Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

(I don't own a single photo on this post. It all belongs to Marvel [and BBC, one of them].)

So a little background before I give my review: I’m a geek. I know WAY too much about fictional characters and very little about real-world people.

That being said, I knew next to nothing about the Guardians of the Galaxy, except when they made a guest appearance on The Ultimate Spider-man (yes, I sometimes watch cartoons--they’re clean fun stories, okay??). Usually when a mainstream superhero appears on the big screen, I already know something about them, either from the newspaper comic strips or from my childhood where we only had six channels and the funnest one had Batman, X-Men, and Gargoyles (giving me a well-rounded knowledge of DC, Marvel, and Shakespeare, in that order).

But when I saw the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer, I was like, “Wait, really? Who even knows about these guys? I know next to nothing about them! DC is worried about trying to make a Wonder Woman movie and Marvel is doing Guardians of the Galaxy??”

And for some reason, I was super, super excited to see it. Probably because Marvel can do no wrong lately (I mean, did you SEE Captain America 2??), and because even though NOBODY knows about these characters, the movie got amazing reviews. That’s a good sign.

Ashley and I have seen a few movies this summer, but she’d never been interested in Guardians of the Galaxy. I didn’t really blame her, but I didn’t want to see it by myself, and so I thought I would never get to see it in theaters.

Then on Tuesday night, Ashley was bummed out about some things, so we were sitting in my living room, moping. I was listening to a book on tape, being there for her but not really being there. She was constantly texting on her phone anyways.

“Can we go do something?” Ashley finally asked.

“No, it’s like 9:30.”

We sat in silence for a few more minutes. Then she put her phone down, rolled her head to look at me, and pouted.

“Can we just go see a movie?”

“Are you kidding? We wouldn’t get home until midnight! We have work in the morning, woman!”

“Uggggggghhhhhhh! Pleeeeeeaaaaase.”

“No.”

She slumped further into the couch cushions, looking miserable. My stone heart didn’t crack.

“I’d even be willing to see Guardians of the Galaxy right now,” she grumbled.

I paused my audiobook and looked up slowly. “Really?”

“Yes...”

I narrowed my eyes at her, suspecting a trick. She pouted back, looking determined to get her way, even if it meant going to a movie I wanted to see.

“Hmm…” I doubted I’d ever get her in this kind of mood again. This was my only shot. So I left her slouching on the couch and got my shoes.

And that’s how we ended up in a deserted movie theater on a Tuesday night for a 10:30 showing of Guardians of the Galaxy.

*fanfare and applause*

The atmosphere wasn’t ideal. There were only four other people in the theater--a pair of elderly people who looked like retired empty-nesters with nothing else to do, and a pair of sketchy-looking guys who looked like they should have been in college or careers but didn’t feel like it. It meant that we didn’t get that mob-mentality energy that usually makes going to a movie a fun experience. When the movie was funny, Ashley and I were the only ones laughing. When I wanted to lean over and whisper how cool something was, my voice seemed to carry half a mile.

Despite that and my fatigue, I had a really good time.

Guardians of the Galaxy was everything the trailer promised to to be--well-made but never taking itself too seriously. The special effects were awesome, with lots of space-tech and explosions, and the characters were ridiculous--unique and over-the-top. Watching it, I got the sense that the actors were just having the time of their lives, glad that they didn’t have to put TOO much weight into their acting. And yet the acting was good! They put in all their talent and did a great job.

It was a fun romp of a movie. Like, don’t go in expecting The Dark Knight Rises or anything, but if you see it, just enjoy yourself! I sure did! I’d give it like a 4.25 out of 5.

To go more in detail, I kind of feel like Rocket and Groot held everything together. Not only did I laugh out loud for Rocket’s jokes (while others tended to fall flat in the almost-empty theater), but he was the most paradoxical character. A raccoon. A tiny, crazy, anthropomorphic raccoon who is possibly the smartest and most destructive of the bunch.

And yet I want to pet his whiskers!

And then Groot, the anthropomorphic tree, was great because he was the essentially indestructible muscle of the group, yet he was the sweetest and most innocent. It was amazing how he literally only spoke three words the entire time (we’ll talk later about how Vin Diesel probably got paid millions just to say those three words), but his eyes and actions conveyed so much emotion and caring. It was actually kind of beautiful. He was like a child--seeing the world with wonder and kindness. And then he’d extend his tree limb arms and stab ten people at once and remind you that nature is beautiful but can also be freakish deadly.

