Just finished watching Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D. Overall, a great ride, with the DNA of space epics past, and held together with irreverence. The cast is wonderful, spare a few duds (I’m looking at you, Bautista), and I’m excited to see the next installment. The light-hearted attitude was perfect. With unknown characters and an intimidatingly expansive world, it never got bogged down with detail. At the same time though, I kept getting told the stakes were higher than they felt. If you have to reiterate that the bad guy is going to do a bad thing, you should’ve done a better job telling us the first time. Overall, I count this as a win, and recommend it to folks.
We open on a young boy–hello, protagonist–and immediately grow emotionally attached as we watch his mom die. Do I smell a hero? Sounds like the beginning of Star Trek: Into Darkness. On her deathbed, she gives him a present that gets tucked into his knapsack and she talks of his father, who was supposedly made of light, but that’s just babbling, right? Her final action is trying to grasp her son’s hand, but when he shies away, she dies. Looks like he’s got a good helping of motherly guilt for the rest of his life. As he’s runs outside the hospital, distraught, an alien aircraft arrives and abducts him. Surprise!
Cue the standard comic book page-flipping Marvel opening. Now we encounter the adult Peter Quill, AKA Star Lord, in a scene reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but with a fun soundtrack pouring from Quill’s walkman cassette player. He’s listening to a mix titled Volume 1. Is there a volume 2 somewhere? Unlike the academic Mr. Jones, our Star Lord is a common thief, and prepared to sell this weird orb for a pretty penny and betray his former partner, Yondu, who places a bounty on his head.
Meanwhile, in a vague location somewhere in the galaxy, the villain stomps onscreen. Basically a life-size Smurf with black paint to compensate for facial hair, Ronan the Kree is hell-bent on destroying Xandar because they did something to his people before some peace treaty, but this movie isn’t about politics so just know that he wants to kill all the white people. Having made a deal with some other big bad, Thanos, Ronan tasks Gamora with retrieving the stolen orb from Star Lord.
Star Lord ends up on Xandar (which could’ve just been called Xearth) to sell the orb. Following an unsuccessful sale, Gamora tries to steal it, and two bounty hunters, Rocket the raccoon and Groot the living tree, try to capture him for the money. Instead, their large fight in a public place lands them all in space jail. And when we learn that Gamora intended to betray Ronan, we know the team’s all together, so the story will begin its uphill climb. At least that’s what every piece of news and advertising told me. Once in prison though, we discover Drax, a burly man with black skin and red tattoos who has it out for Ronan. Seriously the worst character ever, although that’s likely due to the stultifying way wrestler David Bautista delivers every single one of his lines, I had no clue he belonged with the team and just kept waiting for him to die. That moment never came.
Instead, these five break out of prison to sell the object to another buyer, the Collector. Here we get a one-minute cameo from Benicio Del Toro, before he cracks open the orb to reveal some nonsense that contains energy from right after the big bang or whatever. As always, when it comes to primordial space energy, handle with care. Del Toro’s lady slave decides to say fuck it and grabs the primordial space energy, basically committing suicide. But as the slave of a private space zoo owner, who can blame her?
Frustrated after a fight with the team, a grumpy Drax calls up Ronan’s entire fleet because people aren’t rational when they’ve been drinking and trying to avenge the deaths of their families, but Ronan’s team sweeps in and collects the orb, while Star Lord and Gamora are forced to board Yondu’s ship to avoid freeze to death in space. After Rocket, Groot and Drax rejoin the party, they join forces with Yondu’s team to defeat Ronan and prevent his destruction of Xandar.
Ronan, now equipped with the magic cosmic energy doodad, is ready to lay some waste. But before he can try, the Guardians swoop in with a plan. The whole fight takes place above Xandar, more specifically above what appears to be the only major city on the planet. At least from our perspective. As the fight breaks out, the Head of Xandar, or whatever Glen Close’s character’s job was, orders evacuation of the city. Seems a little late in the game for that, but no judgment. Gotta get those good pedestrian fleeing sequences in.
After the long sky battle, the enemy’s ship comes crashing down with the heroes and Ronan inside. On the ground, the crash site is quickly surrounded my civilians from the city, because apparently no one actually listened to the evacuation orders. Before Ronan can start killing, the team rend the cosmic magic rock from his possession. Star Lord, grabbing hold of the rock bare-handed, starts to glow purple, but doesn’t die like the girl from before. Could it be he’s not entirely human? Who’d have guessed? Gamora reaches out for Star Lord’s hand, just like his mom did. Joining hands with his team members to control the rock’s power, he uses it to destroy Ronan, and save the world.
Afterward, the Xandarians congratulate him and confirm that Star Lord is only half-human, but cannot identify the other half, because that’s relevant to what just happened. Sounds like a plot for…another movie. The Xandarians provide Star Lord with a repaired ship and the team sets off on an aimless adventure, likely to the set of Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Daddy Issues. As the set off, Star Lord unwraps his mom’s present going completely full circle (as every good hero’s journey should). Any guesses on the contents? That’s right! a mixtape. Volume 2 to be precise.
Like I said, a good ride, but with a few holes here and there. If you’re interested in inconsequential fun, totally head to this movie. There aren’t many heavy emotions, although there are plenty of heavy story beats, but Zoe Saldana and Chris Pratt, with the voices of Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper, keep it alive and kicking until the very end.
Critical Dan 