140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW
Wow. I don’t know if this is the best Marvel movie so far, but it’s definitely the most fun. An absolute blast, beginning to end. #iamgroot
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Guardians of the Galaxy:
I was very nervous about this one. I honestly had never even heard of the comic when the film was announced, and once it was described to me I thought that Marvel might be endangering their win streak. They’re feeling pretty good about themselves over there since all of their films have been big hits, and the announcement of a film version of Ant-Man and a movie starring a talking raccoon seemed like hubris. I no longer really have any doubt about their creative direction after they made this one into a smash hit. (Except for one thing: the practice of announcing sequels to films that haven’t been released yet – that needs to stop yesterday. It’s obnoxious and presumptuous.)
Once I started seeing artwork and stills and especially the trailers, though, I had another concern. Now that it was starting to look really cool, I worried that they’d screw it up. I kind of hated director James Gunn’s last picture, Super, so I was afraid this picture might try to be smarter or more clever than it really is. I worried needlessly.
Guardians of the Galaxy is a complete, unqualified success. Not just the most enjoyable of all of the movies from Marvel Studios, it was actually more fun to watch than anything I’ve seen in the theater in some time. The tone and the spirit of adventure are absolutely perfect.
The story is basically your standard Macguffin hunt with odd personalities that must learn to work together, blah, blah, blah. But the execution is flawless. Well, nearly flawless – I don’ t know what Glenn Close & Benicio del Toro were doing in this movie but they should have been asked to stop.
The acting talent in general, however, is amazing. It’s a seriously deep cast, from Chris Pratt in the star-making lead role down to Seth Green as the voice of…well, that would be telling…
All of the characters are original and a blast to get to know, with Groot & Rocket being my personal faves. I love that they got Vin Diesel to voice a character who only says “I am Groot”. And Bradley Cooper really loses himself in Rocket. But the live-action actors are very fine and particularly committed to working with dizzying amounts of makeup. Karen Gillan and Lee Pace are unrecognizable.
The design of the film is fantastic, which is not easy to achieve in a sci-fi movie. There’s a tendency to be either derivative or totally out there (in an attempt not to be derivative). But there are a lot of truly unique designs in the picture, with Star-Lord’s mask and gadgets, and the Novas ships sticking out particularly in my mind. There are an unbelievable amount of CG effects, which is unavoidable, but they are of an extremely high quality.
This is one of those times where a movie is so enjoyable that I have difficulty talking too much about it – I just want to say “go see it and by the way can I come, too?”
Poster:
Trailer:
Bechdel Test:
Pass
The Representation Test Score: C (5 pts)
(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)
| Main Cast | Chris Pratt Peter Quill, Vin Diesel Groot (voice), Bradley Cooper Rocket (voice), Zoe Saldana Gamora |
| Rating | PG-13 |
| Release Date | Fri 01 Aug 2014 UTC |
| Director | James Gunn |
| Genres | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi |
| Plot | In the far reaches of space, an American pilot named Peter Quill finds himself the object of a manhunt after stealing an orb coveted by the villainous Ronan. |
| Poster |  |
| Runtime | 121 |
| Tagline | You’re Welcome |
| Writers | James Gunn (written by) and, Nicole Perlman (written by) … |
| Year | 2014 |
