Verdict:
I don’t think there is much of a point of telling you that this movie is entertaining. A seemingly endless amount of positive reviews speaks for itself. The movie surpassed $200M in box office revenues. I can’t help but feel that we all got a little carried away in our communal cheering.
The intro scene is very well executed. In spite of it being filled with CGI, the action makes sense. There are a few mysterious convenient futuristic devices, but nothing to disturb the logic of the scene. The laws of physics are stretched but not broken. Items have weight. The main character is fleshed out and you get a good feel of who this is. If only this movie consisted of scenes like this.
But then you start getting random names and bloodlines spouted at you, references to the events from the comic book the audience doesn’t read, and unnecessary verbal exposition. Everything feels staged: the poses, the countdowns, the drama, scene after scene. The director has a specific thing in mind, then the artists create that scene behind their PC’s and the actor is made to say some exposition to give a reason for that scene to exist. So much of the plot progresses not due to natural human decisions but due to mysterious shiny objects, slapstick accidents or deus-ex machina CGI surprises. The last 20 minutes devolve into barely coherent set pieces. These are not even scenes anymore, but just frames of some artist’s concept art, which the creators then animated a bit but no one fleshed this stuff out or made it make sense. The film starts violating its own rules that it set only a few seconds ago.
Guardians of the Galaxy screams “I am a colletion of flashy scenes.” Superhero movies in general and marvel superhero movies in particular have this clunky artificial flow, and I do not understand why no one else see that.
I don’t know if there is even a point in bringing up realism. According to this film, being encased in a ball of wooden branches makes you survive a crash from the sky. The movie is full of such moments. You can absolutely write these scenes differently, without losing any impact and with no detriment to the story. The problem is, folks, when you throw away the laws of physics, you also toss the immersion. And if the immersion is broken, then suddenly you’re not a bystander in a world with space aliens, but just an ape on Earth wearing 3d glasses and starring at a large screen.
The other issue is just the amount of recycled content this film goes through. Maybe this says more about the number of movies we, the public, have been spoiled with over the years, but this film has scenes lifted from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and especially Serenity. A crew of rogues with a spaceship, not all of whom like one another, are thrown by fate into a situation that eventually turns them into heroes.
The movie might acknowledge this with a joke, but that doesn’t make it better. I mean, your source material is already so weird, that this provides the one chance to be different. You already have a talking raccoon in the movie. You might as well go balls out. Yet the creators still decided to stick to formula. I don’t get it.
Another issue is that some characters change their motivations mid-movie, without there being a discernible character arc justifying that change. The main male protagonist is portrayed as a scoundrel for the first 80% of the movie and then he is suddenly convincing others to be altruistic, including those who were already established to be more altruistic than him. It’s like the director remembered that he had to wrap this movie up so he started cutting corners.
In fact, with the story containing so many different characters and motivations, this movie really could have used another 30 minutes of screen time. The backstory is explained in about 30 seconds, and if you didn’t pay attention, too bad. Here’s a bad guy, he looks evil; moving on.
It seems like I spent the last page or so angrily complaining. So do I hate it? No. As already mentioned, the movie is entertaining.
Credit where credit is due: the digital world looks very good. It’s like we’ve reached a new era of animation, where the visuals are both sharp and realistic, but also colourful like in a Pixar film. Great costumes and make up blend well with the CGI.
Furthermore, it manages to be funny, which often does not work in action movies, but it does here. It is a colourful jingling set of keys that’s fun to watch for 2 hours. just unfortunate that it feels the need to use formula. I hope that next time, in the inevitable sequel the director James Gunn just takes a left turn and doesn’t look back.