Guardians of the Galaxy - A Review

First of all, let me admit that I was rather skeptical of this movie. When I first saw the trailer several months ago (probably before Captain America), I thought that this was a head-scratcher. I wasn't sure that a "cartoonish" superhero movie based on those characters would fit into the whole "Marvel" universe. Even after reading about how big a hit it had been since its release on Thursday and into Friday, I was still a bit skeptical.

I'm glad to report that I was wrong. The movie was entertaining as heck! The mash of characters that were very different from each other did come together at the end, and I can see how this can easily carry on its own franchise, separate from the existing Marvel universe of the Avengers/Shield/etc. The tone of the movie was very much tongue-in-cheek, and it carried that sense way beyond what the first Avengers movie tried to do. The sense of irreverence towards not only authority, but also towards what a "superhero" movie should really be permeates throughout the entire movie. But more than anything, this movie is exceedingly funny, especially if you were conscious of the 1970's and the music from that era.

Now that we got that out of the way, here are my complaints (of course, you knew that was coming, didn't you?). Can we put to rest the "bad-guy-wants-this-thingy-so-that-he-can-be-a-badass" storyline already?! I mean, how many of these things are there in the universe where the possession of it will mean doom to the world? This is the major part of the movie that I was disappointed in, the same, rehashed storyline that we have seen a million times before. And why is that that everyone is after the darn thing ONLY after our hero came across it? The thing was sitting there, waiting for someone to get it, but somehow, only after he got it, then the bad guys just happen to be dropping by at the same time a few minutes too late! I mean, c'mon guys!

In any case, I can see this series of movies will be a lot of fun if they can keep the snappy dialog and having a better storyline. Now that they've announced the sequel, it will be interesting to see how the story behind the characters develop. We already know that there are some backstory that are yet to be told.

Zz.