Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, voices of Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Dave Bautista, John C. Reilly, Djimon Hounsou, Glenn Close, Benicio del Toro.
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures
Runtime: 121 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2014
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In the United States, Guardians of the Galaxy has become something of the saviour of the summer box office. It has proven extremely popular – but not so much with this reviewer.
To be fair, here is the opening paragraph of an IMDb blogger (Grey Gardens). This is a fan’s, no, FAN’S, response: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy is nothing short of an amazing movie. If there’s anything I can say, it’s that it is the best superhero movie I have seen. Not only does it have the impressive set pieces and enough action to last you a lifetime, it has an emotional core and you actually get to care about each and every single character. Overall this movie is filled with all the required thrills and spills and is a first class action movie. It also has a great mixture of comedic value and a deal of seriousness.’ While acknowledging this, and the amusement and joy that the film will bring to younger audiences as well as to science-fiction buffs and those who enjoy tongue-in-cheek spoof of the space adventures and the super heroes, this review will not be so enthusiastic.
Acclaim must be given to the action, stunts, special effects. There is great ambition behind this particular film, capitalising on the popularity of the serious Marvel comic characters, but also capitalising on parody. One might imagine a film made of all those odd-looking and odd-sounding characters that are found in the bar, along with Han Solo, in the Star Wars films, a film about Chewbacca and co. Those films were enjoyable but George Lucas, for some strange reason and imaginative bout, created Jar Jar Binks, who not only sounded silly but looked silly and intruded a lot of silly behaviour into The Phantom Menace.
So, this reviewer was not so much thinking of Star Wars but of Jar Jar Binks and of the silliness. In fact, the word that kept surfacing while watching Guardians was “stoopid” – and this was too hard to get over.
Poor Peter Quill is abducted from earth by aliens in 1983. Older now, he is in possession of an orb, with superhuman powers, which is sought after by an evil galactic lord, Ronan. There are some other assassins and destroyers.
But, Peter forms a group of guardians who whizz around here and planetary there. There is a raccoon called Rocket (voiced with sly enthusiasm by Bradley Copper) and a tree trunk who is able only to say ‘I am Groot’ – since so many reviewers have proclaimed that this is Vin Diesel’s most wooden performance, I won’t do it. Then there is a young woman, with a jealous sister, who escapes her planet and joins the guardians. She is played by Zoe Saldana, coloured green, a contrast to her blue appearance in Avatar.
Of all people, Glenn Close, appears as a planet leader (though come to think of it, she was in Tim’s Burton’s Mars Attacks) and Benicio del Toro has a cameo.
So, this is a comic book adventure with strange and funny goodies and quite an array of most evil baddies. There is no limit to the imagination and the special effects for these galactic skirmishes, schemes and battles. And the sequel is promised in three years.
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