The reviews are in on Guardians of the Galaxy and they are very positive. Considering that I read articles questioning Marvel making this film they have to be very pleased.
Please put your trays in the upright positions and prepare for take off true believers!
Sitting in the theater I could feel an almost tangible nervousness, an anticipation, it was like the moment before the Space Shuttle gets launched in space, but this time I was on the rocket along with the rest of the audience.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, IT IS ALMOST HERE, 2, 1 and we have lift off. For the first time in the history of cinema we were launched into the depths of Marvel's cosmic universe.
The movie's main voice is that of Star Lord, and like him we get to travel from Earth to the beyond. He represents the voice of Earth in the wondrous spectacle that is laid out before us.
Guardians of the Galaxy is fun. It is an action packed, visually stunning work of art, that while amazing does not take itself too seriously. It will make your heart race and you laugh out-loud.
It is not perfect. The movie's spends time introducing the primary characters and gives each one their moment. This takes time but it does not hinder the movie. The villains are not as fleshed out as they should be, nor are their motivations clearly understood.
The movie feels different even as the story rolls along some generic lines. Yes, the heroes are chasing after a macguffin (Inifinity Gem) and yes, we have heard variants of this story told for eons. But it is different. For one there are no true humans in the main caste. Star Lord is a half alien after all. This makes it go somewhere even a little more bizarre. A little more weird. Even as the plot skeleton is tried and true, the flesh packed onto makes it completely.....alien.
For some sci-fi fans this may not go far enough. Some of people have complained that most of the aliens are humanoid. This is true, but this is also true of the Marvel Universe. In he Marvel universe many of the aliens appear exactly like normal hum drum humans, and a bulk of the rest are humanoid.
My biggest complaint is that these characters are so great, and they have to share the stage together leaving little time to dig into them. I think the audience wanted to learn much more about Rocket Raccoon and his origin on Halfworld, they wanted to know who Star Lord's father was, they wanted to know why Gamora was raised by Thanos. There are a hundred stories here and just not enough time to cover them all. For this reason the film is not perfect. There are so many great things to cover, and what they do cover can't help but feel disappointing. It is a big universe True Believers. Is this really a fault of the movie? No, if anything it is a testament that I left the theater wanting even more.
Will I be in line to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2? Yes absolutely.
Lets take a look at some of the other reviews.
In other words a lot of people like this movie and think it is very good. Not quite Dark Knight, Avengers good but pretty close.
I must say the professional film critics analysis of this movie is all over the place and often leaves me scratching my head.
"To see an expensive, big-studio movie freed from creative constraints and directorial cynicism is always a rare and wondrous experience. In a season of bloated indulgence, it's also fair to call it a marvel."
She actually gets a few details wrong in her review but I actually found this review to be solid, pure movie review of some one who knows little of the source material (Which is fine).
I really could not understand what he did not like about the movie. He wrote half of his critique on how he has read comic books and has geek cred. His fault seemed to be with embroiling the rest of the Marvel Cosmic Universe like Thanos into the story. He found the "faux majesty" of the villains weird when rubbing against animal based heroes. He still found the movie fun.
She spends about 40% of her review rattling on about gender stereotypes and positive female heroes, which while important to me tells me nothing about how good the movie is. This movie has Gamora, and Nebula as two powerful, martial characters and has Glenn Close as the leader of a planet. She feels that because Star Lord's mom dies that she should immediately bring up the whole idea of women being used as disposable props to build up or tear down the male characters. This does happen and its nothing new (I can think of a few million mythological stories with similar plots). This idea has been analyzed by comic geniuses like Gail Simone. That said bringing it up here after one death seemed to reek of nothing but aggrandizing an agenda at the cost of writing an actual review, it also reeks of pseudo-intellectualism. I hate pseudo intellectualism. I do care about female characters and how they are depicted in comics/movies but frankly I think it diminishes the legitimacy of the argument for someone to bring it up at the drop of a hat. Now I have written a paragraph about a review that offered me nothing and made no sense, I havedoubled down on stupid. I give her review 1 star out of 5, it is time for her to find a new occupation.
Mark Hughes writes an interesting piece primarily speculating on the economic potential of the movie, its franchise and Marvel in general.
Holy crap is that BETA RAY BILL!?!