Film Review | Guardians of the Galaxy

by Marco Attard

One is told that they should not judge books (or films) by their cover, but it’s hard to not do so with Guardians of the Galaxy, the latest horse from the Disney-owned Marvel blockbuster stable.

It’s a name that tells one just about everything they need to know, familiarity with the source material be damned - it evokes images of stalwart Guardians and, well, the Galaxy, with perhaps (surely) plenty of ray guns, people in multi-coloured face paint cavorting as aliens and zipping around in spaceships. And, guess what? Guardians of the Galaxy is exactly that, a space adventure cut straight from pulp cloth, if with a good lick of modern special effects paint.

The plot should be fairly familiar to viewers familiar with the last fifty or so years of science fiction. Following the death of his mother by Hollywood disease, eight-year-old Peter Quill is promptly abducted by a group of alien mercenaries.

Brought up as one of their own, Quill (Chris Pratt) grows into the self-described “Star-Lord,” a swaggering space rogue in the Han Solo mould.

During a scavenging trip on a ruined planet, Quill finds an orb containing an Infinity Stone, an artefact of great power wanted by major players in the universe.

Cue Quill’s teaming up with a quartet of misfits in order to stop the Stone from falling into the wrong hands of the malevolent Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), who wants to use its power to destroy a planet for vaguely religious reasons, as one does when in possession of such artefacts of great power.

Directed by Troma veteran James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy moves at a breezy, if not restless, pace, zooming between locations ranging from spaceships to space prison to futuristic planets to even, at one point, a hive of scum and villainy set inside a gigantic skull.

None of these places will surprise consumers of Star Wars and its myriad spin offs, not to mention TV shows such as Joss Whedon’s Firefly or videogames such as the Mass Effect series, but all involve imaginative production design and vivid colour palettes far removed from the grays and browns so dominant in the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (for movies based on comic books, the Marvel films are some of the most visually dour pieces of cinema around).

Less vibrant is the cast, if with a few exceptions. While Chris Pratt effortlessly ups the charm as what’s essentially Parks and Recreation’s Andy Dwyer playing Han Solo, the same cannot be said for at least some of his companions, namely green-skinned assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana with a face caked under far too many inches of makeup to effectively emote) and the charmingly named Drax the Destroyer (wrestler Dave Bautista, who while being a kind of meat miracle simply can’t act, with or without makeup). The members actually forming the heart of the team are not human at all, and are composed of pixels, not flesh and blood - namely anthropomorphic raccoon Rocket and ambulant tree Groot.

Voiced by Bradley Cooper’s American Hustle drawl, Rocket growls and snarks his way through the proceedings while hinting at a core of genuine tragedy, while the animators behind Groot deserve a special Academy solely for their creating the most soulful, expressive eyes in cinematic history. Seriously, those peepers speak volumes, and the rest of the ambulant tree’s not too badly animated either.

On the far worse end of the performance spectrum are the villains of the piece - Lee Pace’s Ronan gets very little to do beyond glowering and wearing a cape (he’s best compared with Christopher Eccleston’s appearance as the equally forgettable Malekith in Thor: The Dark World, another hooded villain with plans for artefact-based planetary destruction), while Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan is rendered nigh unrecognisable and given even less to do as his assistant of sorts, a bald, blue-skinned lady dubbed Nebula.

It all makes one wonder why Marvel Studios even bother with actors in the first place. Surely, computer generated animation costs as much, if not less than the caking of actors under layers of face paint and rubber prosthetics in this day and age? Someone more in touch with the economics of Hollywood do let me know, seriously.

Then again, as mentioned earlier, it all simply zooms by. One can hardly appreciate the scenery, never-mind gauge the effectiveness of the performances or bother making too much sense of the plot (who are the “Nova Corps” and why does Glenn Close’s “Nova Prime” also want the Stone? Should one genuinely care?).

Thankfully, Gunn retains a light touch throughout, even if one suspects Marvel’s producers kept a very close eye on proceedings, what with his being the director of such classics as Toxic Avenger and Tromeo & Juliet, not to mention severely underrated pitch-black superhero satire Super.

As such, while the film’s tone is jokey and plenty of amusing wise is cracked, there’s a nagging feeling that it could have been far more mischievous - even if during the obligatory shot of our heroes making their way towards the final battle in slow motion, Gamora fails to stifle a yawn while Rocket gets to scratch his crotch (a delightful thought - in an animation farm somewhere, someone got paid to animate a raccoon pawing itself in the name of a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster).

It’s been repeatedly said that Marvel has taken a “great risk” with Guardians of the Galaxy, what with unfamiliar characters being anathema in this risk-averse world.

But really, that factoid aside there’s not much risk in Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s pretty much like any other space adventure one can think of, with the near exact same plot beats, character moments and overall moral about friendship and the like.

Sure, the soundtrack might come not from John Williams but a selection of 70s pop greats, but the directorial spirit is pure George Lucas. Then again, doesn’t Marvel owner Disney also count Star Wars among its possessions?