Guardians of the Galaxy Review

GOTG was meant to be a risk for Marvel, making a big budget film about heroes that nobody’s really heard about. The trailer promised an offbeat, funny sci-fi film to mix up the pre-existing tone of the Marvel universe, and for the most part it succeeds. The film follows an outlaw, a talking raccon, a giant semi-talking tree, a green lady assassin and a blue alien maniac who form a team to stop the destruction of the galaxy. But that’s all by the by, because this film is really all about the fun and sparkiness the characters have together, and each character is brilliant. Chris Pratt is brilliant as cocksure Peter Quill. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel bring so much charm to their CGI characters, a moment where a drunk Rocket tells everyone to stop insulting him is actually really touching. Zoe Saldana is effortlessly sexy as Gamora, but the stand out surprise is the performance of Dave Bautista as Drax, for a former wrestler he delivers his lines brilliantly and he was the one I was consistently laughing at. This film succeeds most in that you don’t have to be a comic book fan to like it because they’re not superheroes, its closer in tone to the original star wars films. Its drawbacks are sadly what reign this film in from brilliance though, it yet again falls into the same climax as every other marvel film, and there is still no sense of threat when marvel are still yet to kill a character. Its also not quite as funny as it promised, but along with the best soundtrack for years this is a high watermark for Marvel, I just hope they start taking more risks. (High 4 Stars)