Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy" is underdog fun for all

"Guardians of the Galaxy" PG 13
James Gunn directs the next Marvel movie, a Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana vehicle for the Marvel super hero series, set in another part of the galaxy. The story begins with a flashback to 1988 where a young boy playing headphones and a Walkman is called into his mother's hospital room by his grandfather. She dies before he can find out about his father. He rushes out into the field by the hospital ad an alien spaceship sucks him into space.

Twenty five years later, Star Lord, the now grown boy Quill,  still has his Walkman and it still works, and he flies around in his Milano space ship looking for not just booty as in pirate treasure, but also booty in the other sense.

He comes across a ruined planet where he must score a polished alien orb and get paid by a gunny looking alien, but another alien tries to take the orb, leading to a chase sequence. Eventually he makes it to a binary star system called Nova, where there is a fantastic city state ruled by a crusty female alien. Before he can fence the orb, a green lady alien and a small powerful rodent are hot on his tail, with a large tree thing helping the raccoon alien.

Everyone wants a piece of Star Lord, and there begins probably the most fun fantasy film since Firefly and the original Star Wars. Star Lord is trying to be Han Solo and Mal Reynolds, a working stuff bounty hunting self proclaimed loser, and along for the ride are aliens of every creed who either want to kill him, or merely get him out of the way to get to his treasures.

Eventually, the tree man, Groot, who only can say his name, the green assassin Gamora, the bionic raccoon and Star Lord are arrested and tossed in a Novas prison, which they plan to break out of, with newcomer Drax who they meet in prison, a slow witted hulk who doesn't get metaphor. They break out and are chased by lackeys for this big bad dude named Thanos, one of whom is called Ronan, want betray him and use the orb to destroy Nova, the Earth like planet.

The movie is just fun all around and should not be taken as a serious movie. It is a space hero movie with a clutch of talking aliens who behave like bandits and come out at ultimately compassionate, longing to get a piece of the action, but never quite getting there. Most superhero movies go for the super powerful demigods, ultra geniuses and such, but this one goes for the lefotver ones that might be hired to clean up after the major heroes have left a mess everywhere.

Again it would seem the creators were thinking what many teenagers did in the 1980s, escape from reality for fun, but not necessarily being super, just merely important.
Review by Adam Browne