Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

To give credit where credit is due, Guardians of the Galaxy sounds like no other science fiction film I've ever seen.  I’m not talking about the sound mixing or the audio effects, but the music.  Kubrick introduced the idea of classical music in science fiction for 2001: A Space Odyssey.  George Lucas then used John Williams’ original, but classical sounding, music for Star Wars (possibly the best music score in film history). And now Guardians of the Galaxy gives us K-Tel’s greatest hits of the 1970’s and 80’s.

It’s an original idea and a neat marketing tool; it means that the film has a hook for older viewers who remember the 1970’s but don’t know what a “graphic novel” is. There is an energy I've rarely felt in other comic book-based, derivative science fiction films when the action is being played out over Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” or Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.”

So Guardians of the Galaxy has that going for it.  What else?  Well, it has an honest to goodness sense of humor, even about itself.  It’s not fair to say that lacking a sense of humor is a failing of the other Marvel Comics titles, although most of the jokes in Iron Man landed because of Robert Downey Jr., not the script. And certainly Joss Whedon brought his patented wit to The Avengers.  But it takes a special kind of sense of humor for a film featuring a genetically modified, gun-toting talking raccoon to recognize the inherent silliness of a gun-toting, talking raccoon.

Other than the soundtrack and the self-reflexive humor, the movie is another summer sci-fi shoot ‘em up with all the CGI effects needed to send kids out there into endorphin induced DTs.  The plot has the usual comic book (excuse me, “graphic novel”) plot holes.  The bad guy is after a stone that will destroy all life on a certain planet.  Where did the stone come from?  Let’s not get into that.  Why was it created? Um, never mind.  How did it get lost in the first place; I mean, if there was a rock capable of ending all life on a planet, you’d think someone would take pretty good care of it.  Look, let’s just say that the stone exists, the bad guy wants it and the hero found it.  Let’s start the story from there and not ask any questions.

For what it’s worth, the acting helps propel the story along, with Chris Pratt hitting the right notes as a low-rent Indiana Jones wanna-be. Most of the rest of the cast does a good job of projecting through their prosthetics, and Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper does nice vocal work as the voice of the genetically enhanced raccoon (I can’t wait to see that on his resume). Zoe Saldana has played so many butt-kicking women that it must be second nature by now, but she still pulls it off. Lee Pace and Karen Gillian as the bad guys are virtually unrecognizable under their latex.

One wishes this sort of summer entertainment made more sense, like the first Star Wars trilogy or the first Superman film (wait a minute, he reversed time by flying around the Earth really fast; never mind). But a coherent plot and imaginative twists is probably too much to ask for in a film where the closing credit list of digital artists FILLS THE SCREEN (and is, as best as I could tell, listed alphabetically by first name). Guardians of the Galaxy is amusing, done with energy and humor, and has a killer soundtrack; if you want more than that from a summer blockbuster, you’ll have to look in a different galaxy.