I walked into the latest installment in the Marvel Universe without any background knowledge at all. I haven’t read the comics, I knew nothing of the story. In truth, that’s how I prefer to approach movies so that I can experience them in all of their splendor or failure without preconceived notions.
I walked out of the latest installment from the Marvel Universe feeling like I had just watched their best movie thus far and excited about future productions. Because there WILL be future productions I’m sure. Of course, with them raising the bar, they have to keep up with that momentum or risk angry fans the world over.
I wasn’t really all that surprised that I adored this movie… After all, it follows a similar formula as the predecessors. Â There’s a shiny thing that holds emense power and/or the ability to destroy all living things. Â While many want to procure said shiny thing, it invariably falls into the hands of bad people (and I use ‘people’ loosely here) who are determined to use their new found power as a way of overcompensating for something and then the good guys overcome adversity to ultimately vanquish the ability of the bad guys to destroy all that is most important.
Good overcomes evil. Â The good guys win. Â But Guardians does this with catchy music, witty one liners, flawless CGI work, and heart.
So much heart.  I adored these characters most of all and that is truly important when you are talking about a  rag-tag band of misfits who ultimately save the world… Right?
It starts off with Peter “Starlord” Quill (Chris Pratt) – an interstellar adventurer who was abducted from Earth at a young age.  Starlord maintains an innocent and playful air combined with an arrogance that is comical and endearing.
We meet my favorite characters soon enough – Rocket (voiced by Bradly Cooper) and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel).  Rocket is a genetically altered, cybernetically enhanced talking raccoon… that doesn’t know what a raccoon is and has a bit of a chip on his shoulder.  Groot is an advanced humanoid tree creature and sidekick/protector to Rocket who can magically say more with the only three words he utters through the movie than many actors use many to say with pages of lines.
Next up we meet Gamora (Zoe Saldana) -an orphan from an alien world who was raised by the mysterious Thanos to become the perfect weapon…but has a secret or two that make her character more complex than we realize at first blush.
And then there’s Drax the Destroyer… I adore Drax – a physical brute with an unyielding vendetta against Ronan for killing his wife and daughter – a fact he points out more than a few times throughout the movie.  It’s not the vendetta itself that I enjoyed though – it was Dave Bautista’s brilliant comedic timing and delivery of such dry literal humor the geek in me was giddy.  Downright giddy.
With so many characters (and this is just a handful) it took a bit to introduce all of the storylines that played together but once things got rolling, they didn’t stop and you can’t help but root for these guys. Â The sprinkling of hilarity throughout even the most intense of battle scenes kept me in stitches the entire time.
But… just to be sure, I doubled back and took my boys to see it on Saturday morning just to be sure that it was a great movie… and may or may not have crashed a date morning for my Bestie and the Brother I should have had. Â (Yeah, they love me.) I was pleased as punch to see that the humor reached all of us as we literally {the original definition of literally and not the new definition that includes figuratively} laughed out loud without abandon. Â All of us were in agreement about the brilliance of this flick and in the wise words of my littles – “Wait – you’r gonna pay full ticket price for a movie you’ve already seen??? It must be good” because yes… They know me well.
All in all, Marvel left enough unanswered questions to keep me hanging for Part 2… but didn’t leave me disappointed by not giving me enough.
And, when Marvel finally markets little dancing baby Groot, I’ll expect one to end up on my desk asap… if they don’t already have plans for this, they totally should.
Baby Groot! I need him on my desk, right now. The entire thing was awesome, but that little clip was by far my favorite part. So stinking cute!
It was so stinkin adorable. I still giggle.