Welcome to the Marvel movie with the best soundtrack of them all. Seriously, I have listened to it over and over again and I still love it. Each song is a gem from the past. Other movies tries to copy the idea, but lightning never strikes twice, not even for the sequel. Now for the movie itself Guardians of the Galaxy was directed by James Gunn, he is also one of the writers of the movie along with Nicole Perlman. This movie was released in August 2014, it has been awhile, but generally, even back than Marvel did not release movies in August. August is a wild card month and Marvel had no idea what the audience will think of the movie. But they and I loved it. This movie is funny, touching, and does not take itself too seriously. It is very unique in the Marvel scenery. Plus it is the first Marvel movie in space, which lay down the foundation of how space looks like in the MCU. And there is an infinity stone, because it's time for another one of those. Still a great movie though.
Also, this is a spoiler warning for all Marvel movies.
This movie has a really good and unlikely cast. Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill, the only human in the movie. Zoe Saldana plays Gamora, boy do movie directors love to paint her in strange colors to make her an alien. Gamora is Thanos' favorite daughter, so that is our general MCU connection. Dave Bautista a former wrestler plays Drax, an alien who wants to avenge the death of his wife and daughter. Bradley Cooper voices Rocket, a raccoon who has been experiment on and is now super-smart. Vin Diesel voices Groot, an adorable tree that can only say "I am Groot". These are our core Guardians. Then we have Lee Pace who plays Ronan who wants to destroy Xandar because of Kree reasons. He enlists the help of Thanos for that. We get our first small glimpse of Josh Brolin's excellent performance as Thanos. Karen Gillan plays Nebula, also a daughter of Thanos who hates her sister and Thanos. Michael Rooker plays Yondu Udonta, Quill's adoptive father and part of the Ravagers, an intergalactic thieving organization. Sean Gunn also plays a Ravagers, and does the motion capture of Rocket. He is also the brother of the director. Glenn Close is the leader of Xandar and obligatory serious actress in a Marvel movie. And Benicio Del Toro as promised plays the The Collector who collects rare and precious items from around the universe. We've seen him in the post credit scene in Thor: The Dark World. All of the actors are pretty good, I don't feel that anyone stands out, but no one is particularly terrible as well. Decent acting all around.
Music is super important in this movie. The movie starts with young Quill sitting in a hospital waiting room listening to "I'm Not in Love" on his Walkman. We see that the tape, like the soundtrack of this movie is called Awesome Mix Vol 1. His mother made him this tape, sharing her favorite music with him. She's dying from cancer. He has a hard time accepting her condition. He is given a present and a letter from her which he doesn't take, but luckily someone places it in his bag. She tells him about his angel father that will come and get him soon. We all know that he was no angel, though he is a Celestial. Quill refuses to take his dying mother's hand and then she dies. He screams and when Quill is told to wait outside of the room he runs outside of the hospital. Then the Ravagers kidnap him. The joy. Quill just can't catch a break, he goes from one significant trauma to the next.
Then we switch to the famous stealing of the Orb scene. The scene that looks so cool here, when Quill just dances and walks to "Come and Get Your Love". Kicking aliens and using them as a microphone. It looks totally awesome here. It looks ridicules in Avengers: Endgame when we look at it from the side, but it is still totally awesome here. He finds and gets the Orb and immediately gets attacked by Ronan's men lead by Korath (Djimon Hounsou). We already saw him in Captain Marvel. Quill really wants to be known as Star-Lord, but for now, no one knows that name, especially not Korath. Still, Quill manages to escape very creatively. While forgetting he was a woman onboard his ship. She unwisely answers a call from Yondu who also wants the Orb, they were supposed to steal it together. They have a very funny exchange in which Yondu reminds Quill that he stopped the Ravagers from eating him, that's just terrible. Quill has now gotten himself into serious trouble with the Ravagers.
Then we switch to the Dark Aster. Ronan is on it doing some ceremony which leads him to his new and improved look. He looks much better here than he did in Captain Marvel. Basically Ronan wants to wipeout all of Xandar, it sounds like the Xandarian killed his family, but I am not sure that I believe him. I guess that is not important. Ronan puts the blood of a dead Xandarian on his face. Hardcore crazy stuff. Korath returns to him empty handed. Ronan must give the Orb to Thanos in order for Thanos to destroy Xandar for him. Thanos still hasn't learn from New-York that letting others do his work for him doesn't really work. Ronan asks Nebula to get the Orb from Xandar, but Gamora intervenes and she goes instead. She never fails. She doesn't. She just has a different plan. Ronan is just crazy and stupid, he has no idea he is after a stone.
