Guardians of the Galaxy is great!

(disclaimer:  I try not to give away any major plot twists or punch lines in this review, and instead concentrate on the characters, actors and viewability).
  

    

      

   Peter Quill (Chris Pratt),  Drax the Destroyer (Dave Batista), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), and Groot (Vin Diesel) are the Guardians of the Galaxy. 

    I love this movie, even though I have never read one of the comic books.  The great thing about Marvel movies is that you never know what is going to happen next.  And you also will meet totally unique characters.  Marvel seems to always be striving to be original, rather than relying on recycled superheroes and bad guys from previous movies.    The movie works because the cast did a great job of pulling this off and making their characters both interesting and believable. 

     First of all, there are no good guys in the movie. None whatsoever, only different levels of bad.  The Guardians are an unruly, uncivilized group of talented misfits who would rather steal a bunch of money, but who instead find themselves forced to save the Galaxy.  Peter Quill is a con man and hi-tech thief.  Drax the Destroyer is a killing machine seeking to avenge the death of his family at the hands of Ronan the Accuser.  

My kids liked Rocket Raccoon, a smart-talking genius who inhabits the body of a raccoon.  He is furry and cuddly and will blow you away at the slightest provocation.  

Gamora is a true babe, even if she is green.  The character didn't make great sense, but I didn't mind.  

Groot is a tree creature who doesn't talk much, but has amazing tree powers.   He seemed to become (surprisingly) more interesting as the movie progressed.   

Ronan (Lee Pace) definitely suffers from "Shakespearian Overacting Disease").  

Ronan is definitely a bad guy and has awesome super powers.  He better, because he is also super dumb. Consider this question from Bad Guy 101:

Bad Guy 101 Test Question:

When you have the opportunity to steal the most powerful weapon in the universe, you:

     a.  Send your entire army to go get it.

    b.  Send yourself to get it with your awesome superpowers. 

     c.  Send one person to steal it.

  

Well, our boy Ronan picks option c, of course.  That's rather dumb right there, but okay. So, who do you suppose Ronan sends?  

     a.  Send a super powered bad guy.

     b.  Send somebody whose loyalty is unquestioned because you are holding their parents hostage or something.

      c.  Send your cutest employee.

    Yup, old Ronan isn't very bright, and once again he goes for option c.  Oh well.  That was the option that made the director happy, I guess.  Despite those mental lapses and a tendency to overact, Ronan is a formidable bad guy.   

     On the other hand, we can't be certain that the good guys are truly all on the same side, and indeed they all have their own agendas and tend to work at cross purposes.  That indeed makes them interesting.

      Definitely this movie is worth seeing, though not necessarily as good as the Avengers movie which came out earlier this year.  My kids  (age 12 and 9) seemed to like it, although some of the violent scenes were a bit much, especially for the younger one. If they liked Avengers and X-Men they will be okay with this one, I believe.