Film Review - Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

The newest film from Marvel Studios, Guardians of the Galaxy is the story of Peter Quill (Chris Pratt, Emmet from the Lego Movie) who as a child is abducted into the far reaches of space and makes his living as a collector of relics, one of which is an Orb that is said to contain great power.

I was really really excited for this film going into it as I'm a great fan of Science Fiction and to see a new big budget one on the big screen again was for me just so exciting as there haven't been many these last few years and now at last the time had come for me to take my seat in the cinema and let the film play out in front of me, did it Hook me with Positive Feelings or was it sour Cherry Bomb that had a dissapointing after taste?

Happily so I was hooked on positive feelings all the way through and high on believing in that this was a really fun movie experience, I loved so much the Sci-Fi setting the film takes place in with its many distant stars and strange new worlds that just made me smile so much and there were even SPACE BATTLES!! Halle Fucking Lujah I never thought I'd see a proper space battle with Fighters manevouring and firing Lasers at each other just like in Return of the Jedi and I did say to myself "Take evasive action" and "All fighters, commence attack" as well as "Accelerate to attack speed, draw their fire away from the Cruisers"

The film also has some very good central performances by Pratt who is fast making a name for himself as a loveable leading man but he's also backed up very well by Zoe Saldana as the female lead and like in Avatar equips herself very well here and both Bradley Cooper (who is giving the kind of performance Bill Murray gave in his Prime, I never thought that would happen) and Vin Diesel are great comic relief though Dave Butistka is the weakest of the group.

And lastly I also really loved the soundtrack for this film, full of great 70s and 80s Pop Hits like Hooked on a Feeling, Cherry Bomb and I'm Not in Love and it was a soundtrack that I have not been able to shake from my mind and that can only be a good thing.

But alas there are a couple of very very minor quibbles I have with this film:

- The first is that the chief Villain Ronan is not that great and just comes across as the chief Brute henchman that's been promoted from Number 2 to Number 1 and it's not a very good choice as he just can't escape his Brute Henchman origins with the deep voice and big muscles, a much better choice I think would've been to have the other Sister to Saldana's character as the chief villain for this film as that character interested me very much but was sadly underused.

And like with Shane Black and his Iron Man 3 last year, this is not the fault of director James Gunn but rather a fault of the source, a claim I make at a lot of superhero movies as a strong villain is essential to the success of these films and many fall short in this regard.

- The second is that the climactic third act does run a little bit too long and could've used a few minutes shaved off it in the editing room as part of me did sit there and think "Okay can we get to the big bad guy now" which is a shame given how good the rest of the film is.

- And lastly the end credits scene is a joke, I sat and waited for it as some do (though most of the crowd I saw it with didn't) and when it was over I thought "That's it, what a ripoff" especially given the end credits scene in X-Men Days of Future Past was terrific and did its job right.

But to wrap this all up I have to mention the 3D for this movie as I saw it in both formats and frankly the 3D is terrible as it makes everything look so smegging Dark and it made my eyes sore and gave me a headache, the sooner we can do away with this useless format the happier cinema audiences will be as the 3D session I went to had okay numbers but the 2D one was almost full and doesn't that tell you something.

So all in all, Guardians of the Galaxy is a rollicking good time at the movies despite those minor quibbles and I absolutely recommend it without hesitation, 4 and a half out of 5.