We get our introduction to Rocket and Groot. They are looking at Xandarians trying to find someone with a bounty on his head. Well, Rocket is looking while Groot is drinking water from a fountain. They locate Quill. Quill wants to sell the Orb, but the buyer backs out of the deal as soon as he finds out that Ronan is after it as well. Gamora is waiting outside the door and steals the Orb from Quill. They start fighting and try to steal it from one another. Then Groot and Rocket try and kidnap Quill. This is hilarious. Groot kidnaps Gamora instead of Quill. He cries after Gamora cuts his hands off. They will grow back. They all shoot at each other until they all get arrested. You shouldn't stay in the same place for so long if you commit a crime. We get a small introduction to each character when they are in custody and they each get inspected. But they are all sent to jail.
The prison part is pretty cool especially the prison break sequence. Rocket did escape 22 prisons before he got arrested this time. It was also pretty cool that Quill got beaten by security guards to the sound of "Hooked on a Feeling". An unusual choice that worked. Also, we had an obligatory hot guy without his shirt on from Quill after he gets a disgusting shower. Rocket makes sure with Groot that no one messes with them and Quill in prison. It's not fun when Groot grows branches into your nose (Nathan Fillion in a cool CGI cameo). In prison everyone hates Gamora because Ronan killed so many people's families. Drax the Destroyer is the one who wants to have the pleasure of killing her. Gamora proves that she's a tough warrior and disarms him and another person in one move, but then she drops her weapons on purpose. Her attempts to reason with them fail. But Quill decides to be a good guy for once and intervenes. Quill explains that it's best to leave Gamora alive in order to get to Ronan. He is right. Also Drax does not understand any figure of speech, which is hilarious. Then they realize that the Orb is worth a hell lot more than Quill and decide to change their plans. She's now officially part of the team, and so is Drax, but for a different reason. Now is action mode. The prison break sequence is hilarious and brilliant. Groot is so pleased with himself that he got the battery that he doesn't care that the prison goes into emergency mode. But still, Rocket's brilliant plan works and they fly away to Quill's ship inside the head of the security guard's tower. No gravity for anyone but them. It was a brilliant plan. Also Quill's ship is called the Milano, I guess after Alyssa Milano. She was super popular way back then, even The Little Mermaid was modeled after her. The jail break was fantastic, so much action and so much humor.
Also, Quill stays behind to steal the Walkman back from the alien. Now the alien gets his ass kicked to the sound of the "The Piña Colada Song". If you like Piña Colada and getting songs stuck in your head. But even Drax thinks Quill is an idiot for doing that. They don't understand the emotional importance of the Walkman.
Then the Guardians go off to Nowhere to sell the Orb. The Collector is their buyer. Not a great plan. He already has the Reality Stone. Nowhere is the first time we hear a reference to the Celestials. On Nowhere they are forced to wait for the Collector's representative. Drax and Rocket drink and gamble on some game. Gamora and Quill have a heart to heart. Gamora tells Quill that Thanos killed her parents in front of her, but in Avengers: Infinity War we see that she lost her mother before the great carnage and that Thanos made her not look. That's a small, but annoying inconsistency. Quill tells Gamora about the Walkman and his mother. She tells him that she does not dance and he tells her about the legend of "Footloose". He lets her listen to a song on the Walkman and it happens to be "Fooled Around and Fell in Love". They dance for a bit and Gamora tries to kill Quill when he tries to kiss her. She shall not succumb to his "Pelvic Sorcery". I have never heard a funnier words used to describe hitting on someone. There is also drama between Rocket and Drax. Rocket is angry that everyone calls him names and disrespect him. He is a hurt little fluffy dude. It all ends when the representative arrives. Drax leaves and doesn't join them. The Collector tells them the entire story of the infinity stones for us, they don't care, they want their money. We need the background information. The important detail is that no one can touch the stone and live, well, no mortal can touch the power stone and live. Which is what the Collector's slave does and the entire place explodes. This is not a good sale.
Then things get worse on Nowhere as Ronan arrives. Because idiot Drax sent him a message because he wants to fight against him. I get it that Ronan killed his wife and daughter, but he has no brain cells. To top it all off, Yondu and the Ravagers arrive. Ronan defeats Drax without a problem. All of the Guardians lose and Ronan gets the Orb. Quill risks his life to save Gamora after Nebula blows her pod to pieces. It is a great scene. Still, Quill and Gamora end up with the Ravager who want to kill them. But Quill manages to convince them to steal the Orb back and sell it. Rocket, Groot and Drax also join in after they try to destroy the Ravagers ship. Also, not a great plan. But they are the only friends that any of them had in a really long time. They gather together and Quill explains that they have to steal the Orb. Quill has a great speech about all of them being losers who now have a rare opportunity. Now they are all friends who are willing to die for one another. Or as Rocket says, a bunch of idiots standing in a circle. But Quill comes up with a plan, a terrible plan, but a plan. That's something. A plan to steal the Orb from Ronan, save Xandar and make lots of money.
