and sadly guardians plays this hand way too often.

Guardians also has some minor issues with coherence, convieniance and predictability, yet again, these are small things in a film of this type, but we have all seen these things be addressed properly by film makers before, the excuse its just a bit of fun, shouldnt factor into it.

Niggles aside, Guardians is the most fun i've had with a marvel outing in far too long a time, its fun, its exciting, it will make you laugh and its got a badass cast. It constantly surprises and packs more charm than most comic book films to date, totally worth anyone's time.