Guardians of the Galaxy

I really loved it. Guardians of the Galaxy is by far my favorite Marvel property, so I was super excited to see that they were actually going to make a movie. I think the casting was fantastic, with Bautista and Bradley Cooper being particularly inspired choices. Chris Pratt was born to play Star-Lord. Rooker was amazing, and Saldana definitely held her own even though the movie version of Gamora was toned down in a way I wasn't that excited about. I was consistently surprised by how bad of a job she did getting herself out of trouble - in the comics, Gamora is pretty badass.

That said, I'm going to echo complaints about Ronan. He was just criminally underused here. In the comics he's pretty important and does a lot of cool and interesting stuff, so it's a shame to see him basically being a generic villain. Watching him stand up to Thanos was awesome, but you also get the impression (and rightfully so) that Thanos isn't really threatened, so it sort of undermines Ronan's power and threat at like the halfway point of the movie. I thought that was an odd choice, although I guess I get why they wanted to give Josh Brolin some screen-time.

I also think that it would have been a better GotG movie if they ran through the post Annihilation-wave storyline where the Guardians are formed and begin jetsetting around the universe closing fissures, but then you have to include Adam Warlock, Mantis, Quasar and yadda yadda. It would have given a similar level of menace that Ronan did without requiring the use of a central villain character, so the story could have focused more on the individual Guardians. Then again, they'd need to have set up the Annihilus stuff or create a new reason the universe is being rent asunder, and a superhero movie without a main supervillain seems like a risky prospect so I suppose I understand why they decided to go the route they did. You know what, scratch this paragraph. I guess they made the better move.

I was fucking STOKED when I saw Cosmo in the cage, and once the Collector's house was destroyed and he ran off I kept expecting to hear a Russian accent piped into someone's head, or for everything to freeze when Ronan was beating on Drax. I fully understand that Russian spacedog with telekinesis who leads security in a giant robot head is a little much EVEN in the GotG movie, but Knowhere without Cosmo feels really weird. I also was supremely disappointed by how little Benicio Del Toro we saw, as he seemed like he was having the time of his career playing the Collector. Finally, Howard the Duck WHAT?

In summation, it was my favorite Marvel movie to date, but definitely had some flaws.

The overall aesthetic and timing of it, splashing big with bright yellow letters and a tiny Starlord dancing in the bottom left corner, hitting right in time with "Come and Get Your Love". It did a perfect job of setting the tone for the rest of the film, especially when compared with the title cards of other Marvel fare.

@fattony12000: I mentioned to my brother who I was seeing the movie with last night that getting someone like Vine Diesel to play Groot seemed sort of meaningless, and now I feel SO BAD ABOUT THAT.

Anyway, I'd give GotG a solid "Good". Pretty much the same I give to the other highly received releases except for the original Ironman and The Avengers (Greats). Given how little in the way of tension there is I can't really fall in love with any of the Marvel movies. This one had some decent dialogue that got several chuckles out of me even if it wasn't as razor sharp as the Avengers writing was. The action was fine although again with no tension my eyes started to glaze over a bit waiting for the next plot point to happen. I enjoyed my time with it but wouldn't watch it again.

As well you should!

I agree with you on almost all of your appraisals, but I think Captain America 2 was also great.

You seem to forget that most people don't watch a lot of movies especially more sophisticated (for the lack of a better term) ones. Of course they're going to write stuff like that. Hell it's probably going to be one of my favorite action movies this year too because the Marvel movies are good and there isn't much else. The Raid 2 is my favorite so far, followed by Cap 2. What else is there in terms of action?

Disney/Marvel can't keep making movies like this and succeed...can they? I mean just like Pixar at some point they will just make a "okay" movie...right? This is getting insane how this streak is continuing off of so many movies and so many directors and actors.

You have to take into account that these movies make a killing internationally and it probably won't stop even if some of the marvel movies are kinda bad (Iron Man 2). This is the same reason why movies like Transformers IV can rake in 100 million over the weekend and films franchises like the Expendables is now a trilogy.

