On Valentine’s Day the SO and I sat down and watched a couple of movies between doing all of the things that couples traditionally do on that day – a meal out, the gift exchange, and the inevitable (albeit brief) bickering over some trivial thing. One was The Theory of Everything which was spectacular. I cried. I was inspired. I was excited to vaguely comprehend the very dumbed-down parts of what Hawking’s character was talking about throughout the film. But that is a more “serious” movie review, and today I just don’t feel like doing serious. No, today I feel like talking about our second film, Guardians of the Galaxy.
Now, as I have mentioned before, I am not really a comic book or superhero nerd. My SO is; he really enjoys them more than a man his age honestly should. X-Men the Animated Series in the mid-90’s was my jam, but that’s about as far as my comic book-type nerdery goes. You want to talk The Phoenix Saga, I’m your girl. The rest of it? Not really my expertise. I mean, I get it; but it’s not me. I do enjoy watching superhero movies. Once. I enjoy the hell out of them that first time. I mean, superhero movies are full of nerdery and (typically) pretty beefy-hot guys. Watch Hugh Jackman as Wolverine? You have my attention. The re-watch value for them is a little “meh” for me as most of these films have a lot of action and it just kind of starts to all bleed together to me, honestly.
I also really appreciate (and am a little intimidated by) how vast the Marvel Universe is these days. The way the shows and movies all cross into one another is really impressive and exciting. I have no idea how they keep it all together. I think that I would have to be a really devoted member of the fandom to appreciate how complex it is. With all of that said… whuuuuuuut?! Guardians of the Galaxy was fucking GREAT! I could re-watch it, like, right now. Here is, I think, what made this movie work so well for me:
This movie was more comedy than anything else, in my opinion. It was like, really well-themed comedy. This was not, by any means, high-brow comedy. As one would expect, it was a variety of toilet and slap-stick humor – which to my very unsophisticated sensibilities was just fine. Although all of the characters were amazing, the movie could have starred Rocket Raccoon and been perfect. Hilarious. There is this sense about the movie of, “Yeah, this is going to kind of silly; we’re embracing that.” I like that. I like that they looked at the characters of this movie and decided that they needed to go “silly” with it. There’s a respectable honesty about that.
Aside from the hero, who is (mostly?) human, the characters are all kind of…unique? Even for a superhero movie. An incredibly muscular “walking thesaurus”; a vixeny alien warrior; a tree-person who seems to only have one phrase in its vocabulary; and a snarky, talking raccoon? I have certainly never seen that combination before in…anything? The movie technically had five heroes, and I think that they did a good job of developing each of them to varying degrees. Five is a lot for one movie, but it never felt crowded to me.
I enjoyed that, for me, the actors that I was the most familiar with were either not a main character or they were not visibly on screen. Benicio Del Toro, Glenn Close, John C. Reilly, and Michael Rooker all had smaller parts, and it was nice to see them, but they didn’t take over their scenes. With the exception of Michael Rooker, perhaps – he really stood out. Vin Diesel would certainly have been commanding of the screen in person, but as a tree? There’s room for everyone else. By the way – WTF could have been in his head when he read for this part? Fun, easy money for Vin I suppose! Bradley Cooper, who I am used to seeing onscreen as “the star” would have taken away from Pratt’s performance has he been visible on-screen in all of his goofy glory. Rocket Raccoon is easily one of the most likeable characters in the movie. By the way, who the hell is this Chris Pratt guy? The only time I have heard his name before this is maybe in some tabloid. Wasn’t he on one of those horrible MTV reality shows? IMDB says that I have seen him in a few things – Her, Moneyball…..ooooooooooh he’s that guy on Parks and Rec. Well, in any case, he is golden. He’s fun to watch and really charismatic. He does it for me! And now that I have perused his IMDB I am not too ashamed to say it. I actually look forward to seeing him in more. He’s rumored to be the next Indiana Jones…interesting! Also, Zoe Saldana was there. Gorgeous, clever, and just the right amount of relatable. I have actually not seen Avatar (gasp!), but I suspect that she is the best thing about it. Really great leading lady.
So, don’t get me wrong here, I am under no illusions. This movie is, primarily, an action-type movie. I’m okay with that! As I said, I can watch an action flick every once in a while. When all of the explosions and the scene after scene of hand-to-hand fights start I tend to drift off, but when the story proceeds I am with it again. This movie had a couple of “drift off” spots for me, but they were pretty quick and they incorporated humor into them. For example, at one point Groot is thoroughly thrashing a while line of bad guys really violently, but when he’s done he suddenly turn to the camera with the most insane smile on his face – that made me giggle.
That soundtrack!
I mean – Bowie, Jackson 5, The Runaways? Truly an “Awesome Mix!” The best fight scene in the movie? Set to Cherry Bomb – awesome! What made me love this so much is that the soundtrack was essentially a mixtape that Quill’s mother gave him. I could relate to this FULLY because this is all music that my mom loved. The music in this movie stimulated some really good memories for me. Two days later and I’m still humming Come and Get Your Love. Also, making a mixtape for your kid to listen to full of music that you think is great is something that I would actually do. Beware unlikely but possible children of mine.
So in closing, if your even somewhat into this type of movie if you have an immature sense of humor (like me!), and you haven’t seen this flick yet – do yourself a favor a give it a watch! You won’t be sorry.
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