Well the hype is over and the new Marvel movie has finally arrived. I'll just get this out of the way first: I liked this movie and it's easily one of the best Marvel movies to come in a while. It adds to the world building they are doing and fully extends their universe, to well, the universe and it one of the better sci-fi action movies to come out in a long time. Marvel movies are now a serious force to be reckoned with if this movie, based on some seriously lesser known characters, can be this good, pull in this much money, and be entertaining to boot.
I'm still fully digesting what kind of movie I actually saw. I'm not saying this movie doesn't have flaws, it does, but the sheer joy and humor on display totally washed them out, as it does with most of the Marvel movies. One thing Marvel movies have focused on the most has been creating characters. This has been the driving force through all of their movies (the Edward Norton starring as Hulk being the only dud so far) and has carried every film. No matter how crazy or insane the plot got, there was always the characters to mover everything forward. Guardians of the Galaxy is no different as Marvel created a rag tag group of characters to root for and this movie is all the better for it. It plays like a sci-fi version of the A-Team. And since I've seen it I also found it quite resembles my favorite TV show of all time Farscape (a lot by the way) - in the humor, the wildly bizarre characters, the settings, and crazy sci-fi worlds and aliens. There is also a mixture of Joss Whedon's Firefly, that can't be over looked. All of these ingredients gets mixed into creating a movie quite unlike - but also alike - anything else out there. The uniqueness of it was a sheer joy to see in a summer normally designated with sequels, prequels, and remakes. I think this is one of the reasons Guardians was received so well - it was new and fresh.
Here's a couple of things I noticed that helped to make this movie as good as it turned out.
Directing. James Gunn hit it out of the park with this movie as he proved not to be over his head (despite how crazy weird his hair is - proof not to judge a person by their hair style) with a large budget as his previous films total budget might have covered a scene or two of this movie. I'm not kidding about that either. His influence on the screenplay, dialogue, and humor can't be overlooked. His handling of the various action sequences was superb, as there wasn't any confusion as to what was going on - ever - even if it was a hand-to-hand, aerial/space battle, or a jail break. All of these sequences were controlled with some great camera work and placement as he wasn't afraid to actually show things and not ruin them with the lazy shaky camera. His handling of the pacing made the movie just roll by in a breeze as there wasn't a lot of down time or moments that dragged the film to a halt. It did feel like the old Star Wars movies of old days not the slogged down, snail paced, anvil heavy feel of the prequels.
Humor. Part of the reason this film works also is the humor. By injecting the movie with humor, Gunn helped the characters to feel real and helped the audience to identify with them. Sci-fi movies have a tendency to take themselves super serious, so serious that they feel stiff and very aged, but by putting humor into the movie Gunn created a world that felt real, despite being set in a universe far, far away. This was one of things that helped the original Star Wars trilogy work. Han Solo was the one characters that helped the movie feel real and not as serious as sci-fi could be. Guardians doesn't have just one character with humor, it has multiple characters that give the seriousness of everything a perspective. This perspective really walks hand in hand with the audience in this world being as real as it feels.
Production. The production design was astounding in this movie as everything seemed to flow from world building, costume design, character design. It felt like many worlds existed beyond our planet Earth. I like how their designs weren't over the top or at least didn't feel over the top, as they seemed to do with the new trilogy Lucas created, where everything there seemed rather forced, or felt forced to me. With Guardians it all flowed with a perfection I'm not used to seeing in sci-fi movies of this kind of scale.
Acting. This can't be said enough, the acting in this movie sold the sci-fi concepts, the alien worlds, the aliens, and just the craziness that was on display. The actors bought into what was going on and ran with it in a playfulness that never diverged into comical or cheesiness. They helped these characters to feel real. I think the only stiff character in the movie was Rhonan, which Marvel still hasn't found a villain to even compete with Loki yet. I think they need to stop worrying about that kind of villain and just let the characters in the movie run with a story and carry the film, which they have been doing for most of the Marvel films. I will put this under the acting part because it kind of is, I like how the movie doesn't explain how things work or explain most things in this sci-fi world. They just work because that's how they work. That's it there's nothing more to it and that's how most things in this kind of crazy world need to be taken a story.
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