Guardians of the Galaxy (4 Stars)

This is the tenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, released in August 2014. It drifts even further away from the Marvel canon than the previous films. It continues and even exaggerates the MCU tradition of showing characters with the same names as comic book characters, but with different costumes, different appearances, different backgrounds and different powers. This is clearest in the case of Arthur Douglas, aka Drax the Destroyer. In the comics he was born on Earth, and Mentor (Thanos' father) gave him superpowers to challenge Thanos. In the comics he can fly through space faster than the speed of light and destroy a whole fleet of spaceships without breaking a sweat. In the film he's just a muscle-bound wrestler.

Stan Lee is re-invented in every film. Here we see him in a six-second cameo flirting with a young woman on the planet Xandar. He asks her, "Do you like cartoons?" That's a good pick-up line. I wonder if it would work for me. Unfortunately, Stan has forgotten the first rule of flirting: before you try to pick up a girl you have to take off your wedding ring.

The Guardians of the Galaxy are a bunch of misfits and outsiders who team up to defend the universe – not the galaxy – against a threat from the rogue Kree, Ronan the Accuser. In the comics Ronan was never rogue, he was a faithful Kree soldier, but I'll leave it for now. In this film there are so many deviations from the comics that I couldn't possibly name them all.

Star Lord is a man kidnapped from Earth 26 years ago. What he doesn't know is that his father isn't human. We find that out late at the end of the film.

Gamora is a beautiful but deadly assassin, the adopted daughter of Thanos.

Drax is a muscle-bound wrestler, nothing more, nothing less.

Rocket is a genetically modified raccoon who is a feared space outlaw.

Groot is a living tree who first appeared in a pre-canon science fiction story written by Stan Lee in 1960.

"Guardians of the Galaxy" is the first of the MCU films to contain a lot of comedy. With characters like these five it's difficult for the film to take itself too seriously.

This is the first clear view we have of Thanos. There has been a lot of argument in forums about who the most powerful character in the MCU is. It's difficult to give an answer, because the characters deviate so strongly from the comics. However, when Ronan defies Thanos by refusing to give him the Infinity Stone, his servant Korath warns him, "Thanos is the most powerful being in the universe". Is that the answer we're looking for?

Howard the Duck appears in the after credits scene, evidently enjoying his life of leisure in the Collector's storeroom. When's he going to get his own film?

Success Rate:  + 1.3

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