Hello, I’m a unicorn. Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. It’s Avengers level good, and this is coming from someone who considers the Avengers one of her favorite movies. In a few ways, it’s even better than the penultimate Marvel movie, mainly because the Avengers had the advantage of all its heroes being established in other films. In this movie, we have to meet each of the characters, learn all of their backstories, set up the plot, give their protagonists character arcs, set up the Nova Corps, set up the Kree race and their personalities, set up future events in the Marvel cinematic universe, explain the Infinity Stones, have a Stan Lee cameo, and have the actual plot. That is a lot to do for one film, and the writers pulled it off like it was nothing. More that that, they did it with pizzazz. That’s how much I like this movie: I actually used the word pizzazz. The plot may have been a little simplistic, but I’m okay with that, because, again, look at all they had to establish in the space of two hours. While the plot held little surprises, the characters had plenty. One example would be the opening scene with the adult Starlord. It’s one of the most epic cases of mood whiplash I’ve ever seen, and it was hilarious. This movie is full of moments where you think the scene is going to be serious, but it suddenly it does something so unexpectedly funny that you just have to laugh.
All of the characters are awesome, but the two that stand out are Rocket and Groot. Bradley Cooper just hit his portrayal of Rocket right out of the park. He’s snarky, tough, wacky, and likable enough that he has the audience’s sympathy when something terrible happens to him. I didn’t even see CGI, I saw a talking raccoon. The same goes for Groot. For a giant talking tree that turns some of the villains’ soldiers into Kree kabobs, he is surprising cute. He only says three words, but Vin Diesel packs those words so much emotion and the CGI was so good that I could tell exactly what he was thinking and feeling.
Overall, is this worth a watch? Yes. The visuals are awesome, the humor is actually funny, the characters are all great, and this movie does a lot in establishing the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The writers knew when to be silly, when to be serious, and how to seamlessly transition between the two moods with it feeling disjointed and at odds with itself. While the villain could have used more humor, but he’s intimidating enough that he’s somewhat memorable. So what are you waiting for? Watch it now and I am Groot.
…
Kirin pulled an old leather suitcase out from under her parent’s bed. Dragging the suitcase to the clean laundry pile, she sat down and stuffed a few t-shirts, some jeans and other necessities inside.
“Where’re ya goin’?” Textbox asked. Kirin looked up from the two iron daggers she was comparing. “And where’d you get those nice knives?”
“I was just thinking about the warning future me gave me a few months back.The name Fairy Creek seemed familiar, but I had trouble remembering where I’d heard it before. Then it struck me, Fairy Creek is what we’d called a place where my little sister and I used to play before we lived here. We had this friend who lived in the neighborhood and she used to tell us all about the fairies that lived there. For a while, I thought it was just pretend, but now I’m not so sure. I mean with all the weirdness going on, there it is possible that there was something there, right?” she explained as she placed the shorter of the two daggers in her suitcase.
“I dunno. Because of wibbly wobbly universy wersy stuff, you might have actually seen future you, or a possible future you, or maybe it was a you in name only. These are other dimensions, remember? We could’ve just seen an alternate universe version of yourself, and that tome thingy might not even exist. And even if it did, you accidentally might call Cthulu or something,” Textbox said. Kirin raised her eyebrows.
“Now I must be going crazy, because you’re actually making sense,” she marveled but then added “Then again, what if she was the future me? If that book has the key to saving the world, then I shouldn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs as the great vagueness comes to destroy everything. That alone is worth checking it out.” She finished packing and zipped up the suitcase.
“Okay. Why not? I mean–“
“Textbox, if you say “what’s the worst that could happen?” I swear I’ll smack you.” Kirin rolled her eyes. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“But before you go, isn’t there something you want to see first ? A certain movie with four giant talking turtles.” Kirin took a deep breath. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but then shut it.
“You’re right. My terrible priorities strike again.”
The Unicorn Comic 