Marvel and their cinematic universe opened the summer with Captain America: The Winter Solider, so it’s only fitting they also close down the summer movie season with their new film, Guardians of the Galaxy, directed by James Gunn and starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, and featuring the voice talents of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel. This time, Marvel shows us an all new, exciting, and absolutely amazing world above and beyond the stars with a fantastic new team of heroes in one great action-packed movie.
We follow our main hero, Peter Quill, played marvelously by Chris Pratt, who was abducted from earth as a child. Raised by space pirates and now on his own, he goes by the name “Star-Lord”, trying to make a place for himself out in the great universe. He unknowingly steals a mysterious orb that contains one of the universe’s most powerful weapons. Thus, he suddenly has a bounty on his head and becomes pursued by the assassin Gamora, working for the evil Ronan, who will stop at nothing to have the orb.
Peter Quill manages to get caught by the two bounty hunters Rocket and Groot, who in turn get caught by Gamroa, who all end up being sent to prison where they meet Drax the Destroyer. After coming up with a plan of escape, all must learn to trust one another as they set off on one wild space adventure to save the universe, stop Ronan, and become the Guardians of the Galaxy.
James Gunn has managed to take some of Marvel’s little known space characters and not only make them awesome, but also very quickly make them as popular as the Avengers. Gunn creates an awesome universe filled with great characters, wonderful effects, and wild worlds that we have never seen before in film. The eye for detail is nothing but sheer awesome. Every little thing has been designed to the smallest attribute. Everything is well used to give this new world a life of its own.
Gunn got together one of the best casts in film. Each actor brings their own unique sense of humor, style, and creativity to the roles they have been given. Each is memorable and is given their own great moment to shine. Chris Pratt is just so good! He leads this rag-tag group of space heroes. He is a hero you just want to follow. Zoe Saldana as Gamora is deadly and beautiful. She gets to kick butt quite a bit, and is perfect in the role. Dave Bautista as Drax has many moments of greatness in the flick. His character comes with a lot of depth and pain, which Bautista carried off extremely well. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel voice our two astounding CGI characters of Rocket and Groot. Both voices are fantastic and really work well off the incredible animation. This is a cast that works just as well as watching the Avengers.
The villains are nothing to miss, either. Lee Pace turns in an almost unrecognizable performance as Ronan. He’s mean, deadly, and ruthless. Ronan commands you to watch him. He is a perfect villain for the story that was laid out before the audience. An actress who stands out is Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan as the evil assassin Nebula. She is evil to the core. She stops at nothing to get what she wants and will kill anyone who stands in her way. Combined with an amazing look with the use of make-up and latex, she, like Lee Pace, is unrecognizable in the role. The fight between Nebula and Gamora is one of the highlights of the flick.
The cast also rounds out with some great character actors that turn in more or less cameos, but they are all great and memorable no matter how small their part was: Glenn Close as Nova Prime, Irani Rael, John C. Reilly as Rhomann Dey, Benicio del Toro as The Collector, Djimon Hounsou as Kortah, and Josh Brolin giving us just a small sample of his Thanos the Mad Titan, who will, of course, be back in future films. This was an amazingly thought-out cast that works perfectly in one great movie.
The special effects and music are two of the most memorable things from the movie. The effects transport you to amazing worlds that you just want to see more of. Each effect is better-looking than the one before. Much talent and creativity were used to make these worlds come to life on the screen. Gunn uses more pop culture music than score, which is odd for a Marvel movie, but it works so well you just don’t care. Each song has a reason why it’s used, and even comes into play in the plot a little bit. The music is used to create a mood to either get going for the fight or just to make each scene that much better.
Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the best movies of 2014, and is one of Marvel’s best in their series of films. This is a movie that will go down as one of the best for being different, imaginative, and just astonishing. You will want more, and knowing more are coming, you just can’t wait. And the rumor that the Guardians will end up teaming up with the Avengers someday is just a dream come true. Once again, Marvel just shows us how to do it right.