MCU Filmathon: Guardians of the Galaxy

When this film was first announced I didn't think it would do very well, the characters were basically unknown, the comic books were only heard of by seasoned Marvel comic book readers and with the amount of popularity other Marvel heroes have it would never surpass them. When the film came out it was the best Marvel movie I had seen in ages, there were few moments that I felt were out of place and loads of great moments that make the film stand out from the list of Marvel Superhero movies. It is definitely fast paced, action packed and damn right hilarious and casts one of my most favourite comedy actors ever!

It all revolves around Peter Quill, played by Chris Pratt who was a human abducted from Earth when

he was a child and raised amongst aliens in an extraordinary and beautiful part of space. Quill grows up to become an outlaw who is known as 'Star-Lord' and spends most of his time raiding and pillaging whatever he can find. Including old tombs which is where the film opens in spectacular fashion where Quill retrieves a silver orb that's on the bucket list of near enough everybody in the galaxy. As for Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, well there was no one better to play the role of the cocky, romantic outlaw. If it's being heroic or delivering perfectly timed one liners, he does it all brilliantly and one of the best heroes in this cinematic universe, no doubt. I think his dedication to becoming Star-Lord has to be admired as Pratt did opt to get in shape for the role and Director James Gunn made a great call in choosing Chris because no one would have anybody else put on the mask of Star-Lord!




The other members of the Guardians include Zoe Saldana's Gamora who adds that element of seriousness and determination to the group and kicks just as much ass as any of them.

Bradley Cooper as Rocket who has a good time spurting out sarcastic comments and reducing the seriousness of almost every situation the group get stuck in. Groot who is almost impossible not to love, Vin Diesel playing the easiest role of his life with just one three worded phrase repeated throughout the movie "I am Groot". But no doubt Rocket and Groot provide a certain level of warmth and comfort for the audience as they watch the movie. Drax The Destroyer played by the meat-head Dave Bautista, providing both action and comedy with his single minded approach to avenge his wife and daughter by killing Ronan the Accuser.  Between all the members of the Guardians it is easy to see the way the characters interact with each other and become good friends and it takes time to focus on each characters background and story. This I like because you can't seem to complete the squad without any of them, all of them have a role to play in the film and all of them are unique in their own way. This being a particularly difficult thing to do as it would have been easier to just focus on Star-Lord and dis-include the back-stories of the rest of the crew, but then it wouldn't have been Guardians of the Galaxy, and I think James Gunn did a great job in bringing to life another branch of the Marvel Universe!

Ronan the Accuser and Nebula are the movies antagonists and despite how awesome they look and

how ruthless they are, like most Marvel villains they are distant from the heroes and not included in the narrative as much. Although I suppose in this case it isn't necessarily a bad thing as the film takes a lot of time and focus on the Guardians and bringing to life relatable characters for the audience to connect with. Putting emphasis on the villains in the story would divert a lot of attention away from the main group and might have been too much to handle. So in this case I think it was the right call to take soul focus on the protagonists, but there is no doubting that Lee Pace as Ronan and Karen Gillen as Nebula were brilliant in the roles and created two memorable villains for the ever expanding universe!

One thing I like about this film is that it doesn't take time to explain everything in the world a lot of people would have just been introduced to, it kind of assumes that you are listening and know about the surroundings and carries on with the narrative. Stuff that you don't understand is explained to you and it doesn't worry too much about tying itself into other aspects of the cinematic universe, keeping it distant from Earth and telling a story far, far away. In fact the only connection to the over arching story of the MCU is Ronan's alliance with Thanos and the Power Stone which is one of the six infinity stones!

It's hard to find something wrong with this film because it all flows so nicely, but one thing I did notice that kind of annoyed me was the peace treaty between the Xandarians and the Kree.

We are told they used to be enemies then they made peace and signed a peace treaty and that's it. We aren't given much background on either race. Particularly the Xandarians as Ronan's intention in the movie is to eradicate the entire race, and considering that he is Kree as well, I would have liked a little bit of back-story about why an extremist like him would want to commit genocide. Again this stretched back to not enough being said about the villains and seen as the film is a little over two hours long I think they could have spared a few moments just to give a reason for a radical member of the Kree race to end all of the Xandarians. Perhaps they could have done this instead of adding Thanos into the movie. I like the fact they included him but he seems a bit pointless and I can't help but feel there isn't any point in him being there.

Oh and HOWARD THE DUCK?!





WHATEVEN?!








Nevertheless apart from these little things this movie is one of my favourites and is a contender for my favourite Marvel movie ever. It has literally everything and more and is so different from the other debut movies in the cinematic universe. Oh and the music is perfect, nothing can top the aural elements of this movie!

I Salute you for reading! :)