This was probably my favorite Marvel movie, and I really enjoyed Avengers. I think James Gunn brought a good sense of style to the proceedings, and I absolutely loved the fact that action sequences did not require a billion goddamn quick cuts. You got big views of the battles, and that's clutch. I thought Pratt was fantastic, and Vin Diesel continues to be quietly delightful in everything he does (I love the dude, because in stuff like Fast and Furious or the Riddick movies he presents a child's idea of what a cool guy is supposed to act like, whereas when he's allowed to just be kind of goofy (i.e. just say "I am Groot" over and over again) he gets super into it).

Also, Howard the Duck, y'all. BRINGING IT BACK.

Imo they've already had a few ok movies. Iron Man 2 and 3 were just ok for me, I didn't love them. They still made a killing though, I imagine that's what keeps that train rolling. I do think at some point they might reach a saturation point. If they somehow manage to keep the bar high though with movies like Guardians an Cap 2, I'm cool with them keeping them coming.

Vin Diesel Groot performance in a way is a call back to his performance to the 1998 Brad Bird film The Iron Giant. Another great film about a child like being.

Meh I am not talking about money because as noted it is easy to make up production overseas on turds. I'm taking about the unusual quirk that this is the longest run of interconnected movies that are well received. Maybe this is more of a reflection of how dispersed and decentralized the actual mechanisms of movie production are these days.

But if you want to talk about the money, this is "yet another Marvel movie that is opening near $100 million..." kind of thing.

I thought the characters were great and ultimately I enjoyed it. However, a few gripes:

1. It was all over the place at the beginning. Literally zooming across the galaxy to quickly do their back-stories. I know it's to be expected when they all don't have their own movies like The Avengers did to provide their back-story, but it was still pretty jarring.

2. The main villain was suuuuper generic. Seriously. Born evil, wants to do more evil and destroy everything, blah blah. He had no character. It was a waste of that guy's acting talents.

I felt the same way, but I guess you have to leave something for the sequel.

WHOA WHOA WHOA there buddy, Vin Diesel was the Iron Giant? That lovable hunk of metal?!

@theht: Oh yeah it's totally a thing. Vin Diesel has the quiet, childlike hulking character market on lockdown.

Movie was fantastic. Cannot believe it was made though. I mean it's a movie about a bunch of characters even some hardcore comic fans haven't heard of and Disney still made it. I've been consuming Marvel media for years and still have never even heard of these guys.

Also the music they chose for the awesome mix is legitimately good.

I liked it. Just goofy enough to make the cornball marvel sci-fi stuff work. Villain was pretty lame though.

I enjoyed it myself as well, I thought all the characters were fantastic, and it was great they managed to introduce a team that the audience had no previous knowledge of (unlike Avengers) and still give the characters depth.

The only problem I had, is the plot is very similar to Thor: The Dark World. It is like the Infinity Gems are holding the movies back (aside from The Winter Soldier, which it was absent until the after credits). Both movies include a forgettable villain trying to get a world destroying weapon, and the good guys have to keep it from them / stop them from using it (with much more interesting subplots in my opinion). I honestly hope the other movies steer away from this, but it seems Marvel is continually building to the Avengers / Guardians / Others vs Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet for Avengers 3, so they are going to keep popping up.

So, this is kind of the problem with most of Marvel's cosmic stuff. The villains are SO powerful, SO huge and badass, that it sometimes becomes difficult to feel any connection to them. At some point, it's just another dude blowing up planets. Which is a shame, because Nova, Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Mantis, Bug, and Adam Warlock are some of my favorite characters. There's a weird push-pull where the good guys are super interesting and flawed in really cool ways, whereas the bad guys are just like "I'm detonating a bomb that's going to blow up the universe or this alien race we never introduced"

Really liked the movie, a nice fun break from the more serious tones of the past few flicks. I am not super familiar with the Cosmic side of the Marvel U but I always thought Ronan was more of an neutral character and not full blown crazy like in the movie. I always thought the Kree were kind of just self serving, not straight up evil. I think Ronan as a villain is neat in concept but he was executed quite poorly. I mean he is the fucking Accuser and he only does his accusing thing once in the movie. All Ronan does in the movie is kick Drax's ass then withstand a crazy explosion, he really doesn't do much. I get that introducing the Kree is smart cause they are central to so many other aspects of the universe but they could have handled it better.

