The story: A wannabe famous outlaw (Chris Pratt) who was taken from Earth at a young age, finds himself at the head of a ragtag band of outsiders who try to save the galaxy from an alien threat.
If Guardians of the Galaxy had been made in the 1980s, it would have co-starred Courteney Cox and, through no fault of Courteney's, been roundly terrible. It may have had decent gags, perhaps a nice battle at the end, but the slightly crappy band of heroes wouldn't have been so brilliantly juxtaposed with such high end production values. There's a lot of humour in that friction, between someone spending so much money producing a film in which people don't always do things in the coolest way possible. There's a scene towards the end where they all walk out, slow motion, like in Armageddon, to face the final terror; but Zoe Saldana's yawning. She's sleepy. It's great, like an out-take.
There are plenty of small, throwaway gags in Guardians Of The Galaxy, more even than you find in Avengers Assemble, which had already raised the stakes for the number of jokes in a multihero movie. In a big theatre with a lot of people on the same page, this film would rock. I saw it in a big theatre with about five people near the end of its run, and started to second guess myself when no-one else was laughing. But I shouldn't have, because it's a damn fine and fun film, and one that's free of the structural strings that sat, however lightly, on the script of Avengers.
Oh, and the casting. Any film with Peter Serafinowicz as the head of a Puritan alien fleet is doing something right. And to cast Vin Diesel as a talking tree whose dialogue is mostly contained to different spins on 'I am Groot'? Well, that's just lovely.
Marvel took a risk on Guardians because, unlike Avengers - which had a head of steam from the Iron Man, Thor etc films - the characters were largely unknown outside the 'comic book community'. Guardians was sold on the basis that Marvel made Avengers Assemble and people liked it, and that was enough.
Will the reign of the superhero movie ever end? Well, yes. Everything does. But, for now, it's fun - and there's a lot more to come.
There are plenty of small, throwaway gags in Guardians Of The Galaxy, more even than you find in Avengers Assemble, which had already raised the stakes for the number of jokes in a multihero movie. In a big theatre with a lot of people on the same page, this film would rock. I saw it in a big theatre with about five people near the end of its run, and started to second guess myself when no-one else was laughing. But I shouldn't have, because it's a damn fine and fun film, and one that's free of the structural strings that sat, however lightly, on the script of Avengers.
Oh, and the casting. Any film with Peter Serafinowicz as the head of a Puritan alien fleet is doing something right. And to cast Vin Diesel as a talking tree whose dialogue is mostly contained to different spins on 'I am Groot'? Well, that's just lovely.
Marvel took a risk on Guardians because, unlike Avengers - which had a head of steam from the Iron Man, Thor etc films - the characters were largely unknown outside the 'comic book community'. Guardians was sold on the basis that Marvel made Avengers Assemble and people liked it, and that was enough.
Will the reign of the superhero movie ever end? Well, yes. Everything does. But, for now, it's fun - and there's a lot more to come.
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