Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

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Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Review

Guardians of the Galaxy is a 2014 superhero film directed by James Gunn and starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista. It is one of Marvel’s finest films.

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“Nothing goes over my head.

My reflexes are too fast, I would catch it.“

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I love this film. To me the film gets better with repeat viewings and truly after the third time I’ve seen it, I bumped the rating from 4 to 4.5 as it truly is one great blockbuster film that should go down in history as one of the best, certainly one of the best of its decade.

The story is pretty good. I still think that the infinity stones explanation is weak and not good enough as it should be better explained having in mind its importance for the entire MCU, but I loved how separate this film feels from the rest of the universe as it truly works as a standalone film. The story isn’t particularly original as it has typical building up team and motivational speech themes, but it presents those in comedic manner which is why even those clichéd scenes succeed. And because the settings are great, it succeeds as a pretty good space opera in its own right.

Star-Lord is great. He is the guy Indie should have been as he is both cocky and likable at the same time. Not to mention very funny at times. Gamora is dull and is the most boring and lifeless character here. But Drax the Destroyer is superb and one of the funniest characters here. His endlessly quotable stupid lines are hilarious.

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Groot is very good and of course endearing, but Rocket is very underrated as he is one of my favorites here – so memorable, funny and with a great backstory. I loved every backstory to each of the characters. Ronan the Accuser is actually one of the best Marvel villains so far as he actually posed some threat and was capable all around. And I didn’t have a problem with how he was beat as this is a comedy after all. All of the other characters are also solid and of course we finally got to see a bit of Thanos here.

I liked the performances and Chris Pratt is truly very charismatic and likable in the main role. It is easy to see why this jumpstarted his career. Dave Bautista is silly and unprofessional, but he works in the context of the character. And Bradley Cooper did a surprisingly good job in his voice performance. The film is also quite well directed by James Gunn and so well edited.

Guardians of the Galaxy also looks cool with a good use of dark and colorful imagery. I liked its various planets and the special effects are pretty good. But of course the score is superb as it utilizes on the seventies hits so well with a couple of scenes being so entertaining.

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The action is certainly overwhelming and the third act once again succumbs to the usual blockbuster, grandiose territory, but for the most part, the action is pretty good with good fighting scenes, although not the best that Marvel has done so far. The humor is naturally so good with almost all of its characters being very funny and memorable. They work great as a team as they are so cool and infectiously dynamic together. Drax, Rocket and Star-Lord got the biggest laughs out of me, but even the smaller characters such as the one played by John C. Reilly got some big laughs here and there. In the end, Guardians of the Galaxy is Marvel’s best film after ‘Doctor Strange’.

Guardians of the Galaxy is one of Marvel’s finest films with the third act not being the greatest, but it is mostly superb and so incredibly entertaining leading to one of the best blockbusters of the decade. The characters are unforgettable, they work great as a team, the humor is fantastic with many hilarious lines, the action is solid and the movie works great both as a comedy and as a space opera.