Guardians of the Galaxy: Gloriously Entertaining

Despite never having read a Marvel comic in my life, I have become enamored of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given their penchant to not take themselves too seriously, every Marvel film has been a blast to watch in theaters, delivering spectacular visuals alongside hilarious hi-jinx. As their canon of superheroes gets increasingly obscure, they just keep adding to the intricacy of their interconnected plots and delivering well-written, eye-popping blockbusters that make you wish there was a new Marvel movie out every month. Well this month, they've presented us with Guardians of the Galaxy, and it's just spectacular.

Apart from the opening scene, Guardians of the Galaxy is set completely off Earth. That already makes it unique in the Marvel franchise, which has hitherto been very Earth-bound in all its cinematic endeavors. Sure we've gotten trips to Asgard in the Thor films, but the heroes are always focused on drama that's taking place on Earth. But in Guardians, after establishing that our hero, Peter Quill (the disarming and fantastic Chris Pratt), was a boy on Earth before being beamed up to a spaceship, we head straight off into extraterrestrial worlds of aliens, spaceships, and wonder.

The Guardians are comprised of the roguish smuggler Peter Quill, a.k.a. "Star-Lord" (a self-appointed nickname), Rocket (a mutant wisecracking raccoon voiced expertly by Bradley Cooper), Gamora (a green-skinned assassin played with no-nonsense ferociousness by Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (a hilariously literal warrior played by Dave Bautista), and Groot (a tree, voiced by Vin Diesel, who only says "I am Groot" and steals the scene every time). They are the very definition of a motley crew, a bunch of complete oddballs who are forced together by circumstances and bound by mercenary plans that eventually evolve to a heroic calling. There's a great deal of exposition that's necessary to establish these characters, none of which I'll go into here, but it is done expertly and seamlessly by writer-director James Gunn, who knows how to tell this story without getting too bogged down in the details.

The movie's villains are portrayed equally magnificently by Lee Pace, who appears to be done playing nice guys and is gleefully evil as Ronan the Accuser, and Karen Gillan, who has left Doctor Who behind and is now playing a bad-ass blue-skinned henchwoman with murderous intent. We also get to glimpse Josh Brolin as Thanos, the ultimate big bad in the Marvel universe, who will presumably have a much larger role to play in future films.

This movie is incredibly funny, filled with characters who are terribly flawed yet manage to come together and save the world despite their obvious disinclination to do anything of the kind. The visual effects are glorious, and despite the fact that two of the Guardians are an animated raccoon and a tree, you're totally along for the ride. The film also features a brilliant soundtrack of 70s pop hits, courtesy of Star-Lord's Sony Walkman, which is one of the few possessions he retained from his childhood on Earth. These songs reach out into the audience and grab your soul. Even though the action is taking place among multi-colored aliens fighting in spaceships, suddenly hearing The Runaways' "Cherry Bomb" or Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling" grounds everything and gets you completely invested in the movie.

Guardians of the Galaxy is everything you want a summer blockbuster to be and is yet another runaway hit from Marvel Studios. These people have found the winning formula and they know how to deliver clever, witty, intricate movies that keep you solidly entertained for two hours and leave you wanting more. I can't believe I have to wait until May for the second installment of The Avengers, but you can bet I'll be first in line at the theater.