BANGALORE: No raccoons or tree creatures were harmed in the making of this film,” said the end credits of Guardians of the Galaxy; and this is a great indication of just how crazy this movie is. Throw Star Wars, Firefly, Farscape and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy together and you get Guardians of the Galaxy, but of course, with an original spin on it. Probably the most thrilling and fun space operas to have hit the large screen in a long time, Guardians... makes all the rest of the summer adventure flicks look mediocre and extremely dull.
Guardians of the Galaxy are made up of five misfits brought together in a prison cell - Peter Quill/Star Lord (Chris Pratt), the human who was abducted from Earth as a child; Rocket (Bradley Cooper), a talking raccoon; Groot (Vin Diesel), a tree creature with a limited vocabulary; Drax the Destroyer (David Bautista), who can only speak literally and wants revenge against evil Kree person Ronan (Lee Pace) for killing his family; and Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the adopted daughter of dark lord Thanos (Josh Brolin), now working for the evil Ronan (or is she?).
The adventure begins when these misfits decide they must stop Ronan from acquiring a mysterious orb for Thanos, who will then help Ronan wipe out an entire planet, all for his own personal revenge.
Led by Quill, the five of them travel across the galaxy on a madcap caper that will see them bonding over a just cause. What is so great about this is that they do it all without the righteousness of some of our more popular heroes.
Just when you think you’re headed into a more serious territory, you’ll find Peter Quill breaking into a random dance-off or Groot impaling 10 men on his tree-bark arms and smashing them against glass walls repeatedly.
These are not characters with great depth, mind you, one can’t expect them to be written like Thor, Hulk, Captain America or even Loki. They are a little flaky, but it only allows them to be just as deliriously cuckoo.
The movie has a great soundtrack too, thanks to Quill’s only possession that he was allowed to carry from earth before he was abducted - a mixtape of 70s pop songs, handpicked by his dying mother. Comprising of everything from David Bowie to Jackson 5 to The Runaways, the soundtrack adds to the magic of this crazy adventure.
If one is looking for some connection between Guardians and the rest of the Marvel universe, it is the Taneleer Tivan character, the Collector, who is played by Benicio Del Toro. The Collector also appeared in Thor: The Dark World. The orb is part of a set of powerful objects, including the Tesseract from Captain America and The Avengers that the Collector, and some other mysterious person working with him, want.
Another recurring character is of course, Thanos, a super villain who appears briefly in this film. Thanos also turned up in the credits of The Avengers.
Verdict:It’s absolutely brilliant to watch Marvel take the risk and put out something as zany, wacky and completely irreverent as Guardians..., minus any huge names to bank on, and boom, they still manage to make a great movie at half the price of making a movie like The Avengers. This is brave filmmaking and hopefully more will follow suit.
The Guardians of the Galaxy will be back and we can’t wait.
Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy
Director: James Gunn
Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, David Bautista, Lee Pace, Vin Diesel, Josh Brolin