Abducted as a child, Peter Quill aka Starlord finds himself the target of a hunt for a mysterious orb which he has stolen. In a journey to discover more about the Orb and deliver it to a buyer, he is joined by a gang of oddball misfit all the while avoiding the evil forces of Ronan, a powerful villain hellbent on destroying the galaxy. But when the truth about the orb is revealed it’s up to Peter to unite his new friends to stop Ronan’s plans for annilhation.
Let’s cut to the chase. It’s good. It’s really good, packed full of one liners and epic visual set pieces. But we all knew it was going to do well what with it being another spawn of Marvel Studios and it’s overlords at Disney. Critics have been wary that it’s been a risk for Marvel not to simply adapt one of the larger and more popular of it’s vast catalogue of superhero teams and instead opted for something a little less known. This of course means they can do more with this new IP without the fear of backlash from Marvel fanboys/girls, whose internet blogging, keyboard warrior reviews and cut throat criticism over changed details to their beloved characters can put a dent in a films reputation.
Not that it matters though, as Marvel’s golden touch has been bringing home the proverbial bacon for the last six years and sees no sign of stopping as Avengers 2 looms on the horizon. But this is different to their usual slew of super-humans knocking the bejesus out each other for 90 minutes.
It feels like a child of Red Dwarf and Star Wars as if David Lister was set against The Empire only instead ‘the boys from the dwarf’ we have a space cowboy, a living tree voiced by Vin Diesel, a racoon with anger issues (Bradley Cooper), a green skinned femme fatale (Zoe Saldana) and Kratos from God of War (WWE’s Dave Batista). Peter’s wisecracking cheekiness is used as a lead for much of the films tone for all it’s light-hearted puns and Kevin Bacon jokes, with Lee Pace providing a real sense of menace as the evil Ronan backed by Karen Gilligan as baddie Nebula. All the characters story arcs are neatly brought together and the plot is nicely tied, despite having to deal with so many threads. As you’d expect it all looks very fancy with some great CG effects and a killer 70’s/80’s soundtrack to boot so you’ll be hooked on a feeling for sure.
It lives up the hype and is a two hour thrill ride full of laughs and action from start to finish. It’s great that they’ve taken a risk with this but my only real concern for the Marvel/Disney juggernaut is that at some point it’s all going to go wrong. But for now GOTG is another fantastic summer blockbuster and another notch on Marvel Studios list of greats.
5/5
Words by Andrew ‘Mash’ Marshall
