Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

[Bastard of Boston]

Marvel releases official official image of Thanos

[Howdyphillip]

So, very quick review. SPOILER-FREE.

If you want more of the MCU experience you've come to know and love, you'll like it. If you're ready for the MCU to move into new directions and expand its spectrum, you won't like it. This has been touted as the 'new take' on the Marvel formula, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is absolutely formulaic and takes no real chances. There's a lot of laughs, and every main character will surprise you in small ways. Actually, Star-Lord is my least favorite; not because Pratt doesn't do a good job, but because the others are more interesting. Rocket isn't annoying as I feared he might be - he actually does bring to the table what people hope he brings. But Drax was the surprise to me; he is very expressive and subtly funny and will make you laugh more than you might expect. In any case, where the film fails to turn the formula upside down, it does turn a lot of scenes on their head, creating enough cool and funny character moments to carry us through the, unfortunately, dull action scenes and complete lack of meaningful antagonists.

The pros:

- The main characters. All used well, all interesting to watch.

- The locales; I really liked the places we got to see. The origin of one place in particular took me by surprise and hints at what may come in the cinematic universe. Very interesting visuals and environments, didn't feel cookie-cutter.

- Some interesting references to the Marvel comics universe that I wasn't expecting; while GotG does make the mandatory connections to the Avengers movies, it also makes use of some interesting elements from the comics that I didn't know of.

The cons.

- The villains. Ronan is ridiculous and has as little motivation as the Dark Elves in Thor 2. Nebula might as well not have been in the film at all.

- The climax. Yet another sky battle. And this time, it bears a weird similarity to The Phantom Menace. The stakes are supposed to be huge, but feel irrelevant. Feels more like sunday cartoon action than anything resembling actual warfare.

- Too many over-the-top moments, mainly sentimental. While the use of Earth pop music has been touted as an important player in the film, the use of the film's score is ridiculous. The film often feels manipulative and saccharine, even for a Marvel movie.

- Too many subplots. The plot concerning Star-Lord's old pirate family should probably have been left out in favor of more time spent on developing the villains - or just anything really. Too many players makes the plot needlessly convoluted.

- A certain Big Bad whom we have waited to see for a long time ... turns out to be fucking dull during his 2-3 minutes of screen time. They really need to up their game on this guy.

This is a clear 3 out of 5 stars. By the end, the GotG team is firmly established, but the overuse of sentimentality prevents us from relating to them in the same way as the Avengers team. Still, Marvel has put in place a solid secondary team that will be interesting to follow in the future. I'd put this in the lower half of all the MCU movies, but definitely above stuff like Hulk, Iron Man 2 and Thor 2.

I disagree almost completely with your review. This is now my favorite Marvel movie. After coming home last night, I watched the Avengers again, and even though I still think that it was fantastic, GotG surpassed it. Why in the world would you be making a call to cut Michael Rooker's character? He was a highlight in an already memorable and outstanding film.

This movie was special, and has already earned a place in my heart along with other huge notable films in my life. Every single character in this film was developed with brilliance. I went in not knowing any of them except for Thanos, and now they are all among my favorites in the Marvel universe, or any universe at all for that matter. This is what I look for when I go see a movie, and it can not be recommended highly enough.

3 out of 5? I just don't understand how anyone can walk out of that movie and say "meh"... This is as good as it gets. I give it an 11 out of 10.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Hahahahahhahaha.

"EVERYONE IN THE THEATRE IS CRYING"

[Grand Moff Mithrandir]

Hey Michael Rooker's character was awesome. He really knows how to play the scummy bad guy.

[denstorebog]

I disagree almost completely with your review. This is now my favorite Marvel movie. After coming home last night, I watched the Avengers again, and even though I still think that it was fantastic, GotG surpassed it. Why in the world would you be making a call to cut Michael Rooker's character? He was a highlight in an already memorable and outstanding film.

This movie was special, and has already earned a place in my heart along with other huge notable films in my life. Every single character in this film was developed with brilliance. I went in not knowing any of them except for Thanos, and now they are all among my favorites in the Marvel universe, or any universe at all for that matter. This is what I look for when I go see a movie, and it can not be recommended highly enough.