Was also super bummed the movie has the Nova Force as a central faction but then never actually show the actual Nova Force in use. With the destruction of most of the force in this movie I do see it being a possible lead in to introduce Nova later on.

In all I found they did a great job of introducing the Cosmic stuff to new fans, even including pre-existing comic fans like myself. The issue is that it is the cosmic stuff though and it will always be fairly difficult to handle properly, especially once they get to the bigger events in the universe like all the Thanos stuff, Annihilation stuff, Inhumans, etc.

I am mainly interested in how they handle the magical side of the marvel universe with the Doc Strange movie and Iron Fist Netflix series. Especially as how they are dancing around the Asgardian stuff being magic or alien. As much as I think Avengers 2 and 3, and the rest of the main movies will be great I really am mostly excited for the Netflix series, should give the characters more time to be fleshed out. Every character has really good potential to have some great stories done too.

You've just set the bar mighty fucking high! I wasn't even that big of a Captain America fan, but Winter Soldier was so freaking good, it easily became my favorite Marvel movie to date... So you saying that this comparable to that in terms of quality is really saying something. I hope you're right.

Yes I know, I really really loved this movie. In hindsight Winter Soldier is still definitely my favorite Marvel movie to date, but this one was fantastic, although they are hard to compare since they are very different movies with very different feels. Both are fantastic though. I hope you like it too.

A hell of a fun movie. Not as well written as Avengers and not nearly as well directed as Captain America 2, but still very enjoyable. It had me excited from beginning to end, which in this day and age is a rare thing with blockbusters often struggling to edit themselves down to under 2 hours and 30 minutes. Other than the flat villain, I thought Gamora, sadly, was the weakest part of the entire movie. She just wasn't that well realised and her motivations seemed either completely random or only in service of keeping the plot going. And while pretty much every character in the movie at some point or another is in mortal peril, she still seemed like the weakest of the bunch. They needed to make her more like Elaine Bennes from Seinfield: Make a character that fits into the group dynamic first, then worry about the gender. As it stands she was more of a plot device than an actual character. Certainly no Black Widow. Then again what makes this movie great is, above all, the Lloyd Kaufmann cameo. I burst out laughing the minute I saw his silly ass on screen, such a great moment.

I thought that it was really good also. I would also highly recommend it to anyone and everyone that I see. A lot better than the majority of the other films that came out this summer.

Saw it a couple of says ago and enjoyed the hell out of it. The dance fight bit had me rolling.

Finally got to see it myself last night. I have nothing else to add that hasn't already been said, but I loved it.

Can't listen to Redbone's "Come and Get Your Love" anymore without the biggest, dumbest grin on my face though.

I thought a couple of scenes were funny, but that's it. Didn't care much for the story or the villian and honestly - Rocket was the only good part of the movie. I don't know how people consider this better than other Marvel movies (hell, I liked Iron Man 2 and 3 more than this). Some of the jokes had terrible delivery and felt like lines that needed a laugh track (Gamora's line of "I'm surrounded by idiots" comes to mind).

But hey, opinions and all. I'm genuinely glad a lot of people enjoyed it; just wish that I liked it as well.

You lost me here. I mean I don't want to sound like an asshole because I realize tastes can differ, but I heard a lot of really good things about Winter Soldier and after having watched it recently I can't possibly imagine where the praise was coming from. I would even go as far as to say it's worse than the goofy Heil Hydra first Cap America movie. Likewise I think Avengers couldn't have been more of a kids movie. Guardians to me is exactly how Marvel should make all their future adaptations - light hearted, with good pacing. These are comic book movies, and I'm not saying they should be devoid of nuance, but the heavy handed approach at serious story telling thus far has either fallen completely flat or been comical at worst ~ in my opinion.