Time for something a little different. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) is the MCU’s wildest adventure yet. James Gunn helms the space-western-screwball comedy-breakfast club-misfit-Marvel film with a talking raccoon and “I am Groot” as the main characters. What’s not to love? The whacky space-comedy opens with Peter Quill watching his mother die from cancer and then being abducted into space. The sequence is quite fitting because the film has some meaningful moments and then sweeps you up into whacky comedy-land over and over.
Also, by putting a movie in space, the MCU finally had a reason for Thanos to even be around. He may have just sat in a chair and threatened people but he was there. He had made a deal with the terrorist Ronan, who apparently wants to enforce some religious extremism on people by killing them. Good plan.
This, of course, also sets up two of the best story arcs in the MCU: Nebula and Gamora. They take different paths to become heroes but they both get there. As “daughters of Thanos” they each see a different way of escaping his grasp. Gamora teams up with Peter Quill, Rocket Racoon, Groot, and Drax the Destroyer to defend Xandar from utter destruction via the Power Stone. Nebula, however, teams up with Ronan with the promise that he will later kill Thanos. Thanos is thus far making Odin look like Dad of the Year. I mean Odin never tried to upgrade his children like they were characters in some sort of RPG. Thanos sat there, yes sat, and picked through which new modifications to give his children as they progressed through a story mode of a game he made up called “Justified Genocide; I say it’s because of environmentalism but I’m really just crazy.”
I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself so I’ll talk about this movie. Ronan is “meh” as a villain, but he serves as a good foil for the band of anti-heroes. They are all into small-time crime when you look at a universal scale. They have all done bad things but none of them desire to kill entire planets of people. The dialogue is hilarious. It is Marvel’s first full-on comedy. Every Marvel film has a good deal of laughter, but no other franchise is so fully dedicated to the gags.
Quick Hits
Stan Lee’s cameo is as an old man hitting on someone.
The visuals are really underrated. They created something totally new.
The death fake-outs continue. Groot is dead but a new Groot is here.
What is Ronan made of? They shoot him with the thing that blows up moons and he’s like not effected at all. “Aliens.”
Malekith and Ronan are a match made in heaven. Malekith hated the sun and Ronan hated everything under the sun.
Everyone on Xandar is now dead… Goodbye Glen Close and John C. Reilly. Kind of awkward watching this after Infinity War.
Guardians of the Galaxy is a blast. I have to admit I had less than zero expectations when this came out. I had no idea who Chris Pratt was and was still upset that they chose to make this instead of a sequel to the Incredible Hulk. I was so wrong. I was hooked in the first 5 minutes. The other thing that is really fun about watching this movie is that I really don’t know much about the Guardians of the Galaxy comics. Everything was a surprise for me. Having zero expectations for a movie makes it way more entertaining and makes it feel original. Now I know some people will say, “But you knew the heroes would win! It’s not that original!” We don’t have original plots. We just don’t. That’s okay though! When we stop trying to reinvent "the what" we can play with "the how." Guardians of the Galaxy plays with "the how" of the superhero genre and the anti-hero character in a wildly entertaining and unique way.