Guardians of the Galaxy - Movie Review

                

          

           Watching the trailers for the movie, I thought to myself that Guardians of the Galaxy looked ridiculously silly. But did it look interesting? Yes. Did I want to see it? Absolutely. Was the film like it was presented to be in the trailers? Yes. Is it a funny, non-stop entertaining blast? Absolutely.

            Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is a human on Earth that gets abducted from by Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker), an alien that lives in the far reaches of space where technology is years and years in advance of human technology. This is obviously where almost all of the film takes place. Peter is the only human among this different race, and he is a thief that steals things for different people for money.

            Gamora (Zoe Saldana) works for Ronan (Lee Pace), who works will Thanos, an incredibly powerful god of some sort. Gamora is ordered to retrieve an orb that Thanos needs to carry out his plans.

            Drax (Dave Bautista) is in a high security prison for what I assume to be murder. The only reason why he does anything is to eventually seek revenge on Ronan for murdering his family.

            Rocket (Bradley Cooper - voice) is the product of an experiment. He is a raccoon that can speak, handle things, move around, and understand things. He can basically do all a human can. He has Groot (Vin Diesel - voice), a tree that grow by himself. Groot only knows three words - I, Am, and Groot - and usually only in that order. Rocket basically just keeps Groot as a pet to help him. What he does is seek out outlaws with prices on their head and captures them to get some money. It’s also implied that Rocket is a thief and probably commits a lot of crimes.

            All of these characters eventually join to become the guardians of the galaxy so they can stop evil Ronan from doing bad things.

            Going into this movie, I just expected to have a lot of fun with it. I assumed that the visuals would be fantastic as they are in all the big-budget Marvel superhero films. Did it deliver? Yes it did. It had an extremely fun time with this movie. There is not one dull moment from beginning to end. It’s fast-paced and full of action, yet there is no lack of character development. One thing I was really surprised by was much attention the writers and director paid on the characters. All the main characters in this movie felt so well realized through the script and direction. Director James Gunn does an excellent job filming the action sequences and making the scenes look good, but he also does give some depth to the film regarding the characters. No, I didn’t read the comics to the movie, so I have no idea how the characters were in the comic books, but in the film, the characters are thought-out well. It seems as if all of their actions are justified by what they want or what they feel like they have to do or etc. Every character has a depth that really makes the film even more enthralling than it would have been before.

            As for as the performances go, they are all great. Bradley Cooper is fantastic as Rocket, Chris Pratt really nails Peter Quill, Zoe Saldana really fits as Gamora, Dave Bautista works very well as Drax, and I can’t really comment on Vin Diesel’s performances as Groot, but what little lines he had, he delivered well. I was very skeptical about what the acting would be like going into to movie, but I was actually surprised by how good the performances were.

            To expound more upon how the direction is great, every shot seems necessary for the film. There are several wide shots used in the film as well as close-ups. Some shots linger, and some do not. What the shots do have in common is that they all make the movie greater than it was. The action is pristinely directed. No shaky cam. No quick-cut editing. And I’m not just rewarding the director for not using bad techniques, but for also directing the action marvelously with precision and care.

            It’s no secret that the visuals for this movie would be great. However, the visuals are beyond great. They are spectacular. There are so many details in the action sequences that the visuals effects people had to get down, and they do it flawlessly. Some of the visual effects almost seem real. They are incredible to look at. But it’s not just the visual effects that are great. I commented that director James Gunn really did make the scenes look great, and I wasn’t kidding. It seemed in some scenes that cinematographer was shining because everything was so well-lit and it all looked so good. The look of this movie is great as well as the performances and the characters.

            The film is very, very funny. The dialogue is very clever in some parts. Aside from the characters, the script is not fantastic, though. Not that it’s bad, but the dialogue was never truly great (not that I expected it to be). It served for the film and I didn’t have a problem with it. However, the script has some issues. For one, there were times that I could not suspend disbelief. Some of the logical errors were huge. In a maximum security prison, the inmates have access to knives. And at night, they were able to just move around freely. The guards never paid any attention to anything. The prisoners did things right in front of them that they didn’t stop. They didn’t see many other things that prisoners did that they should stop.

            During an action scene, when one person is up against twenty or thirty, the one kills some while the others don’t use their guns to shoot. They just stand there.

            Also, sometimes chemistry between characters that was not there at all the scene before is randomly there in the next scene. Characters go from hating each other to liking each other in one scene. That’s not how people work.

            There are other smaller flaws in the script, like some of the dialogue coming off of as expeditionary and some conflicts solved by deux-ex-machina, but I don’t I have to touch on those quite as much. I could continue to nit-pick the script of this film for a while, but that is not necessary.

            Going into this movie, you know what you’re getting - a humorous, fun, exciting, adventurous, sometimes silly and sometimes nearly ridiculous action movie with amazing visuals. However, the film has legitimately fantastic direction by James Gunn, great performances, and an excellent set of characters.

            As far as the 3D is concerned, I did feel that is was satisfactory. It’s used as more of a tool to immerse the audience than a gimmick. However, it did not stand out. It did not always look like I was looking into a field of different layers. Therefore, I don’t think it’s necessary at all to spend extra money on 3D. I say just see the 2D version.

            And for the after credits scene (I will NOT give spoilers), it’s not worth waiting through all of the credits for. It’s just a ridiculous, short jab for comedy and does not progress the story like the Marvel superhero movies of recent years have done in their after credits scenes.