Guarding the Galaxy

What can I say about ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ that’s not been said in countless other reviews?  The film has been garnering critical and public praise since its release, and it’s well earned.  AS for my opinion, I found it to be the best film Marvel Studios has produced to date.  Better even then Avengers.  Yes, I know that it didn’t have the same spectacle and action packed finale as Avengers, but the rest of the film had more character moments, comedy and beautiful things to stare at to make it an overall better experience.

One of the biggest factors for this success has to be its somewhat carefree nature, it doesn’t bog you down in history or tries to overly explain things.  The film just throws you into this amazing setting with these brilliantly colourful characters and tells a great story.  Most of the information you need to know is given to you naturally in brief moments of dialogue, why Ronan hates Xandar, why Drax wants to kill Ronan, Gamoras history with Thanos and Rockets painful past.  Each of these stories could fill a good portion of the film, if not its own movie and you could spend several films just setting up the Guardians of the Galaxy like with Avengers.

Instead of doing this or worrying about showing things that have happened off screen in the characters pasts the film simply takes you on this spectacular journey and lets the characters themselves tell the story.

And the characters are great too!  Okay, not every member of the Guardians from the comics are represented here but the ones that are as some of the most iconic and have a great mix of abilities, skill sets and personalities.  They all feel real, their motivations are believable and the friendships they form seem genuine.  Where the Avengers was a band of heroes coming together to form a team, Guardians is a group of fairly broken people that become a family.

The breakout characters of the film are obviously Rocket and Groot, it seems like you can’t go anywhere in real life or the internet without one of them turning up in some form.  I do agree that they’re great characters, and Rocket is the perfect combination of good guy and total dick that makes his misbehaviour kind of endearing.

For me though the standout character has to be Thanos.  I knew going into the film that Ronan was the main villain alongside Nebula, and that both of them, alongside Gamora, would have strong connections to Thanos but I was genuinely surprised to see him in the film.  Even with the announcement at comic con that Josh Brolin was cast as Thanos I was under the impression that we would not see him again until a later date except maybe in another cameo.

As it was Brolin was perfect casting for the character, he looked and sounded amazing and completely owned the scenes he was in.  It actually gave me goose bumps when he appeared.  His is the character I’m most looking forward to seeing return.

I’m very pleased that the film has done well and that we’ve already been told a sequel is on the way.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Amy.
xx