For once, I was expecting it to have a somewhat cheesy humor after seeing the 1st trailer, but I wasn't expecting this to be one of the best Marvel movies ever next to Captain America 2 and X-Men: DOFP this year! Even if it's not Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, or Hulk! This movie is exactly what the
Green Lantern movie should have been when it comes to a sci-fi movie that is supposed to be mainly set in space! Warner Bros. and DC should definitely use this film as a reminder of how they should not make
Green Lantern so awful it flopped miserably both critically and financially!
Chris Pratt actually nailed his role as Peter Jason Quill, A.K.A. Star Lord (Who?) since his animated character Emmet from
The LEGO Movie! I was skeptical at first, but seeing how Chris Pratt can act both serious and funny (this time, more believable) at the same time, that's what Ryan Reynolds completely lacked when he was Hal Jordan! In the first scene, I feel sad for Peter Quill when he was just a little kid who mourned over his beloved mother's death before he was abducted by the Ravagers, led by Yondu, where he would later become… Star Lord. Gamora, played by
Avatar's
Zoe Saldana, is one kick ass alien chick! From blue to green, she sure has a way of acting like a tough-as-nails woman! Love how she keeps kicking Quill in the balls during their first encounter! Ouch!
Dave Bautista, Drax the Destroyer, could've had more character, but he sure is a tough wrestler and really displayed his emotions over the loss of his wife and daughter which led him to seek revenge to kill Ronan the Accuser, along with Thanos. Rocket Raccoon and Groot are the best characters in
Guardians of the Galaxy! I'm glad I saw that movie just for them! They absolutely stole the movie! Never knew that
The Hangover's
Bradley Cooper would sound that hilarious when playing an obnoxious Raccoon-like alien thief!
Vin Diesel is awesome as the tree-like alien Groot even if he had only one major speaking line ("I am Groot"). But what a noble sacrifice he made to save the other Guardians. "We are Groot." I was scared that Groot was gonna die when it's just too soon to kill off such a popular Guardian of the Galaxy. Though I was relieved when I saw Groot as a tiny branch seedling on a pot, similar to his comic book counterpart, who was last seen dancing when Drax is not looking at him. So that means Groot is back, baby! Nothing can tear the Guardians of the Galaxy apart! Let's see how Mark Ruffalo's Hulk can take on Groot if the Avengers ever make an encounter with the Guardians of the Galaxy!
Now, to analyze the other things I noticed which connects all of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thanos (the one who gave Loki the Chitauri army in
The Avengers) is clearly one threatening big bad villain thanks to the amazing
Josh Brolin; even more dangerous than Lee Pace's Ronan the Accuser. Can't wait to see more of him in
The Avengers 3 once we are done dealing with Ultron next summer. The Orb, a main plot device Macguffin of this film, is one of the "Infinity Stones" that were used to power up the Infinity Gauntlet, a powerful glove-like weapon that Thanos plans to use to control the entire universe. So the Infinity Stones we have seen so far are the cube-like
Tesseract ("Space"), the
Aether ("Reality"), the
Scepter ("Mind"), and the
Orb ("Power"). What we need now is to see the remaining stones, Time and Soul, in any one of the Phase 3 films and what kind of forms that they might take. After the credits, although a little brief and somewhat doesn't make sense even in a funny way, is… Seth Green's
Howard the Duck! But at least this strange new CGI-animated alien duck among the Collector's relics is better than the badly-written 5-time Razzie Award-winning
Howard the Duck movie back in 1986. So Universal did the right thing giving the Howard the Duck character rights back to Marvel after having a massive failure with their infamous duck character. But I doubt that we'll be seeing him again in any of the Marvel films when one was enough already. It probably would've been better if we actually had a mid-credits scene where Nebula, though injured, returns to her father-figure and master Thanos, where she reports to him that the Orb is now lost after his most trusted associate and traitor Ronan is now dead. Thanos would then reply that it won't matter, for he is now a little more concerned with finding the last 2 remaining Infinity Stones hidden somewhere while plotting to retrieve the other 4 Stones currently in possession on Asgard, Knowhere, Xandar, and Earth.
I'm glad that I got to see this lesser known Marvel movie set in the world of Avengers! It really balanced the action and bizarre humor really well thanks to the unique direction of
Slither's
James Gunn! Even if it could've worked as a Phase 3 movie since it has nothing to do with
Avengers: Age of Ultron! I'll be looking forward to see a sequel if it means waiting until May 2017! I doubt this year's TMNT will stand a chance against GotG at the box office during its 2nd week of this August!
