GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

Studio:       Marvel Studios
Director:    James Gunn
Writer:       James Gunn, Nicole Perlman
Producer:  Kevin Feige
Stars:     Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Benicio Del Toro

Review Score:

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Summary:

A misfit group of intergalactic outlaws bands together to stop a dangerous warlord from acquiring a legendary stone.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Earth 1988 – Peter Quill listens to his “Awesome Mix vol. 1” cassette tape while awaiting word on his dying mother. Peter is then called into his mother’s hospital room. His mother gives Peter a wrapped gift and asks the boy to take her hand. Frightened, Peter refuses to reach out and his mother passes. Peter runs outside and is abducted by a spacecraft. The ship is later revealed to be piloted by Yondu Udonta, a space pirate contracted by Peter’s alien father to retrieve the boy. Yondu instead raises Peter to become one of his outlaws in a group known as The Ravagers and never tells Peter about his father.

26 Years Later – Having rechristened himself with the outlaw name Star-Lord, Peter searches the abandoned planet Morag for an orb that The Ravagers were contracted to retrieve for The Broker. Peter is briefly captured by Korath and his men, sent by Kree warlord Ronan the Accuser to retrieve the orb, but Peter escapes the planet with the orb in his possession.

The Dark Aster – Aboard the Kree warship, Ronan tasks Thanos’ daughter Nebula with retrieving the orb from Peter. Outraged by the peace treaty between the Kree and Nova Prime, Ronan seeks to trade the orb to Thanos in exchange for Thanos destroying the planet Xandar, capital of the Nova Empire. Thanos’ adopted daughter Gamora insists that she be sent instead. Ronan agrees, angering Nebula.

Xandar – Yondu puts a bounty on Peter for not bringing the orb to him. Rocket, a genetically modified raccoon, and his humanoid tree companion Groot prepare to capture Peter for the bounty. When The Broker learns that Ronan is searching for the orb, he suddenly refuses to purchase it from Peter. Gamora, Rocket, and Groot attempt to subdue Peter, leading to a fight amongst all four that ends with the Nova Corps, led by Corpsman Dey, taking everyone into custody.

Nova Headquarters – Nova Prime tries unsuccessfully to negotiate with the Kree for assistance in stopping Ronan.

The Kyln – Peter, Rocket, Groot, and Gamora are transferred to a high security prison where they meet Drax the Destroyer, who attempts to kill Gamora as part of his sworn vendetta against Ronan for slaughtering his family. Gamora reveals that she actually planned to betray Ronan and sell the orb to The Collector. Lured by the prospect of receiving The Collector’s payment, Rocket, Groot, and Peter side with Gamora as they plot to escape prison with the orb.

Sanctuary – Thanos admonishes Ronan for Gamora’s betrayal and reiterates his imperative to recover the orb under threat of death. Ronan and Nebula go in search of Gamora and the orb.

Knowhere – Following Rocket’s escape plan, Peter, Gamora, Groot, and Rocket flee with Drax to a mining colony that acts as a safe haven for criminals. A romance develops between Peter and Gamora. Peter also helps ease tensions between Rocket and Drax. Determined to have a showdown with Ronan, Drax secretly sends a message to the Kree accuser divulging his whereabouts. The Collector reveals to Peter, Rocket, Groot, and Gamora that the orb holds one of the infinity stones, capable of immense and corruptive power. The Collector’s slave assistant Carina touches the stone and unleashes its destructive force. Realizing the danger the stone poses, Gamora takes back the orb and leaves The Collector’s destroyed domain with the others. Ronan’s forces then arrive at Knowhere. Ronan easily defeats Drax in hand-to-hand combat and throws Drax’s unconscious body into a container of liquid.

Peter, Gamora, and Rocket take to the skies to battle Ronan’s fleet. Nebula steals the orb and destroys her sister’s craft, leaving Gamora floating in space to die. Peter summons Yondu to capture him and risks his life to use his protective mask so that Gamora can survive until Yondu arrives. Ronan takes the power of the infinity stone for himself and warns Thanos that he will come for him after destroying Xandar. Nebula aligns herself with Ronan to take revenge against her father.

Groot rescues Drax. Rocket rejoins the duo and they descend on Yondu’s ship to take back Peter and Gamora by force. However, Peter makes a deal to join forces with Yondu and the Ravagers in order to battle Ronan and retrieve the orb once again.

Peter warns Corpsman Dey to mobilize the Nova Corps in defense of Xandar. Led by Peter, the Guardians and the Ravagers assault Ronan’s fleet. Following a series of large-scale and individual confrontations, The Dark Aster crash-lands on the planet’s surface. Groot sacrifices himself to save the others from impact by surrounding Peter, Gamora, Rocket, and Drax with his protective limbs.

