Sunday, August 3, 2014

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY - 5 STARS!!!

SPOILER ALERT!! DON'T READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

"I'M HOOKED ON A FEELING! I'M HIGH ON BELIEVING!" This is the perfect way for me to start this review. I'm hooked on a feeling that this is almost and I'm very close to calling this my favorite Marvel film!! It is so good! Avengers is my favorite Marvel film of all but this one is so close to topping that!

It has so much going well for it and it is so hard to not love this movie. Whether you are a comic book fan or not, you can't come away from this movie without thinking you had a great time!

Guardians of the Galaxy is about a young boy who loses his mother and father and is abducted by aliens, becomes an outlaw named StarLord and then joins a group of other "heroes" (Drax the Destroyer, Groot, Rocket Raccoon and Gamora) to form the Guardians of The Galaxy. StarLord steals a mysterious orb that turns out to be a powerful weapon (an infinite stone for the infinite gauntlet). Ronan the Accuser is after the powerful weapon so that he can get revenge and destroy the universe. The plot was great and very simple to follow. For an introduction to a weird cosmic universe to the audience that doesn't know these characters you have to have a simple plot to follow. It allows the audience to get to know the characters and welcome this new world. Or galaxy. No pun intended. This movie has so much humor for a comic book Marvel film and it fits the tone perfectly!

Now granted these are not the original Guardians of the Galaxy from the comics but they still add something from that by adding the character Yondu played by Michael Rooker. His character threw me off a little because he seemed like the southern character that he plays on The Walking Dead because of his accent but still was very good! He also doesn't have his arrow like in the comics or his fin. His character is very tough and someone you don't want to mess with! If they continue to use him in the next Guardians you will probably see more of why. Every single character is very fully developed and paid attention to for a equal amount of time much like they did in Avengers. This is very important because the audience doesn't know these characters and we are going to see them form as a team for the first time. In the Avengers we already knew them all if you had seen the previous films. Chris Pratt who plays Peter Quill/StarLord is perfectly casted! He is very funny, cocky and also has a great tragic story. He was very natural and to me created that same feeling that I had with Robert Downey Jr playing Tony Stark. I don't think anyone else can be Peter Quill/StarLord for me now. The comedic timing with Chris Pratt and all the other characters were great! When StarLord is dancing at the end during the moment where the entire planet is about to be destroyed was so hilarious!! His banter back and forth with Rocket Raccoon was great! Dave Batista as Drax The Destroyer was VERY SURPRISING TO ME!! I have never liked wrestlers turn actors outside of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. But Dave Batista did a fantastic job! Part of that is because of how they wrote his character and how they directed him! They used the best parts of his "acting" skill to the best of his abilities. They didn't ask him to do anything that didn't fit. His character is this muscly brooding alien who is in search of vengeance but talks as though he has a college education. Or he has read the dictionary a bunch of times. At one point during the movie Chris Pratt's character calls him a thesaurus! Which is exactly what you are thinking when you hear him talk! But it's fantastic! He is very funny and lands his deliveries perfectly! There is a scene in the movie where he actually is trying to complement his "friends" and telling them that he cares so much about them but is calling them names in the process! HILARIOUS! Rocket Raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper is another great character! He is tough and funny! He has a lot of brass to be such a "small" guy! His sidekick Groot voiced by Vin Diesel is great as well! He only says 3 words "I Am Groot" but the way he delivers the lines make you think he is actually talking. Rocket Raccoon understands what he says and helps communicate for him. The relationship between Groot and Rocket reminded me alot of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Very closely related!! Zoe Saldana is not an actress that I care that much for but she was fantastic as well as Gamora. Her character had depth and was very tough! She could take down anyone. I LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED SEEING THANOS!!! I have been waiting since the Avengers to see and hear THANOS! WOW! He is in it for a short while but totally got me excited!! Josh Brolin will be playing THANOS in the next Avengers movie. The little piece of him that we get here is perfect. The look and the voice it great! Ronan the Accuser played by Lee Pace was good but was kind of a smaller villain to me. He was kind of like Malekith in Thor The Dark World. He didn't really impact that much. I was more thinking of Thanos as the villain even though he wasn't.

I talked so much about the characters in this movie because they really stood out to me outside of the plot. The development of each of these characters and the relationship that they build is so impactful that you don't care if you can follow the plot or if the plot is too simple. The special effects were amazing! The 3D was used well even though I don't like 3D. The cinematography was something that was ripped straight from the pages of a comic! There were several times that I could have taken a screenshot and pasted right into a comic panel. It was great! The soundtrack was amazing!! Total 70's vibe from the front to back and it made since! The movie feels very much like an 80's action movie with tons of references and feeling. This movie attached to me like Star Wars did when I was a kid. This is today's generation of Star Wars. If I was a kid and had seen this, I would have wanted to own all the toys and comics.

The end scene with Groot dancing to Jackson 5 - I Want You Back was icing on the cake for me! I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan and it just put that extra smile on my face!

The end credits scene was the biggest surprise for me since seeing THANOS at the end of Avengers.  When they pan the camera over and you see HOWARD THE DUCK I ALMOST STOOD UP AND YELLED!!! I grew up watching Howard The Duck movie from the 80's. It was a horrible movie thinking about it now but one of my favorites as a kid! I've seen it almost 20 times. This makes me think that Marvel is actually going to come back and remake HOWARD THE DUCK!! He had the same look from the comics and I just am so excited if they go that route. I know the end credits scenes to these movies usually give you a tease to let you know about the next tie-in but this was just as good for me! One kid in the theater said to his dad "What was that?" and another kid said "Where is Iron Man?" REALLY??? The parents need to show these kids a thing or two. 

I highly recommend this film to comic-book geeks like myself and all movie goers. It gets a perfect score for me and my favorite movie of this summer! 5 STARS!! I might come back and update this review with more details later but I'm tired of typing now.


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