Guardians of the Galaxy is different to any other Marvel product to come out of the MCU. They took a gamble with this movie but it paid off in abig way.

The movie begins with a shot of a young boy in 1988 listening to a cassette of 10 cc's You're Not in Love. It turns out the boy is about to witness his mother pass away which sets up the character of Peter Quill. The distrauught boy leaves the hospital only to be abducted by an alien ship. Skip forward some time and we find a masked man dancing through an ancient ruin to Redbones Come and get your love. The scene is very much welcome after the tragic intro and lifts to mood fantastically. It transpires that the masked man is Peter Quill - the young boy from the movies introduction. Also known as Star Lord Quill finds the artifact he was looking for, a mysterious ord that appears to have magical powers. However, it transpires that he is not alone in his pursuit of the orb and a group of men chase Quill off the planet. We find that the men were working for a Kree warrior known as Ronan. Recently awoken from a mighty slumber, he wakes to continue an ancient war with a race known as the Xandarian's. Quill escapes Ronan's henchmen only to be contacted by his father figure Yondu. Yondu and Quill are part of a group known as the Ravegers who are an interstellar group of thieves, smugglers and pirates. Yondu is angered that Peter took the orb without the group in pursuit of individual riches.

Quill travels to the Xandarian planet in a bid to sell he orb to a local dealer in artifacts. The dealer refuses learning that the ruthless war criminal known as Ronan is also looking for the orb. Unable to offload the artifact Peter leaves only to find that Yondu has put a bounty on Quill for 40k. Enter bounty hunter opportunists Rocket and Groot. Rocket is a Racoon like creature we learn is a product of experimentation on lower lifeforms. Rocket is a foul mouthed funny little creature and is arguably the most interesting character in the movie. His loyal friend and ally Groot (a walking tree) can only communicate using three words 'I am Groot' exclusively in that order. Rocket and Groot attempt to capture Quill for the prize but are not alone. We learn that a green character, known as Gamora also wants to the orb. Interestingly Gamora is the daughter of Thanos, the badass who keeps popping up in the MCU and is looking for the infininty stones. In the pursuit of Quill allthree are captured and taken to a prison. Learning the value of the orb Rockect, Groot, Gamora and an inmate known as Drax help Quill escape. Upon escaping they travel to a man known as the Collector, a scene which ends in an explosion and ruin of the Collectors home and ultimately leads to Ronan acquiring the orb.  

Learning that Ronan is working for Thanos and that he intends to exterminate the Xandarian planet the titular characters are made to choose between profit and heroism. Reluctantly they choose the latter and opt to protect the planet from Ronan and the orb, now in Ronan's possession. This ends in the Guardians travelling back to the Xandarian planet to protect the civilisation from extinction. Ronan, now arriving at the planet attempts to get to the surface to finalise his plans only to find the Guardians and the Nova Corps (an intergalactic police force) are in his way. The final battle is grand in scale and the climax is possible the funniest scene in the whole movie.

There is so much going on in Guardians of the Galaxy that you really need to watch is a couple of times to put a finger on all of the character interactions and their motivations. Not that it is particularly complicated, it just has so much going on behind the scenes. The most interesting thing about it is how well director James Gunn managed to breath life into the purely CGI characters. Rocket and Groot could have been an epic fail but the voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, couple with the excellent CGI and script really get us interested in their motivations. Chris Pratt really kicked off his career as a franchise man here and is used to great comedic effect. His upcoming role in Jurassic World is sure to be a hit off the back of the enormous success of Guardians.

GOTG is of course part of the MCU but somehow feels like it's own thing. No doubt the excellent cast will some day form part of the Earth bound Avengers. It will be a pleasure to watch Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel and Dave Bautista bringing the GOTG vibe to Earth. We can only hope. Let's see what happens in the next Guardians movie due to come out in 2017.

MMM score 8.5