On Xandar, Ronan prepares to destroy the planet with his empowered warhammer when Peter interrupts by dancing. With Ronan distracted, Rocket and Drax fire a weapon that dislodges the infinity stone from Ronan’s weapon. Peter grabs the gem and becomes overwhelmed by its power until Gamora, Drax, and Rocket join hands to divert the energy and use it to destroy Ronan.

With the infinity stone safely contained back in the orb, Yondu insists that Peter turn it over to him per their agreement. Peter instead turns over a different orb that Yondu later discovers contains only a troll doll. Nova Prime reveals that tests performed on Peter showed that his physiology is part-alien, which is why he was able to handle the infinity stone. Corpsman Dey informs the Guardians that their criminal records have been expunged in exchange for their heroism.

Along with a Groot sapling in a flowerpot, Rocket, Drax, and Gamora join Peter aboard his rebuilt ship The Milano to prepare for their next adventure. Peter finally opens the gift received from his mother 26 years earlier to discover it contains a cassette tape labeled “Awesome Mix vol. 2.” In a post-credits coda, Howard the Duck chastises The Collector for allowing Cosmo the canine cosmonaut to lick his face as they sip drinks in the destroyed building on Knowhere.

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Review:

So what if Fox has the film rights to X-Men and Fantastic Four?  Who cares if Sony is in charge of cinematic Spider-Man?  With “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Disney proves that they can mint superhero money just as easily using C-list misfits the mainstream has never heard of.

Fortuitous circumstances tie together five would-be heroes, ranging in disparate backgrounds from wayward youth to bounty hunting rogue, to lead a rebellion against a power mad warmonger bent on genocidal extermination and defying his even eviler overlord.  Don’t forget parents missing under unidentified circumstances for the prime hero, an infiltration of a planet-destroying warship, and a mid-movie side trip to a wretched hive of scum and villainy.  Sound familiar?

“Guardians of the Galaxy” is a next generation incarnation of the best that “Star Wars” had to offer four decades earlier.  Taking their template straight from George Lucas’ seminal space saga, director James Gunn and his co-writer Nicole Perlman filter out Luke’s coming-of-age grousing and Obi-Wan’s religious ramblings, leaving only high adventure, spacefaring action, and a smart sense of humor to snakecharm their audience into submission.

Instead of Skywalker and Kenobi, “Guardians of the Galaxy” pairs its Han Solo and Chewbacca with a second incarnation of the smirking smuggler and his wookiee companion, effectively doubling the scene-stealing screen presence the Millennium Falcon copilots always brought to the Dejarik table.  Star-Lord Peter Quill may be on Luke’s arc of displaced self-discovery, but he has Han’s mirthful charm of cocksure confidence tempered by sarcastic cynicism.  Peter’s money-lusting anthropomorphic raccoon companion Rocket fills in the affable mercenary contingent of Solo’s personality with his long list of criminal connections and underworld familiarity.

Chewie also sees his archetype split into two.  Drax the Destroyer covers fearsome brute and reliable-in-a-pinch brawn as handily as any walking carpet ever could.  He doesn’t need to have the warm hart either, when sentient tree and humanoid of few words Groot evens out the gentle giant quotient.  Meanwhile, Gamora stands in for an even fiercer Princess Leia, still the offspring of the galaxy’s most feared villain, but relinquishing any possession over a fakeout love triangle featuring a twin brother (though there is a sibling rivalry with her sister Nebula).

As the ragtag rebels’ chief adversary, Ronan the Accuser isn’t half of the enigmatic evil entity Darth Vader was, but that fact barely ranks on the list of vital components making “Guardians of the Galaxy” work so well.  There’s also some brief political hullaballoo about a busted peace treaty, but nothing on the boredom scale of embargoes, tariffs, trade routes, or intergalactic senate hearings.  All of the ancillary characters, subplots, and even the main story about juggled possession of a MacGuffin orb are paving stones for the true draw: basking in the camaraderie, confrontations, and manic energy of the movie’s core quintet.

Bookended by a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” prelude and a bad guy showdown finale daring to feature a dance-off to The Five Stairsteps’ “Ooh Child,” James Gunn and company channel everything that makes moviegoing fashionable escapist entertainment.  From tension-heightening trumpets bleating on the orchestral score to touchstone classics accompanying the soundtrack, every audio/visual detail employs a throwback sensibility to what made adventure epics of the seventies and eighties so much fun.  If such a practice had not become so tragically unhip in the contemporary era of iTunes and hipster derision, the “Guardians of the Galaxy” soundtrack would be echoing in dormitory hallways throughout America in the same way that the “Pulp Fiction” soundtrack did in the 1990s.

Throwing down an infinity gauntlet at DC’s filmic feet, Marvel Studios has challenged its Distinguished Competition to upright their own A-list and start evening the pace.  They’ve also issued a mic drop reminder that when comic book characters stop being so serious, their sci-fi serial superheroics start being infinitely more entertaining.  Who needs a mutant or an Avenger when a CGI raccoon and a semi-sentient tree can infuse this much personality into a movie already bursting at the seams with it?

Review Score:  90

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