The Marvel Cinematic Universe is getting to the point, for me, where it’s akin to the work done in the heyday of Pixar. And given that Disney owns both them and now Star Wars, anyone who owns stocks in the Mouse are certainly going to be happy in the upcoming years.
Like most people I didn’t know ANYTHING about Guardians of the Galaxy going into this. And I came out wondering if this was my favourite of the Marvel side-franchises. It is so goddamn good. It’s the most fun I’ve had in a Marvel film, including Avengers. It starts off with a huge gut-punch - which hit me especially hard because of personal reasons - and then it involved into something that was sweet and funny and grand. Chris Pine is an all-star, and Bradley Cooper makes Rocket more than just a wise-talking side-kick.
My only complaint, and this is more a big-world question than anything else. The villain’s lair/world(?) just feels so small and empty. He wants to destroy things, a planet, but I never really got a strong sense of why - outside of the fact that it was evil and he’s evil. If I have a complaint with this film it’s that the villain was a pretty weak cardboard cut-out - zero personality besides ‘bad’. So that was the weak part of the film for me - that said the rest of the ensemble is so delightfully entertaining that it doesn’t hurt the overall movie like it should.
Keep up the good work, Marvel. The way you weave all your properties together is such a clever way of insuring viewership - but it’s also rewarding for the audience. Keep up the quality and I’ll keep showing up.
