Directed by:
James GunnCinematography:
Ben DavisCast:
Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
From Marvel, the studio that brought you the global blockbuster franchises of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, comes a new team-the Guardians of the Galaxy. An action-packed, epic space adventure, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe. To evade his enemies, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with Rocket, a gun-toting racoon; Groot, a tree-like humanoid; the deadly assassin Gamora and the revenge-driven Drax. But when Peter discovers the true power of the orb, he must rally his ragtag rivals for a desperate battle that will decide the fate of the galaxy. (Disney / Buena Vista)
(more)Videos (25)
Reviews (19)
Hit me over the head with an Orb, but this well-shot but desperately unimaginative action should have been saved by an unconventional group of superheroes, and yet they sprinkle the witty dialogue in there so stiffly that I wondered if I was in another galactic quadrant; or how important it is to have a solo act.
()
The comparison of film and a rollercoaster perfectly suits Marvel blockbusters. The standardised products from the shared workshop of the Marvel Studios and Disney divisions attract viewers with a spectacular ride, which is, however, constructed in a completely mechanical way. Just as fairground machines differ from each other in their effect on one’s emotions only in their scary murals, extravagant names and number of flashing lights, Guardians of the Galaxy is absolutely identical to, for example, Big Hero 6. The narrative construction and dramaturgy, i.e. the rails conveying the audience to the individual emotional hoops and loops, are exactly the same; they differ only in their particular twists and turns. This is most striking in the conclusion, when, immediately after the spectacular climax comes an emotional twist that transforms the given film into a tear-jerker. Distinctive directors are hired for Marvel flicks solely for marketing purposes in order to help create the impression that the individual films are different, but in practical terms, their contribution has the same weight as the authorship of carnies who paint unlicensed portraits of pop-culture icons on midway rides.
()
I am Groot – and that's great. Complaints about the fact that Guardians of the Galaxy turned out to be just an "ordinary" Marvel movie can be attributed primarily to the extensive media massage all around, which deprived us of any surprises. It is difficult to imagine a stranger situation than when the main blue-black villain is faced with a group consisting of an 80s fanboy, an unfunny fighter, an unpredictable talking raccoon with a machine gun, and a tree in the foreground. And, of course, it's another pursuit of the devilish stone that can destroy everything. Because why not, when all the teams, villains, and artifacts successfully merge into one pile a few years later in the spectacle called Avengers: Infinity War. However, for now, the Guardians are struggling as a cohesive group with an incredibly positive song-filled soundtrack, shockingly self-assured direction by James Gunn, and an opulent finale that dazzles with every new idea, even in a relatively small space. I usually don't find pure space journeys particularly enjoyable, so this exception is all the sweeter.
()
The movie’s characters are a bunch of unconventional heroes with believable team chemistry, who do not take themselves too seriously and are played with gusto. Chris Pratt, whose star is on the rise, is a super cool guy, Zoe Saldana would be sexy in any color and Groot is too cute for words. The plot is a total cliché, but the relaxed mood of the film, which shows that nothing is meant seriously, makes that fact less grating. However, I was unpleasantly surprised by the lameness of most of the jokes. Hilarious, imaginative catchphrases with a lot of pop-culture references, were supposed to be the main attraction of the film, and there are almost none of those. Even Seth MacFarlane had more in his recent, rather inane A Million Ways to Die in the West. The crucial scene is foiled by Tyler Bates’ inability to compose an escalating melodic musical theme. The technical aspect is, however, perfect.
()
Guardians of the Galaxy is terribly silly – a multifarious group of sociopaths race to find a silver orb in order to prevent cosmic genocide – but it’s also hard to resist. It is a heroic interplanetary adventure mixed with an ironic B-movie space opera that is nevertheless more serious and less bizarre than you would expect from a former Troma collaborator (Gunn is the co-author of the screenplay for Tromeo and Juliet and the book All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger). ___ It’s rather unlikely that such a disparate group would come together, so we spend the whole film being persuaded that they can actually work together as a team. The development of the characters is limited to the transformation of hard-headed individualists into team players, which is skilfully incorporated into the main storyline – the plan has to be changed on the fly multiple times because the characters dumbly pursue their own objectives and complicate or delay the achievement of the main goal (Groot in prison, Drax on Knowhere). The film rather straightforwardly focuses on a group of outsiders being accepted by the system (which is dialectically represented by the peace-loving democratic planet Xandar and the Nova Corps military organisation), finding kindred spirits and becoming members of a notional new family (a large, live tree becomes its symbol in probably the most sentimental scene of the film). ___ However, it’s also essentially true that the deeper you go beneath the surface of the film, the more likely you are to be disappointed. The action scenes are spectacular, quite well arranged and sufficiently funny, but they don’t always serve the narrative. For example, the struggle after the first attempt to sell the orb didn’t have to happen at all or could have taken just a few tens of seconds and the impact on the main storyline would have been the same. Furthermore, the formula of “intergalactic terrorist wants to destroy/dominate the universe using a super-powerful artifact (which is nothing more than a MacGuffin)” is already rather worn out and the film doesn’t manage to overcome its clichéd nature quite as effectively as, for example, Iron Man 3 did. ___ On the other hand, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a blockbuster that was such a joy to watch for its visual aspect alone – and often only for that. Whereas the plot, an Oedipal narrative in its most traditional form, is strikingly reminiscent of A New Hope (a young man growing up without his parents and whose father turns out to be a rather dark character is drawn into an adventure in which millions of lives are at stake) and cheap Star Wars imitations like Battle Beyond the Stars, The Ice Pirates and The Last Starfighter (whose posters obviously inspired the Guardians of the Galaxy poster), the visual creativity of the artists was clearly inspired by the kitschy scenography of the new Star Wars trilogy, the dark visions of H.R. Giger (a planet in a huge head) and the camp aesthetics of Flash Gordon. ___ In addition to the breathtaking visuals, which we can thoroughly enjoy thanks to the longer shots and the large number of deeply composed scenes and half-scenes (which, among other things, serve to illustrate the motif of team cohesion, or lack thereof), Guardians of the Galaxy is notable for its parallel targeting at multiple age groups. Unlike other self-conscious genre pastiches, it doesn’t offer greater pleasure only for those viewers who are familiar with the various fictional worlds (Star Trek, Godzilla, Django), but also for viewers who are familiar with various frames of reference, particularly the present day and the 1980s in this case. Quill represents this duality in the diegesis. On the one hand, he easily fits in among contemporary nerdy heroes with their own system of values that is not derived from authorities, who care more about their technological toys (Walkman, mask) than about living beings and are walking encyclopaedias of pop culture. On the other hand, Quill is also a child of the ’80s, which is evident not only in the objects on his instrument panel (an old cassette recorder, a troll doll, an ALF sticker), but also in most of the films that he quotes from (Footloose, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Howard the Duck). The music that he listens to (naturally on a Walkman from the ’80s), which his absent mother recorded for him and which repeatedly interferes with the development of the narrative, can also be understood as a reminder of the period of his childhood, i.e. the ‘80s. If the 1980s, understood as a period of return to conservative values, serve as a model for the hero’s actions and thinking, this is a variation on the formula of Back to the Future, in which the ’80s had to be “corrected” according to the model of the innocent 1950s. What is implied by all of today’s looking back to the values represented by Reagan’s America of the 1980s? I’d prefer to let others answer that, but I don’t have a very good feeling about it. 80%
()
(less)
(more)
Gallery (211)
Photo © Marvel
Ads