3 out of 5? I just don't understand how anyone can walk out of that movie and say "meh"... This is as good as it gets. I give it an 11 out of 10.

Well, if it's any comfort, I would give it 4 out of 6 on a 6-star scale, and I wouldn't hesitate to watch it again to take it all in (there was a fucking ALF sighting in there). And I didn't say 'meh', actually my opinion is almost quite the opposite. I didn't feel that anything about the movie was mediocre. What was good was very good, and what was bad was just bad.

Look at it this way. As hard as it is for you to understand a less-than-perfect score, it is just as hard for me to understand the notion that "every single character in this film was developed with brilliance". Come on. This is just objectively not true. There is no way you can see Nebula, Ronan or Thanos as "developed with brilliance". You can ignore these characters as factors that might detract from your overall impression, if you don't care about underdeveloped villains ... but there's just no way that you can defend these characters as "brilliant". In other words, it should be obvious why someone (like me) who does care about this would feel let down by these characters. Also, I don't feel it's hard to defend the action climax as derivative at this point.

Given all this, you're welcome to rank GotG as an all-time movie classic the day after seeing it, but I think it's perfectly reasonable to point out certain elements as detractors. And if you accept the idea of a review grade as being a sum total of the pluses and minuses, well, 4 of 6 is not hard to get. I've read maybe 10 of the reviews that make up the current 92% RT score, and most of them reach their final grade the same way. Excellent humor + excellent main characters + underdeveloped villains + formulaic plot = fresh tomato, but not a new standard for superhero movies.

I also want to note that almost all movies of this kind have their die-hard fans immediately upon opening. Avengers was hailed as a milestone superhero movie when it came out. Days Of Future Past also. With time, the flaws become more apparent and we look to the next positive surprise (as you experienced with Avengers). This time around though, I felt I was able to more immediately see the things that would normally bug me after 2nd or 3rd viewing, maybe because we've gone through the motions with the MCU so many times now.

(And Michael Rooker was by no means bad, but in order to get more time for what I felt was lacking, something *would* have to be cut. Nebula was my immediate candidate, but that's not really a lot of extra time gained. Rooker came second because he's more of a side-plot, not because of his performance.)

[Galactus]

But that's who Thanos is? There is no complexity to his character in the comics? He is simply an evil, power hungry, homicidal maniac who wants to destroy the universe and rule the ashes, theres not much more too him.

Not really. There's quite a bit more to him (the degree to which the writers remember this varies)

Thanos motivation is that he's in love with Death. Both in a conceptual way and in a quite literal way. (Death is a character in the Marvel Universe, usually depicted as a female robed skeleton, although it varies, she's been a male construction worker at one point, for instance) Most of his attempts to kill the universe/gain supreme power has been in an effort to win her love. (which inevitably tends to bite him in the ass, there's various explanations for why she doesen't reciprociate his feelings, one is that she's y'know... DEATH, and not really up to the task of *having* feelings (and that he's essentially doing some weird-ass projections on a concept) one that she wants/needs something from him (she's brought him back to life a couple of time) but that he's unable/unwilling to understand *what* she wants. (she tends to be less impressed by Mass Murder, at one point outright stating that it's kind of pointless since well, she's got Death already, no need for more) There's also the fact that what it implies about him that he "Loves Death" (IE: The idea that he is trying to commit a very convoluted suicide, and that's A) Why he keeps doing stuff to annoy the heroes and B) keeps cocking things up so they can actually defeat him) the fact that Death seemingly wants him alive for some reason just complicates things.

The second bit is his lack of confidence/belief in himself and what he does. (He's also to some extent self-aware and knows these things) most of the time he's been defeated it's because he lets his opponents win: He literally hands them a path to victory. Adam Warlock (who is more or less his main enemy) argued that Thanos knows he doesen't "deserve" to win and thus intentionally sabotages himself.

