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No doubt, Guardians of the Galaxy is a fun, entertaining, spectacular sci-fi action comedy adventure. However, despite the rave reviews from the critics and mainstream audience, it's not the 'perfect' Marvel film that I was hoping for. I just don't think the film actually lives up to the hype. Let me explain why.
The story is mainly about a band of interstellar thieves, thugs and assassins - Star Lord, Gamora, Rocket, Groot and Drax, who got caught up in a huge galactic threat when one of them retrieved a highly-desired mysterious orb from a desolated planet. These individuals eventually decided to work together as a team and become heroes along the way to stop the impending threat.
Before this, the Guardians Of The Galaxy consists of characters not known by many, even among the Marvel fan base since it's not a well-known Marvel comic book series. It's actually the first Marvel film that ventures into space, introducing the general audience to the expansive, limitless intergalactic worlds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe...with an entirely new team and not the previously established Avengers. It brings the audience to a whole new unseen world, featuring a multitude of alien species with distinctive personalities and abilities, with addition of exciting spaceship battles and chases as well.
The visuals in the film are spectacular and the action scenes were great. Many of the 1960s/1970s pop classics that forms the soundtrack blends in quite nicely with the film. Each Guardian have their own kick-ass, cool or funny character moments in the film. The action scenes between Drax and Ronan or Korath, Gamora and Nebula, Star Lord and the Sakaaran army are really well done. But, among the Guardians, it is actually the giant walking tree and the talking raccoon that stole the spotlight compared with the others. Some of the awesome, beautifully done or emotional scenes with them: Groot extends his arm and pierces through a few Sakaaran army soldiers and repeatedly slams them against the walls, the 'We are Groot' scene or the scene in the finale where we get to see Rocket's teary expression and later on Drax tries to comfort him by gently petting his head.
All the Marvel films, since Iron Man, did a great job of making fun at itself by injecting decent amount of humour and witty lines into the story, keeping the audience laughing along the way. This worked out fine for most of them...the engaging sense of humour actually helps to balance out the drama and action, making the films fun and entertaining to watch. But this time, they went overboard with it. Guardians of the Galaxy is so overly playful with itself that it has gotten too self-absorbed with its humour along the way. As a result, it felt cartoony at times and loses the tone and seriousness required to be an epic film. It's been shown in the film that billions of lives are at stake and even the entire galaxy is under threat. How do you expect the audience to even care about what's at stake when the film doesn't take itself seriously? (Moreover, some of the jokes presented in the film didn't work for me.)
The film has too many new characters and most of them only make brief appearances...there's a lot of new unfamiliar places or locations which are previously unheard of. There's no character depth for each of the Guardians, so you don't feel like you know them much by the end of the film as their backstories were only briefly touched upon. (Don't just tell us about them, show us instead.) Why Gamora, also known as the 'galaxy's deadliest assassin' or the 'Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy', trained by Thanos, gets easily beaten by others in the film? The romance between Gamora and Star Lord feels forced as well. I was also slightly disappointed that Thanos only make a brief cameo appearance...I expected more of his involvement in the film, but he didn't. The film didn't manage to create long-lasting impression for the characters, much like Captain America: The First Avenger and Iron Man did for their main characters. The pacing doesn't flow quite well as the story never slows down and there's too many things to cover in the film.
- Five Guardians aside, you have Ronan, Yondu, the whole Nova Corps, Nebula, Korath.
- Brief appearances: Thanos, The Other, The Collector, Carina, Rhomann Dey, Denarian Saal, Ravagers Crew.
- Places or Locations: Earth, Chitauri space, Kyln, Xandar, Knowhere, Morag, Collector's Museum, Milano ship, Dark Aster ship, Ravager ship...
Like all the previous Marvel films (except Thor, who has Loki), Guardians of the Galaxy lacks a memorable and compelling villain for the story. There's a lack of character development for Ronan The Accuser. His character motivations were only briefly touched upon in the film. Ronan’s lieutenants, Korath and Nebula (also Thanos’ adopted daughter), bring nothing to the table and we barely know them at all. They're just simply there to be taken down by the Guardians in the finale. For those who are expecting a great epic teamwork battle in the finale will be disappointed. Why would a villain who hates an entire race and planet, who tries to avenge his father's and ancestor's deaths could be so easily distracted when the opportunity arises? "What are you doing?" I find myself having the same response as Ronan, questioning the director's decision for making Star Lord pulling such a ridiculous act on screen in the finale. Come on, you have a villain who's in possession of the Power stone and this is what you can do with the character?
Like I mentioned earlier in the review, the film was fun and entertaining, but nothing feels serious at all. It's certainly not the best Marvel film ever made. In my opinion, X-Men: Days of Future Past still remains as the best Marvel film of the year.
Rating comparisons with other Marvel Cinematic Universe films:
Iron Man
|
2008
|
8/10
|
The Incredible Hulk
|
2008
|
7/10
|
Iron Man 2
|
2010
|
7/10
|
Thor
|
2011
|
7/10
|
Captain America: The First Avenger
|
2011
|
8/10
|
The Avengers
|
2012
|
9/10
|
Iron Man 3
|
2013
|
8.5/10
|
Thor: The Dark World
|
2013
|
8/10
|
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
|
2014
|
8.5/10
|
Guardians of the Galaxy
|
2014
|
7.5/10
|
Note: The post-credit scene was quite disappointing and not worth the wait. They suppose to add something that raises the expectations for future films but they didn't. That sucks.
Little Things you should know/remember before watching Marvel films:
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Thanks I thought I was the only guy that did not like GOTG. I didn't feel that the characters bonded over the film and all they did was that they made snarky remarks to each other.
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