“Guardians of the Galaxy” Film Review

I make it a general rule to try and stay away from any hype/reviews/general recommendations about what I’ll be reviewing. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy was one of those films where I just couldn’t escape that stuff. Sitting through the coming attractions, I forced myself to push out all of the uber-positive feedback about the film, tried forget that this is supposed to be one of the greatest hero movies ever, and just watch the movie with a fresh mind as best I could.

Thankfully, this was a film that lived up to, and in some areas, exceeded the hype.

On the eve of his mother’s death, Earthling-child Peter Quill is abducted by a group of space pirates. Raised to be a pirate himself, Peter steals a valuable mystery orb, but a botched attempt to sell it puts him into prison. Teaming up with of his fellow outcast inmates, the newly formed Guardians of the Galaxy must fight off the destruction-bent Ronan the Accuser.

Now every superhero movie has some degree of emotional element, some better executed than others. It’s these emotions that drive the protagonist’s goals throughout the film. Yes, a love interest is included here, but the main emotional journey comes the death of Peter’s mother. His prized possession is a mixtape of her favorite songs, and he is seemingly haunted by an unfulfilled deathbed wish of hers. Peter’s character progression deals with finally being able to come to terms with her death, an angle not commonly taken by hero films.

The emotions shown by Pratt (and portrayed brilliantly by Wyatt Oleff as his childhood counterpart) are always blunt and truthful. They are sometimes sweet and heartwarming, sometimes funny, and sometimes gut-wrenching. Many of the minor characters have differing emotional battles throughout the film, ranging from feelings of isolation, to a simple romantic interest. Yet all are done amazing well.

Major kudos to screenwriters James Gunn and Nicole Perlman for injecting a ton of humor into the film. Ranging from slapstick to witty one-liners, the jokes never detract from the action, or take meaning away from the emotional scenes. In terms of character development, humor is used to effortlessly dig deeper into the various characters’ backgrounds. For example, Peter’s love of classic rock/pop hits makes for some always fun soundtrack choices, especially when combined with Chris Pratt’s always hilarious dance moves. Yet it also solidifies the relationship Peter had with his mother, which is a major character element.

I had a few small qualms with the film’s plot, however. Peter’s growing romance with Gamora wasn’t visualized enough on screen, at least for my personal taste. I know that the film was probably trying to shy away from the “normal” love storyline within a lot of hero movies, but any sort of romantic developments seemed to come a bit out of left field because of it. I’m not sure where the couple found the time to develop any sort of romantic interest, and it certainly deserved a couple more minutes of screen time to clarify this.

In addition, there were quite a few confusing moments due to backstory’s not being completely solidified. While we know that Gamora turned against her father and sister because they were evil, we are still left with very little information about where she comes from. However, I presume (and desperately hope) that minor plot holes like this will be filled in during the sequel (yup, it’s happening).

Finally, I need to give credit where credit is due: what little that I didn’t like about this movie was completely forgotten thanks to the hundreds of talented artists working for Framestore, Moving Picture Company, Luma Pictures, Method Studios, Lola VFX, Cantina Creative, Sony Pictures Imagineworks, CoSA VFX, Secret Lab, Rise Visual Effects Solutions, Technicolor VFX, and Industrial Light and Magic. The visual effects are quite possibly the best that I have ever seen in a film. Rocket has to be the most realistic anthropomorphic animal I have ever seen in a film, and all of the alien characters are just as lifelike. Battle scenes were flashy while maintaining realistic grit, and some of the landscapes were truly breathtaking. I saw the film in a standard movie theater, and I was amazed by what I saw. I can only imagine how it looked in IMAX or 3D.

To sum it up simply: the hype is right. Go out and see Guardians of the Galaxy, it is easily worth the time and money, and it honestly deserves to be seen on the silver screen.

Check out our other review by Matt Flynn here!