This is going to be brief right now as I don’t want the review littered with SPOILER ALERT, so here are the highlights:
No, you have not seen “all the best scenes” while watching the trailers. You’ve seen quite a few, but not nearly all.
No, having seen the trailers will not ruin the film for you in any way, shape or form.
YES. Guardians of the Galaxy is this generations’s Star Wars, no doubt about that. A sequel has already been greenlit and scheduled (they were so confident that this fact is included in the film’s credits).
Yes, there are already Lego minifigs of the main characters and we will no doubt see a lot of GotG costumes this Halloween, along with plenty of other GotG swag. (I’m personally waiting for the Groot Chia Pet.)
The storyline is a bit of an info dump at the very beginning – there is, after all, a whole Marvel Universe history to impart. You may feel a tad overwhelmed by this, but it only lasts a few minutes, you will retain more than enough for the rest of the story to make sense and not grasping it all will absolutely NOT affect your enjoyment of the film.
I did not actively apply the Bechdel test while watching, but I believe that the film passes this test. Future viewings (yes, I’m going back, which says a lot since the last film I did that for was Star Wars in ’77) will confirm or deny that belief.
If a lack of overt diversity among the characters bothers you (do we or do we not include aliens in our measure of diversity?), please have patience for the end of the film which I believe makes a very strong statement on this subject.
The characters are great, each and everyone of them. Delivery is over the top, but that over the topness is entirely appropriate for the story.
The story, as mentioned previously, has a bit of a slow beginning, but builds, and builds and builds.
The film is simply awesome and has previously received Amazing Stories’ first ever one word review of – AMAZING – the highest honor we extend over here.
Go watch. Now.
Really enjoyed the film and really tempted to go again. And not many films make me want to do that these days.
Have to hand it to James Gunn (with co-scripting by Nicole Perlman and assists from Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning) that going with humor opened this movie up to a larger audience. Could be worth a second trip to the theatre.