I approached this with no prior knowledge of the series, let it be known. I knew it existed in the Marvel universe, i knew Bradley Cooper was playing a Racoon and Vin Diesel the voice of a Tree, stretching his acting capabilities. Beyond that, Zoe Saldana was going to be green. And Benecio Del Toro’s marvellous character from the post-credits scene of Thor: The Dark World was somehow attached. The villain, i (incorrectly) assumed.
So when the trailers started turning up with a higher level of humour than i had expected, forgive me for being a little trepidatious.
The film does not fail in the regard of being a massive, explosive blockbuster full of enjoyable scenes, often hilarious tet a tets and some wicked CGI. The plot is fairly insubstantial, but there is an influx of characters all vividly ridiculous and very, well, very the opposite of DC are trying to do with their franchise. Marvel will always come out tops when doing daft.
It is, by any definition, a romp. A stellar romp through the expanded universe with some wonderful actors playing ludicrous parts and all having a great deal of fun doing so. And it shows. John C Reilly looks pleased as punch and Glenn Close (!) probably just decided to turn up on set with a silly hair do and see if she could get a part. Benecio Del Toro (double !) has gone all method and probably went round the world collecting one of every animal to prepare. The guardians themselves – of which there are only three, if you discount completely CGI characters – are fairly 2D. Don’t get me wrong, they all have their backstories, but the acting quality never reigns supreme. But, if you were expecting it, then you’re an idiot. For serious, you look elsewhere, because Guardians has its tongue firmly in its cheek for the duration. Except perhaps, when it decides to slide momentarily into genuinely emotional, which i found particularly noticable when Rocket does the rant about his past. (my favourite bit in the movie).
It was not brilliant, in my opinion, but certainly worth the time given and good for a fair number of chuckles. Its downsides were as follows; Groot was not as funny as everyone makes him out to be. The “star lord” thing reminded me of “Captain” jack sparrow, and the villain was boring. I assume Thanos will be bigger when he turns up in the series elsewhere…and i just found out he is played by Josh Brolin. This excites me.
And thats the base line; i enjoyed this more as a piece of the universe rather than a film as itself… unlike Captain America: The Winter Soldier, for example.
Oh and i may as well say the post-credits bit, which i thought would be excellent and worth the wait, was quite possibly the worst bit of cinema this year. (after Jonah Hill’s entire screentime in 22 Jump Street).
The Guardians of the Galaxy will return, though, according to the pre-credits announcement. Yay.
the FANGG of HORROR ROCK 