He's also pretty genre savvy: He raised Gamora to be his assassin and took great pains to actually give her a happy, relatively (for an assassin) well-adjusted childhood because he knew that if he treated her badly she'd inevitably defect to the side of the good guys. (which she did anyway, but at least she tried)

He generally refuses to acknowledge Nebula as his daughter (giving life to something would be kind of counter-productive to his goals) whether or not she really is his daughter or just delusional tends to vary.

He's also more than once been on the side of the Angels, usually when something truly cosmos-shaking shows up. And he has a bit of "It's my universe to destroy, not anyone else's!" thing going on. He's also the Champion of Death, and in some cases that's a *good* thing.

He also tried to be a genuine Good guy at one point (the excellent "Thanos" series) which... He wasn't very good at. (in a "Okay, so you wanted to help this race you previously harmed, but in the process you discovered a threat to the universe that lead you to blow up two of their planets to stop it." kind of way)

[Morpheus]

Adam Warlock (who is more or less his main enemy) argued that Thanos knows he doesen't "deserve" to win and thus intentionally sabotages himself.

The relationship between Thanos and Warlock has been interesting, depending on who is writing. Sometimes they are bitter enemies, but sometimes it is more complicated than that. Warlock even entrusted him with an Infinity gem immediately after the Infinity Gauntlet event.

Thanos generally has more going on than simply being a bad guy.

I was kind of hoping the post credits sequence would involve a golden skinned man emerging from that cocoon The Collector has in his possession. Warlock might lack mainstream appeal though, we may not ever see him in the movieverse.

[Kalbear]

Adam warlock isn't even a comic favorite.

[Jon AS]

Not really. There's quite a bit more to him (the degree to which the writers remember this varies)

The trouble is that a. unless Marvel's writers devote a hell of a lot of time to him, we're never going to see that in the movies and b. even when being written with some depth he's still a complete monster. At the end of the day he's still the guy who wants to conquer and/or murder the universe. Knowing his motivation doesn't make him more relatable, leave alone sympathetic. Occasionally he's been a useful monster (like when there's an entire universe full of really bad things that needs to be killed), but even then you want to have a plan to get rid of him the second you no longer need him.

Adam warlock isn't even a comic favorite.

Gamora seems to rate him...

[Ramsay B.]

Awesome movie, really funny and loads of action. It lived up to the hype. Thanos was ok, I was kind of disappointed with his voice and his look was kind of off in some way. Maybe my expectations were too high but I wasn't blown away with him. I wasn't sold on his stone throne either but that's just nitpicking.

I highly recommend for anyone with any doubts.

[Kalbear]

It's fun. It's not anything earth shattering and i definitely rate edge of tomorrow higher. It's pretty, charming and has enough good scenes throughout to make up for some of the parts that fall a bit flat. Groot and rocket really are the best, though drax is up there. Gamora needed to be a lot more awesome. And the villain was fairly weak.

I too think winter soldier was better.

One thing I loved was how colorful things were. The action was in the sun, well lit and very vivid.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Loved it.

"Just like Kevin Bacon!"

[Winterfell is Burning]

This was pretty good. My expectations were met, the only disappointment is the use of Ronan as a generic genocidal villain;

[Martini Sigil]

This movie was a lot of fun... I love that it didn't take itself too seriously.... when it comes n cable I'll watch it another 50 times just because it was a giant hoot...

[AndyBaelish]

It's a dance off!

[awesome possum]

Most fun I've had watching a movie in years. Also, for the kid question, I took my 8-year-old and she loved it as much as I did, and the few sex jokes went right over her head (one of them literally got a confused, "I don't get it").

I want to see it again.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

Day one, and I'm already tired of "We are Groot" on my Facebook wall.

[Jace, Extat]

Loved it. Went and saw it with the BF, don't think we've had that much fun at a movie together in quite some time. I thought it was funnier than 22 Jump Street, personally. And of course Rocket is my new fave.

[denstorebog]

Day one, and I'm already tired of "We are Groot" on my Facebook wall.

:lol:

You my friend are in for a WORLD OF PAIN

[lessthanluke]

Loved it. Drax was my favourite. "I am not a princess!"