As a comic book fan, I occasionally have to wonder at the thought processes behind some writers and directors when they decide to adapt their favorite hand-drawn heroes into live action, big-screen caricatures. Batman and Superman make sense: Both have achieved so much mainstream popularity both in and out of their regular mediums that constantly reinventing them makes perfect sense.
Films like The Avengers have nice ideas behind them too. They assemble large teams of over-the-top yet familiar characters into blowout homage pieces guaranteed to draw in huge numbers of fans. What I don’t entirely understand is why Marvel and Disney took it upon themselves to make Guardians of the Galaxy. But I’m glad they did.
Shown from the perspective of zany and wisecracking Peter “Star-Lord” Quill, Guardians tells a story about one of the lesser known super-teams within the Marvel canon, which bears the same name as the film’s title. Taking place in the far reaches of space, the story revolves around the destructive after-effects of Star-Lord’s theft of a mysterious orb of not-so-clearly-defined power.
Star-Lord finds himself pursued by an alien known as Ronan, who hopes to seize the McGuffin orb in order to achieve an even greater destructive power than he already possesses. After a series of mishaps including bounties, assassination attempts and belated prison sentences, Star-Lord finds himself in the company of a ragtag group of misfits.
Standing together to oppose Ronan, the group includes Gamora the assassin (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Groot the tree-man (Vin Diesel) and a rocket-launcher toting humanoid raccoon, appropriately named Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper).
At its core, Guardians aims to capture the large-scale team-based superhero warfare exemplified in works such as The Avengers with perhaps an extra splash of silliness added in. And, by and large, the film succeeds in doing exactly that. Sporting a colorful cast and over-the-top action, the film is certainly not wanting for interesting material; it is easy to latch onto something enjoyable here.
That said, the film fails in one key area where The Avengers so brilliantly succeeded: the setup. The Avengers, for those who are unaware, was the product of years worth of material and build-up across multiple films in the Marvel canon. Each main hero had already starred in at least one film prior to the release of The Avengers, and the crossover film, as a result, was able to call on aspects from each individual film. It did not need to linger on exposition, because that job was already done; it was primed to launch into the meat of the story.
Guardians does not have that benefit. While also a team-based film, none of the characters in Guardians have been featured in other Marvel films in any meaningful capacity. Consequently, everything we know about these people is conveyed through the film’s narrative.
This often results in one of two outcomes; the film either explains all of the characters’ deep backstories and connections with other characters within a matter of minutes, making it relatively difficult to understand all the intricacies without drawing a diagram as you watch, or it ignores the backstory completely.
The exposition for some characters is therefore either rushed and convolutedly explained, or it’s non-existent. The end result is that, regardless of which path is taken, each character simply becomes an archetype with a different CGI skin, lacking in any actual depth beyond the superficial.
Unfortunately, without any real defining stories it becomes relatively difficult to connect with these heroes. Without being able to see who they are or where they come from, empathizing with them is nearly impossible. It doesn’t help matters that the film attempts to distract from this fact with comedy at every opportunity.
Among our protagonists three are incredibly vocal, and two of them only ever seem to speak in wisecracks. While certainly very funny and well written (I was rolling with laughter at numerous points throughout the film), it does feel a bit out of place in some circumstances and outright detracts from the atmosphere in others.
Marvel is well-known for sticking with the fun, slightly-campy aspects of comic-based films (perhaps as a counterpoint to DC, whose films are stuck in a swamp of dark, gritty realism). While a respectable approach and artistic vision in its own right, the studio desperately needs to learn that when your characters don’t take a situation seriously, neither can audiences.
The climax of the film, while extremely well-choreographed and stunning to behold (the special effects work is truly a sight to see), ultimately loses its potency because the characters do not care about what is going on. Not even slightly. In the end, all that is left are an assortment of stunning action scenes and jokes, with little reason to care about any of it.
Despite what may seem like a laundry list of complaints, Guardians of the Galaxy truly is a very fun and enjoyable movie to see. The acting is phenomenal, the jokes are hilarious and the action scenes are wonderful. The film has heart.
The only thing it lacks is purpose. Guardians of the Galaxy is essentially the cinematic equivalent of a beautiful cake; it’s rich and sweet with a plethora of flavors guaranteed to leave you in a sugar induced high, but no matter how good it tastes, it will not leave you satisfied. It is a food of taste but not of substance.
Overall Rating: 3.5/5
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