Welcome back to another part in our rewatching and analyzing MCU movie series. Today’s movie is Guardians of the Galaxy, a movie that ranked pretty high in our pre-watch rankings. This movie ranked just outside the Top 5 due to its great humor and fresh take on MCU movies. Let’s see how it stood up.
Guardians of the Galaxy Rewatch and Review
The Good
Development
One of the things this movie really hits on is how it handles the development of multiple main characters throughout it. Starting off by showing just how fragmented and lonely the whole group is, it does a great job of building a sense of teamwork throughout the movie.
From the beginning, the characters are obviously just interested in what is best for them. Whether that is collecting money or seeking revenge. They often found themselves putting each other in risk to achieve this. However, it all changes when Quill decides to save Gamora. From there, a real sense of bonding is created and the group starts to work on thinking about each other. Rocket and Groot both do what they can to help and Drax even admits he is wrong.
This development of so many characters was extremely well done. While there are some issues here and there, it could have been easy to just try and throw stuff together without any effort. However, Marvel took their time throughout the movie and it really paid off.
Humor and Mood
The humor and overall mood of the movie are also well done. There are plenty of jokes that hit at the right time. Whether that was something someone said or something like Groot destroying a bunch of villains by rag-dolling them between the walls.
However, it isn’t all just joking around. The film knows how to get serious and emotional at the right times too, providing some much-needed arcs of the characters pulling together like previously mentioned. It is one of the few MCU movies that can feel so funny and light-hearted but so serious and emotional at the same time.
This wouldn’t be an up without also mentioning the amazing soundtrack that comes with the movie. With tons of huge throwbacks, it seemed like they nailed the mood when they started a song.
Ending
The end of Guardians of the Galaxy pulled it all together. As stated in previous reviews, the end can make or break a movie and this really helped make it. The final battle had some up and downs in it, but the final few parts were great.
Groot sacrificing himself was incredibly sad, but so was seeing Rocket’s reaction. Thinking he had lost his only friend in the world, he showed lots of raw emotion for one of the first times.
The dance scene as a distraction was a little cringy but also somewhat funny to see. The plan to knock the Infinity Stone out of Ronan and Quill to try and hold it was solid. It also sets up a second movie pretty easily and well. Overall, the team comes together to defeat Ronan and have a solid ending to a very good movie.
The Bad
Jailbreak Scene
The jailbreak scene started out funny with Groot simply grabbing the piece they needed. However, the rest of it wasn’t very good. With almost too much happening it just fell flat. As well, the logic at times was absolutely brutal. The guards were useless and couldn’t control anything small, but that’s not even close to the biggest problem.
Things like not having all the guards come immediately is a huge issue. As well, the movie tried making it more dramatic by having all the rockets fire separately but it just ended up looking stupid. Why would you not fire at the same time? Either way, this was one of the few times the movie felt like it got lazy with how it wanted to develop the story.
Ronan and Thanos
Both the bad guys in this movie felt somewhat disappointing. They’re not near the biggest thumbs down we have given a bad guy in the MCU during this series, but they could have been better.
Ronan just didn’t do much with the Infinity Stone and his whole performance wasn’t great. His motives made sense at least but past that it just wasn’t really entertaining. He has so much power yet still gets his minions to do tons of the work for him. Yes, this is because the movie ended up needing to show the Guardians in action, but it was just disappointing to see such a lack of the use of power.
As for Thanos, he is beginning to be built as the biggest bad guy in the Universe, so his performance just didn’t feel good enough. He just sat in a chair the entire movie and made a few threats here and there. The idea of trying to include him in the movie was cool enough but the execution just seemed poor for the overall character. It made him feel weaker than anything else with no actual payoff.
Overall
Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy was a very solid movie. It’s still near the top of the MCU. It is one of the easiest to rewatch because it’s funny and entertaining the entire way through. While it may not be the “best” in the entire series, if you have just two hours to spend, watching this movie would be a good choice.