Guardians of the Galaxy – Movie Review
Guardians of the Galaxy – PG-13
Release Date: Fri 01 Aug 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy will be remembered as the movie that put Marvel on the level of classic, fun adventure movies. It’s the movie you want to take your friends and family to, the movie you want your kids to fondly remember you taking them to see even though they were way under 13 at the time. This movie delivers in every conceivable way. The fact that it’s based on a comic book series and exists in the same universe as all the heroes Marvel has built up in Avengers simply doesn’t matter. You will have fun with this movie if you can recite the original comics or if you’ve never seen science fiction before.
Fun is the operative word here. There is slapstick, one-liners and jokes galore. All of this is rooted in brief but mightily effective emotional weight. There are heartbreaking moments and somber ones. They are there to develop these characters as ones we truly root for and revel in their ridiculousness. Most hero movies use some sort of emotional blackmail to justify good people doing terrible things to win. Here we are less concerned with what the villain’s motives are. We’re more interested in how each of these five characters relates to each other and contributes. But where movies like The Avengers built on heavily established characters from prior movies (let alone comics) Guardians of the Galaxy manages a neat trick of not giving us any one character’s “origin story.” Instead, we learn how and why this team works the way it does together and we believe every word of it.
Unless you are extremely bothered by 3D, this one is worth seeing in IMAX 3D. It does some amazing tricks with the 3D that smartly use the extra aspect space to pop effects further than you expect. It’s worth the up-charge on this one.
When Iron Man came out, it redefined my expectation for what a superhero movie can be. The Avengers did the same for ensemble franchises. Guardians is in a whole new level unto itself. It’s in a stratosphere with Indiana Jones and Star Wars. It answers the question of what a movie would be like if all of The Avengers were as fun as Iron Man and somehow just made you feel happy. I’m still grinning ear to ear and can’t wait to go back and see it again.
Juliette, Cal, Adam and I saw it in the theater had a discussion in the car:
