Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Review

I am Groot.

I’ve never heard of these guys before this movie, but let me tell you something…. I sure as Hel won’t be forgetting them any time soon (That’s Hel with one ‘L’. It’s one of the 9 realms from the Thor movies. I’m picking up on this stuff, too). These guys might not have been made by Stan Lee, but that didn’t stop him from making one of his time-honored cameos. Anyway, this is the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The first thing I have to say about this movie is… Rocket Raccoon. 

If you go into this movie, you will come out as the biggest Rocket Raccoon fan… right next to everyone else who are the biggest Rocket Raccoon fans. He’s a talking Raccoon with an attitude and guns. I never thought I’d see that in a movie. Especially one that was advertised as a full fledged comedy… but turned out to have a lot of heavy, heart hitting moments… amongst all the humor, obviously.

Going into this, I didn’t know much about the team. I did a bit of research, but just reading it isn’t the same as seeing it. Each of the characters has their own unique and tragic backstory, which makes the chemistry between them feel much more genuine, and in turn, it sells their friendship and teamwork. I just REALLY loved how well this team worked together. They might not have their own individual movies, but for trying to establish 5 new characters in one film, they did a pretty good job at fleshing them out…. but it wasn’t perfect.

One thing I really wanted to see was more detail about their pasts. They do say what their pasts are, and they are shown having their moments about it all, but that’s it, with the exception of Quill. I wasn’t expecting anything like Christopher Nolan would do. He would probably have them moping and crying and breaking down in an over dramatic way. To be honest, that’s not really what I would want to see anyway. And for what is seen in their individual emotional moments, the movie still does a good job. Their pasts do still affect them, and they do help each other out in the really sad parts. Maybe those few bits are all that IS needed.

All these emotional scenes are good, but this movie is half comedy. And comedy it does deliver! Quite well. I can’t say much about the humor, because I don’t want to ruin any jokes. I’ll just say that it’s the funniest Marvel movie that’s been made. The humor element fits in perfectly with everything else. It’s written in better than Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 3. In those movies, a big portion of the humor clashed with the serious parts. In Guardians of the Galaxy, it blends together seamlessly. So we not only get great comedy, great emotional scenes, but great action, destruction, and special effects along with it!

The CGI works with the onscreen actors to bring each environment to life. Rocket and Groot’s facial expressions are spot on. They feel like actual characters because they are actual characters. They’re not CGI models just there to look nice (like most of the Transformers are), they are a part of the team, and they feel like it. Their interactions with the physical environments and people don’t just look real, it feels real. It’s something a lot of other movies don’t usually do that well on.

Also unlike other movies, not EVERYTHING is CGI. Remember the Green Lantern movie from a few years back? Remember how horribly CG his entire costume was? Didn’t the physical props and costumes that were actually in front of the camera in other movies look WAY better? Well, in Guardians of the Galaxy, a great majority of the people were actually there. They got into costumes and put on the makeup. I always love it when films go the analog route… and make it look good. Especially Ronan. Ronan looked awesome.

I’m not saying I hate CGI, or want CGI to go away. I love computer graphics. I think they’re the 9th coolest thing on Earth! But not everything needs to be computer generated. There are a lot of things that look just as great, and sometimes better, when put in front of a camera.

Anyway, one of the weaker parts of the movie was the villain. He didn’t really have much going for him. Not every villain needs a tragic backstory, but I would have liked to know what his motives were, other than “I don’t like the peace treaty between the Kree Empire and the Nova Corps.” But he did look awesome. He’s not my favorite bad guy, but his design was great. Just look at him.

Yeah. That’s bad@$$!

But the strongest element of the entire film is the characters. I could not get enough of them. Chris Pratt owns it as Peter Quill/Star Lord. He's just as charismatic as Robert Downey Jr. You can tell he had a blast with the role. The other actors played their parts well. Some of them could have done better, but they weren't bad.

By the way, I just noticed something. Zoe Saldana was Lieutenant Uhura from the new Star Trek movies. Her room mate in the first one was a green alien. An attractive green alien.

And now Zoe is a green alien. Also attractive.

Is this intentional?

In conclusion, this movie is extremely fun, and I’d love to see it again. It has a great balance of characters, story, effects, comedy, and action. It’s probably the last movie anyone would NEED to see this year. Don't miss it.

FINAL RATING: 48 / 50

STORY: 4 / 5

ACTING: 4 / 5

CHARACTERS: 5 / 5

CG/EFFECTS: 5 / 5

ACTION: 5 / 5

SOUNDTRACK: 5 / 5

TONE: 5 / 5

ENJOYABILITY: 5 / 5

REWATCH VALUE: 5 / 5

OWNING VALUE: 5 / 5