MOVIE REVIEW- Guardians of the Galaxy

Afternoon folks, I hope you're all well. I'd like to open this little review post by expressing how absolutely heartbroken I am about the passing of Robin Williams, I'm not a particularly emotional person but I was truly devastated to hear about his suicide yesterday. An absolute legend, and somebody who had a definitive impact on my childhood, and so many others. I'm sure he will be missed. 

On a happier note, I braved the frankly horrendous weather on Sunday night to go to the cinema and see the much hyped new Marvel film- Guardians of the Galaxy. Now I love a good Marvel film, actually Marvel could bring out a crap film and I'd probably still love it, but they don't seem to do that much. 

The concept of the film is that five all round hooligans are forced together through some rather sticky circumstances and the fact that they all stand to gain in their various ways from procuring an orb type device, which is revealed to contain an Infinity Stone, which turns out to be pretty darn dangerous. 

One of the issues many had with this film was that they felt that Chris Pratt was a poor choice for the lead, if you've seen Parks and Rec, which he stars in, then you certainly wouldn't envisage him playing a superhero. However, that only served to convince me that he must have had the perfect personality and persona for the role, otherwise he wouldn't have been hired. He lost loads of weight for the role but I'm delighted to say that his acting is what you take away from the film, not just his abs. 

The moment I knew I was going to love this film was around 5 minutes in- after the initial scene setting flashback where we see a young Peter Quill abducted from Earth after the death of his mother. After some dramatic shots of Peter Quill/Starlord (Pratt) walking across an abandoned planet with eerie mists rolling in all around, he produces the walk-man type player you see him listening to as a child, and turns on 'Come and Get Your Love.' The dancing that followed was both hilarious, but showed just how well they'd incorporated Pratt's personality into the character. 

Not that Pratt's abs weren't an added bonus.

After it becomes apparent that several parties are interested in getting the orb- most importantly, the rather villainous Ronan, Starlord is forced into an uneasy truce with Rocket (a raccoon like subject of human experimentation), Groot (a tree.), Gamora (sent to work for Ronan by her father) and Drax (who lost his family because of Ronan). These characters are played or voiced by Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Zoe Saldana and David Bautista respectively. Lee Pace stars as Ronan and Karen Gillan makes an appearance as Gamora's crazy sister- Nebula, who stands by Ronan. To say that this was a good cast is an understatement.

Karen Gillan as Nebula

The film plays out in ways you would never expect, and contains the usual amount of Marvel saddness- I certainly never expected to leave the cinema feeling emotionally compromised by a tree played by Vin Diesel with a 3 word vocabulary. However the truely wonderful part of the film is that it is genuinely funny, with a really hilarious combination of adult humour and good old fashioned jokes. One of the funniest scenes features Drax, who can only take things literally, stating that metaphors couldn't 'go over his head' because his reflexes were too fast. You completely fall in love with Starlord and his ridiculous twisted form of leadership, and complete inability to really take anything seriously until his rousing 'superhero' speech where he decides that the situation was the universe giving him the chance 'to give a shit.' 

Check out that hair swish. Ooft.

Zoe Saldana is absolutely amazing as Gamora, I've never seen anybody look that good while being covered in a sickly green body paint, and her acting was amazing. After playing Uhura in Star Trek, she shines in the role of a woman who has her own aims, and won't bend the rules or fall away from herself just because some goofy guy has a crush on her. It's a true testimony to Marvel that while Gamora and Star Lord cleared had chemistry, there was no out-and-out declaration of love, and no Spiderman style cheesy kiss. 

Best soundtrack. Ever.

I loved it, 2017 seems a lifetime away for the sequel but in the mean time, I'm going to listen to the soundtrack on repeat (which is worth checking out even if you don't see the film- the perfect 70's/80's fusion) and reading up on a whole new chapter of the Marvel universe that I need to explore. 

If GOTG was seen as a risk for the company, then it is one that has paid off, to the tune of an opening week that made almost $200 million in the US alone. Good job Marvel, see you for Avengers: Age of Ultron.