I used to know quite a deal about the Marvel Universe, but you wouldn't know it by the way I appear now. When the Scarlet Witch ultimately married The Vision, I came the closest to crying while reading a comic book as I ever will. This was an eloquent argument for marriage equality made by genre fiction, by the way. I must admit that I left the cosmos before the group known as The Guardians of the Galaxy appeared. I bring this up because there are a few MU characters in the film "Guardians of the Galaxy" that I did recognize—super-evil demigod Thanos, Drax The Destroyer, and perhaps one or two others—but I ultimately discovered that the characters weren't as memorable as I had thought they would be.
In many ways, "Guardians," which stars buffed-up former schlub Chris Pratt and Really Big Sci-Fi Blockbuster vet Zoe Saldana (now tinted green as opposed to her "Avatar" blue), is a delightful and comparatively new space Western. It was directed and co-written by indie wit James Gunn. Consider "Firefly" geared towards 15-year-olds with numerous overt "Star Wars" references. And incredibly "irreverent" speech that is typically actually entertaining. People of a certain age may wonder if this movie underwent the "What's Up Tiger Lily" dialogue-replacement treatment before release due to the constant wisecracking of the characters portrayed by Pratt (a sort of junior Han Solo) and voiced by Bradley Cooper (whose Rocket Raccoon is, yes, a genetically altered raccoon).
Rocket and Pratt's self-described "Starlord" aren't the most bizarre of Pratt's initially unintentional teammates in this interplanetary crew. Three characters—Wrestling star Dave Bautista's Drax, a vengeance-driven behemoth whose florid language only briefly conceals his inability to take anything other than literally, and Rocky's "muscle," Groot—are stealthy warrior princesses who have been hiding out in an evil family before revealing their good intentions. These guys are amusingly eccentric, which makes the fact that their goal—to save the universe from a mass-murdering megalomaniac who is searching for an object that will give him unimaginable mass-murdering power—generic in a way that's pretty consistent with films of this kind, tolerable.
Intriguingly, you may have noticed that many movie critics exhibit a tendency to become defensive when discussing films based on comic books. You surely observed that I attempted to assert some respectable credentials for comic books earlier. I've reviewed comic book films before and did this. One day, I may have to utilise the strongest arguments possible, such as the fact that I previously shared a sexual relationship with Mike Kaluta or that I attended Berni Wrightson's house for a Halloween party. I avoid doing this because I worry that I'll receive death threats from irritable comic book enthusiasts (which, thank goodness, hasn't happened to me). I do it because I benefited greatly from comic books as a child.
What is this related to "Guardians"? It connects to what I already said. Although this film has a lot of interesting details, the stilted portent with which its antagonists, the megalomaniacal Ronan (Lee Pace) and the bumpy-jawed Thanos (Josh Brolin, though you can't tell) make themselves felt becomes old very quickly. The faux-majesty of the villains is bumped up against uncomfortably by the "Guardians" "funny animal" tributes in a way that the genuine comic-book form is pliable enough to at least avoid. One of the film's rare genuinely subversive jokes involves one of the protagonists actually yawning in the pro-forma slow-motion "walk to destiny" scene that introduces the movie's conclusion.
It may seem like I'm listing a lot of unfunny elements in a film that I've already referred to as entertaining, but I'm really just venting my annoyance because, in my limited perspective—which can only imagine the lengths to which Gunn and his team had to go to defend every single creative licence they were given—the unfunny elements seemed wholly avoidable. The charm of the cast, which also includes Benicio Del Toro in a supporting role that allows him to display a significant amount of his renowned acting eccentricity and Michael Rooker in a gruff role that would have gone to Ron Perlman had Guillermo Del Toro directed the film, the sunniness of its eventual optimism, and the film's overall optimism will win over those who are not given to overthinking.