The other three characters were interesting and entertaining, but they weren’t surprising. An assassin with a heart of gold--it’s been done. An outlaw who becomes the hero--also been done. A bloodthirsty warrior who hates everyone but learns to soften up a bit--yep, I’ve seen it. They all just fit into their molds so predictably. Almost to the point where I didn’t care for Quill and Gomorrah’s love story because A) I had a hard time buying that the hardened, weaponized Gomorrah could fall for someone that easily, and B) we were told from the beginning that Quill was a womanizer and I honestly couldn’t tell if he actually cared about Gomorrah as a person or just because he wanted to sleep with her later.

"Hey girl. Remember how I couldn't remember that other girl's name earlier despite spending the night with her?"
"Yeah. Remember how I'm an assassin who had all the sentiment tortured out of me?"
"Yeah. Well I'm totally gonna change my ways for you."
"Ditto."
"Cool."

Anyways, even though the character types weren’t necessarily my favorite, I was very impressed with the level of depth the movie managed to give all five of them. Creating a single good character is an accomplishment. Making FIVE main characters sympathetic to the audience is brilliant. They didn’t get deep into everyones’ back stories, but they gave enough hints during the action to show what each character was about and what in their past made them that way. I was impressed with that.

The villains had a little less depth, but they were scary enough to make the climax exciting. It’s just hard for movie-makers to have us care about helpless planets full of purple-skinned people we know nothing about. I mean, yeah, dead people are dead people and I should have felt aghast and terrified at the destruction, but all space movies do the same thing. It’s always less about what the villain is going to do to the hero if they fail, and more about how the villain is going to destroy EVERYTHING because that’s what space villains do.

Karen Gillan, though! Man, she was good! I’d forgotten she was in this movie until she appeared on-screen, and then I got all excited. She was one of the main characters on Doctor Who for a while (one of my FAVORITE main characters), and she was great in this, too, even though the roles were so different. And I’m sure most people wouldn’t recognize her without her Scottish accent and long red hair. She actually shaved her hair for the role of Nebula (and she was wearing a wig in her final scene as Amy Pond on Doctor Who). At first I thought she was just doing something shocking and trendy for her fans, but now I can see why she did it. I mean, putting on all that character makeup must have been hard enough without also having to deal with a bald cap every time.

Before...

...and after. Wow!

Another thing that I geeked out about (but I know most people probably won’t--Ashley didn’t notice any of this and I later had to point it all out to her), but there was so much in this movie that tied into Thor and the Avengers. The makers have said that they’re not gonna have a Guardians/Avengers mash-up or anything, but there was a lot that pointed to the fact that they’re all living in the same universe.

Exhibit A) One of the Infinity Stones shown in the exposition was definitely the Tesseract that Captain America and the Avengers deal with, and apparently the dark ether from Thor 2 and Loki's scepter from Avengers are also Infinity Stones.

All of these things are cousins, apparently

Exhibit B) The collector guy in the white cape who they try to sell the orb to was seen in the cutscene of Thor 2. Lady Sif put the dark ether with him, so we know that Thor’s posse knows all about the collector guy, and potentially run around in the same circles as all the Nova Corps and such. The collector also had a bunch of Dark Elves and Chitauri in his collection, if you look around the background.

"Why yes, Lady Sif. We'd love to put something of yours in our set of Marvel collectibles. Thanks for helping the audience see that your universe and mine are the same!"

Exhibit C) Thanos, the big purple guy, was shown at the very end of the Avengers, revealing him to be the one who tortured/bribed Loki and gave him the scepter Infinity Stone so that he could destroy the earth and get the Tesseract--another Infinity Stone. He’s also apparently the Big Bad of Avengers 2. Maybe trying to get all the Infinity Stones together and still needing the Tesseract? I dunno. Not sure how Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch fit into that yet either, but we’ll see.

I'm curious to see how Marvel makes him the big bad of Avengers 2. He doesn't seem all that scary to me yet. Sure I could see him being destructive, but not scary evil. More like melodramatic EEEEEEEVIL!!!

The music was surprisingly good, too. I got a little tired of the 70s tape after a while, but it did a great job of connecting the audience with this other-worldly setting. And then the actual soundtrack was pretty well done! I really liked the song that played during the final battle, though I haven’t found it on iTunes yet. I’ll probably have to listen to 4 minutes of boring music to find the great theme in the last 30 seconds. I hate when that happens. Alas. If anyone knows the song I’m talking about please tell me. l’d like to have it.

I'm also curious to see how many people actually buy TAPES again because of this. This movie made cassette tapes and walkmen look cool again!

In short (now that I’ve written like twenty paragraphs), Guardians of the Galaxy was, I thought, worth seeing in theaters. It was a very fun movie.