Guardians of the Galaxy

I may start to sound fickle, but I think that Days of Future Past’s primacy in my affections may have been short-lived, and I may have a new favourite superhero film. Guardians of the Galaxy was always the underdog in the Marvel cinematic universe, but its monstrous success is testament to just how good it is.

I’m not overly familiar with the characters, brought together like this only in 2008. I saw the in a couple of random Avengers comics, and of course Rocket Raccoon makes an impact just for being such a striking idea – and for appearing in on of the Marvel vs Capcom iterations. But I honestly didn’t expect to be quite as impressed as I was. The best thing about Guardians of the Galaxy was that it mixed action, glib humour and emotional gravitas perfectly – considerably better than The Avengers did, and that film did it extremely well. If this sort of humour is Whedon’s lasting legacy, I have to grudgingly admit that’s a very good thing – when done right, as it was here, and not patting itself on the back for it.

The plot is a solid, simple one with a MacGuffin at its centre and lots of interesting parties vying for it. As has been teased in previous films, infinity gems are on offer in the Marvel universe, and they make excellent MacGuffins. One falls into the hand of Han Solo type Peter Quill, who likes to call himself Starlord and is affiliated with the roguish Ravagers. Trying to sell it, he gets in a fight with one of Thanos’ adopted daughters, Gamora, who is in league with Ronan the Accuser – and also draws the attention of bounty hunters Rocket Raccoon and Groot. They all end up arrested and have to bust out of jail with the help of Drax the Destroyer. And with that, a new and brilliant team is assembled. They try to sell the gem to the Collector, but things go wrong and Ronan seizes it – planning to use it to destroy the planet Xandar, before going for Thanos. The rest of the multiverse’s heroes aren’t around, clearly, so it falls to the Guardians of the Galaxy to save the day.

The film is just so goddamn good-looking. Ronan the Accuser in particular they’ve made to look amazing. The CG used for Rocket and Groot is superb, good enough that I could forget they were CG creations – and Rocket turns out to be one of the most emotionally convincing characters in the piece, in a film full of characters damaged by their pasts. I really like how they did Quill’s mask, and the makeup on Gamora, Drax and Karen Gillen’s awesome-looking Nebula character is Oscar-worthy. I had no idea she could look so amazingly stylish from her largely goofy Doctor Who role. While it was slightly bizarre seeing the Millennium Bridge on the lovely peaceful world run by Glenn Close (not Meryl Streep: dammit they can be hard to tell apart) and John C. Reilly, it and all the spacecrafts associated with it are beautifully-rendered. They even made Thanos look awesome and not goofy – which, as with his DC inspiration Darkseid, is something pretty hard to pull off.

The acting is also just right, helped by the fact that not only do all these comic characters have enough backstory to have a little depth – for this sort of action film – they all also have their comic sides. Quill is obviously far goofier than he’d like to be, Gamora is kinda naive, Drax is wonderfully literal – undercutting several of his scenes yet not his own personal gravitas – Groot’s comic timing, delivered by Vin Diesel in Iron Giant mode, is impeccable and of course Rocket Raccoon is an inherently funny mix of cuteness, street smarts and grizzly sarcasm. Benicio Del Toro has more to do as the Collector here, though I confess I didn’t spot any Easter Eggs behind him (I hear some might be references to the Guardians who didn’t make it into the film), but there were a couple of foregrounded things in the collection. One I won’t mention – but the other, the cosmonaut dog, was pretty hilarious.

The soundtrack, of course, was exquisite – a narrative point was made of that – and I can’t complain about the cinematography or snappy directing. I would’ve preferred an exciting mid-credits scene, but that’s extremely minor. Can’t wait for a sequel – and hopefully these guys getting involved in the larger Cinematic Universe!