Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Review

by Heidi Joelle

Take a little bit of Joss Whedon’s Firefly and a heaping dose of old-school Star Trek and you have Marvel’s latest movie, Guardians of the Galaxy.

Love it or hate it, this movie should not work. My knowledge of the comic books that inspired this movie is limited to what I skimmed on the Wikipedia page, so I am only working off of the movie version of these characters; but our heroes include Peter Quill, a human outlaw; Gamora, an assassin; Drax the Destroyer; Rocket the raccoon; and Groot, Rocket’s accomplice and space tree. I can only imagine pitching this movie with its raccoon and sentient tree set in space.

The story is simple, and to keep this review spoiler free, I’ll be brief. Peter Quill is hired to steal an ancient device that everyone wants. The heroes decide they can’t sell this item to the client as originally planned, and they have to make sure no one uses it to the destroy a world. It’s basically a heroes-get-thrown-together-and-have-to-cooperate-to-defeat-the-bad-guy story. What sets this one apart from the other Marvel movies to date is that Guardians of the Galaxy is a science fiction movie and not a superhero flick. There are space ships, different races, space pirates, and new worlds.

Guardians of the Galaxy delivers an entertaining escape into visually appealing new worlds. It’s rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and some language.” While not going overboard, it does earn its PG-13 rating. The movie starts out with a traumatic scene of Quill’s mother dying, and there are numerous references by one of the characters about how he rescued Quill from getting eaten. There’s no sexual content, but a few innuendo comments. While there’s no gore, there is violence, and lots of it. Profanity is minimal for a PG-13 movie, but present.

If your child is okay with watching the new Star Trek movies, they probably would be fine with Guardians of the Galaxy. If not, I would say wait for the DVD.

Heidi Joelle is professional minion by day and a writer, editor, and reader by night. She can be coaxed from the house by the sound of a good adventure or the opportunity of traveling somewhere new. Her Saint Bernard, Smokey, and problem-solving cat, Diamond, bring extra joy to daily life.

comments powered by Disqus