New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Kim Hollis: What did you think of Guardians of the Galaxy? SPOILER ALERT – we are really discussing the movie here. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading now.

Matthew Huntley: It's amusing and sassy superhero movie fare, which makes it fun and entertaining enough, but as David alluded to in Topic #1, it's easily a Firefly/Serenity/Star Wars wannabe and, as a result, not terribly distinct as far as its story, characters and production are concerned. Luckily, though, it has a cheeky attitude, and that makes it worth seeing.

Edwin Davies: I enjoyed it a lot once it settled down and relaxed a little bit. The first half an hour felt scattered and strained since it was trying to tell jokes and unload a lot of plot and background information in a very short space of time. It's times like that when I think that the Star Wars crawl would have been a real benefit since it stops the characters from having to awkwardly explain all the politics that ends up driving the story. Once they got to the prison, though, I thought that it really started to cohere into an enjoyably goofy space opera that had a keen awareness of its own ridiculousness, but could still deliver on sentiment and spectacle when it was required. I'd probably say it was a mid-tier Marvel film, a solid B, but with a lot of potential for further storytelling in the sequel and the spin-off animated series that was just announced.

Bruce Hall: I enjoyed it. It was fun, colorful, quirky, and unexpectedly amusing. I do not regret seeing it one bit. But I'm about 48 hours away from completely forgetting what it was about. As I've said before, there is a sameness to the Marvel catalog that bothers me whether I enjoy the film or not.

There's a Villain, often with some kind of ironic connection to the hero. The Villain is trying to obtain some MacGuffin of Ultimate Horribleness, and an unlikely/reluctant hero/rag-tag group of dysfunctional pricks has to stop the Villain from destroying either the world, the universe, or a small town in rural New Mexico. Villain gets his hands on said MacGuffin by the beginning of Act 3, and then there's a massive chase/intergalactic space battle/flattening of Metropolis. Cue final confrontation, poignant twist/hint at the return of any major character who may have died, and then everything pretty much goes back to the way it was before the movie started.

As I've said before, I do feel like the strategy here is to build the brand universe and then fill it with revenue generating properties. There's no reason to take dramatic risks with the individual films when audiences have shown time and again that they're willing to watch pretty much the same story over and over again. The only people it bothers are people like me, who actually enjoy the rare occasion when a superhero flick actually has a little weight behind it.

So while I did enjoy Guardians, I also am tiring of the Marvel formula, and watching the exact same story beats and plot devices all over again, for the 117th time. I have no idea when or if general audiences will become equally bored with it but if of when they do, everyone can finally write that big "superhero fatigue" they've been carrying around in their back pocket for ten years.

Continued:       1       2       3       4