Marvel

PG 13 121 min

Gang I realize this is starting to get repetitive. Sorry.

It seems like every week there's a new film adaptation of a Marvel comic book that follow and almost identical formula.

Marvel's MO is that tortured soul who has been reluctantly cast into the role of superhero versus very bad super villains who want to either take over and/or destroy the United States, the world or the universe for all three. Then there are a couple of hours of blowing shit up and computer graphic interstellar battles until the good guys save the aforementioned country, planets or universe from destruction.

Unfortunately that blueprint tends to get a little bit tedious so I fear I may unfairly give a film less props that might deserve just because of its unoriginality.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is slightly different because it isn't based on any one super hero and is in many ways a derivative mishmash of hooks and characters borrowed from other films.

And yet. ......

I kinda liked it.

I had never even heard of the Guardians until this film came out and apparently it is basically a collage of situations plucked from science fiction stock material bin and just slightly changed to avoid being an exact ripoff.

Our hero, Quill (Chris Pratt) is a self-serving and swashbuckling soldier of fortune not unlike Han Solo but noticeably less charismatic than Harrison Ford.

His quest is to steal an orb which contains your generic ultimate universal power (yeah another one of those) and sell it to the highest bidder, who is an evil son of a bitch who bears a striking resemblance to Darth Vader. Quill winds up in the company of some other interplanetary ne'er do wells including Groot (Vin Diesel) an ent-like tree guy, a big mug bent on revenge who looks a lot like the Thing from Fantastic Four, a green chick that bears a resemblance to Captain Kirk's alien squeeze and one actually original character, Rocket (Bradley Cooper) a tough talking raccoon. Seriously.

So what sets this above, albeit slightly, the other dozens of science fiction noise fest?

Well even if the characters are pretty familiar there were enough twists and comedic tweaks to keep things interesting. To mention a couple Groot can only say three words, "I am Groot" (later one more) and only Rocket can understand the different meanings. (That's some easy money for Diesel.)

And Rocket himself is a clever and engaging character.

Not only that, but the dialogue is relatively crisp and just salty enough to get in under the PG 13 wire.

I was considering a C+ but I decided to add a half letter grade for the soundtrack which consists of a bunch of oldies that I cared little or none about but with the notable presence of one of my favorite songs ever, namely Go All The Way by the Raspberries, easily the best tune in the movie.

Guardians never seems to take itself too seriously and turns out to be pretty entertaining.

B-

WSS