Guardians of the Galaxy Review: Marvel Jumps Into Space and It’s Out of This World

‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is a movie forced to live on its own far away from the rest of the Marvel Universe, but director James Gunn embraces the weird and ends up with a standout effort…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Ever since Marvel rebooted their film universe with characters such as Iron Man, Thor and Captain America taking center stage under the watchful eye of Disney, the superhero canon has been shifted dramatically from the years of one off movies with characters that never interacted with one another. As large as the Marvel Universe has gotten with several sequels as well as ‘The Avengers’ team-up movie, one area that has been neglected for the most part is outer space, which for those that follow or collect comic books know, this is a major piece of the story telling for these franchises.

‘The Avengers’ did touch on the intergalactic part of the Marvel Universe with the introduction of Loki’s army (borrowed from the Mad Titan Thanos) to try and help to conquer Earth and the remnants of that army became much of the basis for Marvel’s first major foray into television with ‘Agents of SHIELD’ but overall the adventures have all stayed on this planet as the comic book giant expanding their foothold in other areas first. Captain America became the spy segment. Thor is the fantasy element. Iron Man has been the military branch along with technological advancements, while ‘The Avengers’ sort of brought it all together under director Joss Whedon’s watchful eye.

The newest Marvel movie that debuts on Friday titled ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ turns the universe on its head by not only introducing five characters the average comic book reader wouldn’t even recognize, but stepping far outside of the shared universe built into the other films, outside of one villain, who only showed his chin in a post credits scene in ‘The Avengers’. The new film is completely dependant on building a world of its own, but under the direction of James Gunn, the movie accomplishes all that and a whole lot more while only missing a few beats when it came to the plot and resolution in the overall story.

The movie kicks off in 1988 with young Peter Quill being whisked off of Earth by a mysterious space ship just moments after watching his mother succumb to cancer. Fast forward 26 years and Peter is now working for the very people who kidnapped him, most notably a blue skinned redneck named Merle Dixon aka Yondu aka Michael Rooker, who leads a band of thieves and scavengers named The Ravagers. In his opening mission, Peter is sent to a remote planet to retrieve an orb that holds great value to certain buyers, but when he arrives to claim it he runs into Korath, a soldier working for a man called Ronan the Accuser who wants the orb very badly.

It’s here that comic book fan boys will start to lose their minds because for all the great things Marvel has done in the movies thus far, there are huge sections of mythology that have been left out — most notably some of the intergalactic races that have been at war for centuries and often come to Earth for their greatest battles. Ronan happens to be a member of the Kree race and he’s out to destroy the world called Xandar after a peace treaty is made between the two planets. He wants nothing to do with peace so he promised to steal the orb for Thanos in exchange for the Mad Titan destroying Xandar for him. Thanos is the one connection that bridges the gap between the rest of the Marvel Universe and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ because he was the bad guy who gave Loki his staff of power in ‘The Avengers’ and also happens to be one of the biggest, nastiest villains the comic book world has ever known. The orb he’s trying to claim happens to be one of the mythical infinity stones — similar to the tesseract as witnessed in ‘The Avengers’ as well as the Aether, which was talked about in ‘Thor: The Dark World’.

Thanos’ appearance in full form this time as opposed to just a post credits sequence was a mind blowing experience for this comic book fan because he’s never been brought to life previous to now and Josh Brolin’s voice certainly sticks out from his brief time in the film. Despite his revelation early on, Thanos ends up being mostly a talking point as his daughters Nebula and Gamora become the conduits in the film whenever discussing their power hungry father. Gamora is charged with helping Ronan recover the orb, and this is how she ends up in the same space as Peter Quill.

Their run-in also happens to be how we meet Rocket Raccoon and the man-tree called Groot for the first time as they act as bounty hunters looking to collect a payoff from Yondu to recover the orb after Peter steals the object for his own reward. When the foursome is captured mid-battle, they are tossed into a prison upheld by the Nova Corps — the peace keeping intergalactic police force — where they meet the muscle bound brute named Drax the Destroyer, who is seeking revenge against Ronan for killing his wife and children.

From there the story spawns an unlikely team-up between the five main characters after circumstance lands them together, forced to help each other escape and get back the orb, which could either get them killed or rich beyond their wildest dreams if they can sell the object to the highest bidder.

‘Guardians’ is definitely the biggest stretch of reality from any of the Marvel films, but thankfully Gunn embraces the differences and the lack of limitations he has to deal with in this movie and runs with it from the opening scene until the final credits roll.

Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana really become the lead characters in the story, but that’s the way it was always intended to be. Pratt’s comedic timing is perfect and his action sequences aren’t too over the top so it’s clear he’s not Steve Rogers or even Tony Stark, but he can certainly handle himself in a battle. Saldana’s Gamora goes from stone cold killer to empathetic heroine as the movie progresses. There also has to be a special note given to both Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel for the voices they lend to Rocket Raccoon and Groot respectively because these characters seem so ridiculous you wonder how anyone could take them seriously but by the end of the movie, it’s hard to imagine not wanting to see both of these guys back in several Marvel films in the next five or six years. If there was one weak part of the team it came from former professional wrestler Dave Bautista, who played Drax, and while he’s not horrible by any stretch, he also struggles to keep up with Pratt and Saldana and shows less emotional range than a human tree who can only utter three words the entire movie.

The eye-popping effects are fantastic in this movie and the wise-cracking jokes from the entire team makes this film stand alone when compared to other Marvel movies, and these antics stay from the opening sequence all the way to the end of the movie. If you’ve loved Gunn’s other films such as ‘Slither’ or his work in the Troma-verse, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ definitely carries much of the same tone, which is a nice change of pace for Marvel especially considering how different this movie is from all the other films in the same universe.

If there was one complaint that could be made about the plot it’s the fact that Thanos doesn’t have a bigger role despite him being talked about as the ultimate evil doer in the entire universe. At one point, Thanos is even double crossed and there’s no retribution doled out before the film comes to an end and I started to wonder if either the scene got cut for the sake of time restraints or if the Mad Titan was just made to look like a loser who couldn’t take out his revenge, which certainly dampens his eventual role in ‘The Avengers 3’ (we all know it’s coming so just stay tuned for that one).

Maybe the best part about ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is the fact that it was destined to live on an island all by itself because there was no way Iron Man or even Thor was going to pop up in a sequence to give this film continuity with the rest of the Marvel Universe, but Gunn pulls it off with expert precision and makes this a stand alone movie, enjoyable whether you’re a hardcore Marvel junkie or a first time theater goer who has never even heard of Tony Stark or The Avengers. They even managed to drop a couple of Easter eggs to set up the sequel, which has already been given the green light with Gunn back in the director’s chair again.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ isn’t as well crafted as the first Iron Man film or as deftly executed as ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, but it still stands out as one of the best Marvel movies that’s been made so far. It’s definitely the funniest of the bunch with a much bigger nod to Joss Whedon’s ‘Firefly’ than any possible comparisons to ‘Star Wars’. This is the intergalactic movie Marvel needed because it’s not like anything else they’ve ever done before and not sure they’ll do again.

Well the potential was there for another standout movie but they fired Edgar Wright so nobody knows what Ant-Man will end up as once the final product is rolled out next year. Either way, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is definitely worth your first run, big theater money and shouldn’t be missed whether you’re a Marvel fan, an outer space movie fan, or just somebody that digs green chicks who kick ass and talking raccoons.