This was the most flat out "fun" movie that I've seen theatrically in a while, and while it had some flaws, they didn't do much to detract from the raw entertainment value.
I'm not a comic book enthusiast, but from what I understand, this is the least well known property to be adapted as a film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thus far. I believe that this, along with allowing the film to exist largely in its own world, was a net positive. The lack of familiarity a basic moviegoer would have with this particular comic book likely allowed the filmmakers to have more creative slack to work with. Some of the more recent films in the overall series have suffered from being part of the larger universe, sometimes by including forced references to other films/characters, and sometimes by just as conspicuously avoiding references (the bad guy is trying to kill the U.S. President at the end of "Iron Man 3", so why is Iron Man the only superhero doing anything about it?). "Guardians of the Galaxy" does have a few nods to the wider series, but they are organic and fit the story well. As the story is about a group of characters who we have not met before and who don't (yet, at least) have relationships with characters from the other films, the movie is allowed to feel complete in its own right, avoiding the impression of killing time until the next sequel.
The film's comedy is one of its strongest aspects. I appreciate comedy the most when its not the actual genre of a film, but part of a larger canvas (my go to example being the back and forth between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"), and that's what this film delivers. It tells a fun, exciting story, with lots of laughs and some creative action set pieces. The main characters are universally entertaining, each of them getting several good laugh lines. Many aspects of the set design and the general tone have a very Star Warsy feel, sometimes, I felt, just shy of plagiarism (though even if it crossed that line I suppose it wouldn't be an issue since Disney now owns both properties). It was also refreshing to see a comic book origin story that breaks from the traditional mold. The origin is of the title group, not an individual. This spares the audience from having to sit through scenes where the hero, after acquiring some form of superpower, slowly comes to terms with his powers, often with humorous results. Those scenes were fun the first time we saw them, but they're becoming a bit formulaic. Instead of adjusting to new powers, the protagonists in this film are adjusting to working with (and sometimes just tolerating) each other. Watching how well written characters interact with each other is always going to be more interesting than watching how a single character interacts with a superpower. It was a wonderful, refreshing change.
There are a few problems. Some of the exposition is a little thin. The lead character, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), is supposed to have had a long term, recently soured working relationship with Yondu (Michael Rooker), who basically raised him since abducting him from Earth in the film's opening moments. It's hard to put much stock into their relationship since we don't see much of this backstory--it's merely relayed to us through dialogue. A dispute between two planets (or races, I wasn't completely sure) figures heavily into the plot, but isn't really given much background. Finally, as is a problem with many of the recent Marvel films, the main villain is a generic, weakly written character. He's given bare bones motivations, but exists mainly as a plot device for the heroes to have someone to fight against.
In spite of these issues, the movie is a hell of a lot of fun to watch and it has no pretensions about being "deep" or "high art", which makes its shortcomings easier to forgive. Highly recommended.
A-
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