#7 - Guardians Of The Galaxy
I was so nervous when I saw the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy. Nervous and excited. How could Marvel, and especially Disney, bet so much money and reputation on this story of relatively-unknown alien mercenaries, battling in galaxies far, far away? It was either insanity or genius.
Turns out both.
This was such a crazy and wild adventure, it just made me want to watch it again and again. The story follows Peter Quill, AKA StarLord, a human abducted as a child and raised by a bunch of renegade alien pirate smugglers. The self-titled StarLord (Chris Pratt) quickly finds himself enthralled in a struggle between powerful warlords over a mysterious orb. He teams up with a green-skinned assassin (Zoe Saldana), a tattooed headcase (Dave Bautista), a giant humanoid walking tree (voiced by Vin Diesel) and a talking raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper).
See what I mean by possible insanity? But it completely works. The director James Gunn has history with the surreal, working on films such as Slither and Super, so he manages to create such a believable world that the crazy hijinx that follow feel possible. The characters are truly three-dimensional, even if the walking tree-man can only say "I. Am. Groot." and every other character's middle name is 'The' (Korath The Pursuer/Drax The Destroyer etc.) They have back-stories, aims, dreams, flaws, and therefore feel like real people. The most surprising thing about this film is former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista, who has the most impressive screen-presence of the central five and delivers a very unexpected, and fantastic performance.
Additionally, Lee Pace performing as the quasi-Marilyn Manson villain Ronan The Accuser is actually terrifying. Full plaudits to the man as he could have hammed up the performance and delivered one akin to a pantomime villain, but he truly gets under your skin as a malevolent force and a formidable opponent to the titular Guardians. This was definitely the blockbuster of the summer.
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