Thanos is not happy with Ronan. Gamora has been captured. He has failed to retrieve the Orb and according to Thanos he alienated his favorite daughter Gamora. Thanos wants that Orb. Everything else is not important. After Ronan gets the Orb he has no intention of giving it to Thanos, he can destroy Xandar on his own. Then he will destroy Thanos. We know that plan won't work. Nebula is on his side though, she wants Thanos dead. That is one step closer to redemption. Just not necessarily a straight step.
Ronan doesn't know that the Guardians are coming to stop his plan to destroy Xandar. The Guardians plan almost works. We get to see cool action with all of the fighting and shooting, like Gamora fighting against Nebula and some of what we see is hilarious like Groot going through people with that childlike pleased smile. Xandar has no chance without the Guardians, I mean Ronan used the stone to destroy all of their spaceships as they tried to stop him from reaching the ground. The gang reach all the way to Ronan and shoot him with a weapon that Rocket has created a few hours ago to blow up the Ravagers' ship. I guess that the stone inside of the hammer somehow protects him. He survived that blast without a scratch. The Guardians are saved by Rocket flying his spaceship straight into Ronan. This causes the entire spaceship to come crashing down. Groot then grows himself all around his friends to create a protective layer. When Rocket says that that will kill him, he simply replies "we are Groot". His new friends are worth dying for. It is such a touching scene and beautiful. They survive the crash thanks to Groot so. You can call the plan a failure.
But, sometimes you don’t need a plan, you need good improvisation. The dance-off to save the universe. Ronan survived the stupid crash. In fact he names the losers the Guardians of the Galaxy. Quill dances and asks Ronan to join him in a dance-off, distracting him. This time the Guardians get it right and they don't shoot Ronan, but the hammer that holds the stone. Quill grabs the stone. He starts to disintegrate, so Gamora asks him to take her hand to share the power. In his mind he sees his mother asking him to take her hand, this time he does take her hand. That is some closure for his relationship with his mother. Then the rest join him and they manage to stabilize. So they use the power to destroy Ronan. Mission accomplished.
It's not over yet. Yondu still wants the Orb with the stone. So Quill gives him the wrong Orb and gives the stone to the nova-corps so they can keep it safe. Well, we already know that they can't, but for now it is a happy ending. In thanks Quill get an almost exact replica of the Milano. It's pretty cool. Yondu and his friend comment that they are glad that they didn’t give Quill to his father like they were supposed to, because he was a jackass. That is an understatement for another movie. The clue that we get is that we find out that Quill's father is something ancient. But, now that he has closure with his mother he can take the next step. So he opens the letter that she wrote him so long ago. She is the one who named him Star-Lord. He puts in the new tape that she made him and listens to the new music. At last Gamora dances on her own to the new song. Rocket has a branch of Groot in a flower pot to grow him. Drax comment that it is really Thanos that he should kill in revenge for his wife and daughter. Not a thick hint that Thanos is a big bad at all. For now Star-Lord is the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy who are his new family.
The mid-credit scene is dancing baby Groot. Dancing to "I Want You Back". It is just super cute. Baby Groot is adorable. No wonder no one want him to grow. Post credit-scene is terrible and includes Howard the Duck. I'm glad Marvel forgot about that one.
It is such a fun movie. A bunch of criminal losers coming together to save the galaxy. The dialogue is witty and funny. So many great jokes. Rocket has so much sarcastic humor. This movie also has a tone of pop culture references from the 80s that it is incredible, I think I only caught like half of it as more of a 90s person. But most importantly this movie deals with loss and alternative families. The Guardians aren't just Guardians, they are each other's new family. They lost everyone else, but found each other. Despite the fact that they are all different, they managed to find what connects them. On a side note, I talked about the amazing soundtrack, but this movie also has a brilliant score. The theme music for the guardians is so awesome and full of energy. It all makes the movie fun, not too serious, but touching nonetheless.
There are a few downsides to this movie. Mostly Ronan. He is such a paper villain. No reasonable motive, no background story, he is just there to be stopped. Like Thanos said, it is boring. We barely get any Thanos here which sucks. Also, the characters are super fun, but mostly they are one dimensional. But the movie makes it work and makes us care for them.
Despite the downsides, it is just a great and fun movie.
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