Director: James Gunn
Distributor: Disney, Marvel
Duration: 121 minutes
Guardians of the Galaxy (DVD) – Movie Review
Marvel, even in its Disney era, has been coming out with great superhero movies one after another. Famous heroes such as Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow and many others recently had their time to shine but it seems a new band of heroes might be beyond the horizon. Guardians of the Galaxy decides to take up the fight in the furthest corners of the galaxy, where a peace treaty may be threatened to be destroyed.
The movie starts off with our hero-to-be Peter Quill at a very young age. A touching scene ensues, seeing his mother is lying on her deathbed, calling Peter at her side. When she hands him a present that can only be opened after she’s gone, it becomes too much for the future Star-Lord and he runs out of the hospital, trying to get away from it all. In a way he succeeds, as he is picked up by what seems to be an alien vessel.
Soon after, you will be flash forwarded to an adult Peter, who seems to be getting himself into quite the pickle. He is stealing an artifact, which at first glance may seem like a mysterious orb but of course, seeing it’s so coveted it will probably be a lot more special than being just a mere trinket. This suspicion is soon confirmed after he is being chased by a lot of goons, who would rather have the orb than Peter. Of course, Peter manages to escape and heads towards his contact, to sell the suspicious orb.
When Peter meets up with his contact, a middleman, he mentions who it is intended for and the middleman decides to back out of the deal. A man named Ronan seems to be involved and apparently he is one to be feared. Ronan is involved with Thanos, a man that is not fond of the ongoing peace treaty between all the races throughout the galaxy. Both Thanos and Ronan are butchering people all across the galaxy to once again start en era of war and it seems the orb has something extra for them to reach their goals.
Whilst Peter decides to find another contact he bumps in to Gamora, who seems to be one of Ronan’s minions. Then on the other hand he bumps in to Rocket and Groot, who simply want to take Peter in for the humongous bounty on his head. As all of them start a battle royale in the middle of the city, they are all soon taken into custody and locked away in a maximum security prison. Gamora is immediately looked upon as a prey by Drax, who lost a lot of family members by Ronan. Even though all these characters look like an unlikely bunch of allies, they decide to aid each other to escape the prison and perhaps everyone is not as evil or hungry for power and money as they seem.
After this fairly big buildup, the movie takes the typical formula of other Marvel superhero movies we’ve come to love. Good versus Evil takes more galactic proportions in this movie and the cast, as well as the director paint just the right picture. The pace of the movie is a mix of information and great looking action scenes and yet again the creators nail this perfectly. There is never a dull moment and lighter scenes immediately get filled up with the proper humor in order to keep things entertaining.
Cast wise the movie has some bigger as well as smaller stars to portray all the characters in the movie. Chris Pratt (Peter Quill), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Dave Bautista (Drax), Bradley Cooper (The voice of Rocket) and Vin Diesel (The voice of Groot), form a great band of ‘guardians’ that provide for a varied cast that is attuned to each other perfectly. Each of these members finds the right mix between their serious roles and the humorous remarks they make throughout the movie. The villains are played by Lee Pace (Ronan) and Karen Gillan (Nebula) that seem to have the right amount of darkness poured in to them to make it all convincing.
Guardians of the Galaxy also has its fair share of supporting roles such as Glenn Close (Nova Prime), John C. Reilly (Corpsman Dey), Benicio Del Toro (The Collector) and several others. Even without having real ‘leading’ roles they give the impression that Marvel (Disney) went all out to present you with a qualitative movie.
Seeing special effects and CGI are taking over the movie business (in certain genres) it’s important that everything looks realistic and pleasing to the eye. Yet another sign that money was thrown into this movie in order to create a great looking feature film by creating ‘realistic’ looking characters, vehicles and environments.
Conclusion
Guardians of the Galaxy is one of those movies that takes the superheroes movies to the next level. Characters are well brought, effects are done in an incredible way and action, humor and the necessary seriousness are all present in the movie. A must watch for the superhero enthusiast. For those who may this phrase from another great series in outer space, I think it’s suitable to use it here as well: ‘See You Space Cowboy’.
Guardians of the Galaxy (DVD) - Movie Review,
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