Review of Bizarre Recommendation - Guardians of the Galaxy

Yeah, so in China, Guardians of the Galaxy is called Interplanetary Unusual Attacking Force, or 行星际异常攻击力, which I’m assuming sounds badass in Mandarin. Anyway, it fits the theme of “weird”/”unusual”/”peculiar” movies I’m going for, so I’m rolling with it.

Guardians of the Galaxy, the 10th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was one of the biggest surprises of the last few years. Based on a comic that not a lot of people read compared to other Marvel works, as well as being directed by the very inconsistent James Gunn, it did not appear to be a great movie at first. But what we ended up getting was one of the funniest, wittiest and visually stunning blockbusters of the last few years.

This movie explodes with personality, from the soundtrack to the Whedon-esque humour to the colourful visuals and general sense of casual fun. It’s trying to be a grand, entertaining movie that the majority of the family can enjoy, and it succeeds wildly.

In terms of casting, almost everyone is spot on. Chris Pratt is awesome in this movie as a charming asshole from Earth, Dave Bautista turns in a very surprising comic turn considering his background as a wrestler instead of an actor, and Zoe Saldana is also excellent in the movie. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel are brilliant in their voice roles as a talking raccoon and a living tree respectively, and even John C. Reilly shows up at some point to bring his usual wit and charm. The only weak link in the cast is Lee Pace as Ronin, a deadpan villain with little personality and not a lot to his character. But everyone else is great.

Lee Pace, the one weak link in this movie.

And the visual element of the film is outstanding. MPC and Framestore both worked really hard on the visual effects of this movie, and every shot feels stunning and new. James Gunn and cinematographer Ben Davis are always trying to do something that we haven’t seen, such as a fleet of ships joining together as a blanket to stop a larger ship from going further, or the awesome Knowhere dogfight where the mechanical arms of ships are used to pilot other ships. This movie is trying to be as fun and original as possible, and it succeeds wildly.

Now, when it comes to the “unusual” in the title, in the movie, this mainly refers to the ragtag bunch of assholes in the lead roles. All of them are indeed unique and play off each other really well, and I honestly think that “Interplanetary Unusual Attacking Force” would have been a more fitting/funnier English title for this movie, although we would have missed out on Star-Lord’s awesome one-liner before killing a fool; “You said it yourself, b^*ch. We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy”.

In short, this is my favourite Marvel Cinematic Universe movie out of them all, even above Black Panther and Endgame. It’s fun, emotionally engaging and is never trying to one up other movies in their style, but strike out as its very own, unique film.

Anyway, what did you think of this movie? Are there any movies which had a synonym of weird in the title, and what are your bad and good ones? Leave them in the comments below.