Marvel took plenty of chances here, and they've paid off enormously. Handing this square peg behemoth to director James Gunn (Slither, Super) was a risky choice, given his minimal experience on a canvas this size - but the choice is a terrific one. Then casting Chris Pratt as ne'er-do-well Peter Quill? The Marvel secret sauce may be as simple as hiring people who just passionately love the material, because does that ever show here - Guardians fires on all cylinders and takes off like a like a house on fire. It could easily have been another John Carter, but instead it's the exact opposite - a lush, eye-popping space opera origin story of five rogue lowlifes that juggles plenty of hysterics as well as heart.
In venerable Tesseract fashion, there's a mystical object that everyone wants. But in Guardians, those doing the wanting are degenerate mercenaries. Guardians opens unexpectedly, with a flashback scene on young Peter Quill - and it's an unexpected heart-breaker. Before long though, we've crammed all the main characters into a deep space gulag where things get interesting pretty fast. Among the Guardians, there are no weak links - Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) adds another sci-fi franchise to her impressive quiver, Dave Bautista is spectacular - and hilarious - as muscle-bound Drax the Destroyer - but then you just have to get out of the way, because Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) dominate this picture like no tomorrow, creating classic sci-fi characters that kids and adults alike will be aping for years. Rocket is awesome incarnate - he may be my favorite movie character of the year.
If Guardians has any weakness, it's the fairly generic villain, Ronan (Lee Pace, Elf King Thranduil of The Hobbit movies). Pace does a good enough job, but the character's a bit of a yawn. Held up next to the charisma of Bautista and Pratt, he barely registers. Briefly-glimpsed Thanos is clearly the more interesting Big Bad, but they're saving him for future installments further down the road. Marvel also needs to strive to develop 3rd act showdowns that go beyond protracted dogfights and giant crashing vehicles (see also Star Trek Into Darkness). But this is a minor carp, as if ever a movie had the super power to make you gleefully shrug "Just go with it!" it's Guardians. The charisma of Pratt, Saldana, Rocket, Groot and Drax can't be argued with. Pratt's prized possession is his aging Walkman, the source of a miasma of seventies hits that help give Guardians its off-kilter slap-happy energy.
The end credits promise that The Guardians of the Galaxy will return, which is great new for audiences everywhere. James Gunn has assembled a fantastic bunch of characters we can't wait to see more of. In the meantime, I suspect crowds will be lining up for Guardians again and again - it's the biggest helping of pure fun being served anywhere.
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