First Hit: Came off as tongue in cheek, overly complicated, funny sometimes, and visually interesting from time to time.
When I watched the preview I wondered how the filmmakers would make one generic white man, one tree, one greenish beauty and one raccoonish fox type set of characters to become “Guardians”.
The complicated part: The filmmakers had a young Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) extracted from earth the night his mother dies by Kraglin (Sean Gunn). Kraglin raises Peter to be resourceful but Peter doesn’t like the way Kraglin lives his life so as an adult he goes on his own. Quill is a curious sort and resorts to listening to music on a portable cassette player given to him by his mom.
Upon finding an Orb with special powers by which the galaxy can be destroyed the enemy of the Galaxy ,Ronan, wants him captured. He gets caught along with a tree called “Groot” (Vin Diesel - voice), Drax (Dave Bautista) a buffed red scarred guy, Rocket (Bradley Cooper – voice) a raccoon/fox animal, and Ronan's daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana) who has learned her father is bent on destroying a civilization.
OK, now you get it, the film's setup is overly complicated just to get characters into the game. Then to have them be united in their goal was the director’s next step and to do this he used tongue in cheek dialogue and scenes.
The film kept moving into taking itself seriously and then not. I enjoyed some of the Orb visuals along with some of the results of the weapons they used in fights. The outcome was predicted as well as introducing a sequel.
Pratt had a great way of being serious and not serious and carrying off the tongue in cheek way this film was presented. Gunn was good as the guy with an occasional heart. Saldana was strong as the woman who wants to make the galaxy a better place. Her strong body worked very well for the part. Cooper’s voice for Rocket was fun as was Diesel’s voice for Groot. The usage of Groot’s one sentence to express everything was inventive. James Gunn and Nicole Perlman wrote this fun but convoluted script. Gunn created a fun experience but I hope the sequel settles down and brings more of a point to the film.
Overall: This film was fun, it had some great laughs but it could have done more interesting and effective by being simpler.