BEFORE: OK, so I admit I'm a little late in getting to this one. It was out in theaters late last summer, and I reviewed all my superhero movies for the year just before Comic-Con, so it was tough for me to circle back and pick this one up. Then I got the Blu-Ray for Christmas, but still couldn't find a way to link directly to it. Why do the Marvel movies keep screwing up my timeline? I guess because I want to see most of them as soon as I can, and it's not always possible for me to do so.
Stan Lee carries over from his cameo in "Avengers: Age of Ultron" - sure, I could have watched this film right after "Her" because Chris Pratt would have carried over, and then I would have maintained the proper viewing order for watching the Marvel films, but then I wouldn't have the links I need for tomorrow's film - so my reasoning will be clear tomorrow when I follow up with another sci-fi film.
(OK, OK, I admit it - I really watched this one BEFORE "Avengers: Age of Ultron", because story-wise that's where it goes in the MCU, but I'm reviewing it AFTER to preserve the linking to tomorrow's film. What was I supposed to do for two days, NOT watch a movie?)
THE PLOT: A group of intergalactic criminals are forced to work together to stop a fanatical warrior from taking control of the universe.
AFTER: If you're a Marvel comic-book fan, you may appreciate my take on the Guardians of the Galaxy, but if not, I'm about to make your world a lot more complicated. There are actually many different comic-book realities (Marvel's currently in the midst of destroying most of them, however) and the one most comic readers are familiar with is called Earth-616. (No one seems to know why, but I'm betting someone's birthday is on June 16.) The Marvel cinematic universe, the one where the Avengers films and also this one takes place, is called Earth-199999 (again, not sure why that number). So this gives filmmakers creative license to borrow liberally from the comic book stories, but they are not obligated to follow them exactly, because in the end movies work differently from comic books. But I bet when Marvel puts their comic-book universe back together (give them 6 months or so...), it's going to look a lot like the one we've seen in the movies.
Now in the Marvel Comics, there used to be a group called the Guardians of the Galaxy, and they were future soldiers, each from different planets, who occasionally came back in time 1,000 years to visit the Avengers, or help them deal with cosmic-level threats like Korvac or Thanos or Kang. The members of the group were Vance Astro (from Earth's past, umm, present - well, it's complicated), Charlie-27 (from Jupiter), Martinex (from Pluto), Nikki (from Mercury) Starhawk (from ???), and Yondu Udonta (from Centauri-IV). Now, these characters are NOT the Guardians in this film - except for one, apparently. But these Guardians had a successful comic book series for years, set in the 31st century, with various heroes and villains that were often descendants of (or riffs on) Marvel's 20th century characters.
In 2008, Marvel introduced a second team calling itself the Guardians of the Galaxy (although, chronologically I guess they're the first team - and who's to say their stories didn't inspire the second one that appeared first?) It's this second (umm, first) team that appears in this film, just the 5 core members, although in the comic book they've had minor characters like Quasar and Adam Warlock on the team, and even major characters like Captain Marvel, Venom and Iron Man have joined them for short stints. But for their introduction to the cinematic universe, they're stripped down to just Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Raccoon and Groot. (Yondu is sort of a supporting member, who's to say he doesn't live for 1,000 years and later form the 31st century version of the team?)
But many reviewers referred to the Guardians' comic book as "B-level" or "minorly successful", and I don't think that's true at all. The first series ran for over five years, and the second one did well for three years and many crossovers. Once this movie was successful, there were at least THREE Guardians series on the shelves at one time - their self-titled book, plus "Guardians Team-Up" and "Guardians 3000".
But let's get to the movie, which has three cosmic villains working together - Thanos, Ronan the Accuser, and Nebula, while in the comic books the Guardians would probably face them one at a time. Also, since Thanos is an Eternal and Ronan is a Kree, they probably would never have the same goals. And Nebula would be just as likely to work against Thanos than with him, since she claims to be his granddaughter (from the future?), and he has no memory of fathering a child, at least not intentionally.
Thanos, by the way, is usually depicted in the Marvel Comics trying to acquire the Infinity Gems, and usually when he gathers all 6 of them (each one controls either time, space, reality, mind, soul or power) he wears them on a big glove called the Infinity Gauntlet, and has infinite power. Based on everything I've seen in the Marvel films lately, we're gearing up for something big along these lines - the next 2 Avengers films are subtitled "The Infinity War", parts 1 and 2. Anyone who's recently been to that Marvel Movie Marathon, or has the time to watch all the films in release order can really get ahead of the game here if they pay close attention.
Now, this Guardians film works rather well, I won't say it's the best Marvel film, as some have said, but it does have a lot of action, a fair amount of comic moments, some good retro music tracks, and a number of special effects unlike any I've seen before. Plus it's part comic-book film, part sci-fi, part prison film, part treasure quest and part buddy film - what's not to like about all that? Star-Lord is part Han Solo, part Indiana Jones, and part Bo Duke (the way he slides over the spaceship before getting in) yet he also feels like a very fresh original character.
But the problem here is that the Marvel films are starting to hem close to the same formulas, as when two superheroes meet for the first time and usually fight each other, because they don't know at first that they're on the same side. That's like the whole first half of this film. And the second half isn't just in the style of the first "Avengers" film, it practically IS the first "Avengers" film, all over again. In both films teams are formed, the members have to work out the best way to use their powers toward a common goal, and both teams have a leader with moves (Captain America/Star-Lord), a tech & weapons expert (Iron Man/Rocket Raccoon), a hot female spy with better moves (Black Widow/Gamora), a strong man who's a bit dim (Thor/Drax), and a bigger, stronger guy who can barely form sentences (Hulk/Groot). Let's see, who's missing - Hawkeye? Well, if you add Yondu into the mix (since he is a member in the comics) whaddaya know, he shoots arrows too. Tell me I'm not the only person who noticed this.
OK, so it's not a perfect match-up - for starters the Guardians are mostly criminals, while the Avengers are not. But when the Guardians were fighting Ronan and his mace, I thought of Loki and his staff, and as the Nova Corps were trying to prevent Ronan's ship from landing on Xandar, it reminded me a LOT of the Avengers trying to keep the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier from crashing to Earth. In many ways, it's the same damn movie.
Also starring Chris Pratt (last seen in "Her"), Zoe Saldana (last seen in "The Words"), Dave Bautista, Lee Pace (last seen in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"), Michael Rooker (last seen in "Cliffhanger"), Djimon Hounsou (last seen in "The Island"), John C. Reilly (last seen in "We're No Angels"), Glenn Close (last seen in "The Paper"), Benicio Del Toro (last seen in "Thor: The Dark World"), Karen Gillan, and the voices of Bradley Cooper (last seen in "American Hustle"), Vin Diesel (last seen in "The Chronicles of Riddick"), Josh Brolin (last heard in "Avengers: Age of Ultron"), with cameos from Gregg Henry, Tom Proctor, Lloyd Kaufman, and the voices of Seth Green (last seen in "Can't Hardly Wait"), Nathan Fillion (last heard in "Monsters University"), Rob Zombie.
RATING: 8 out of 10 yellow jumpsuits
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