Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014 film) - 10th anniversary retrospective and mini-review

 

WARNING: Spoilers for this movie abound! If you have not watched the movie or plan not to, don't read this post. You have been warned!

Just a decade ago, Marvel Studios, riding high off of the success of the first-ever superhero team-up movie of its kind, The Avengers, set off to bring more of its comic book properties to the big screen and in live-action. One of them was Guardians of The Galaxy.

The 10th film in the MCU and 4th installment in Phase 2 of The Infinity Saga, Guardians of The Galaxy was co-written and directed by James Gunn, and stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Glenn Close, Lee Pace, and John C. Reilly, to name a few. It was released in theaters in August 2014. 

At first, the movie was a major pre-release gamble. A group of C-list characters even by comic book standards? A talking raccoon and a giant tree that also talks? WHUT - it's going to be a BIG FAT FLOP!

The pundits the world over cried out the movie's potential fate. It was to be the MCU's first bona-fide box office flop, derailing Marvel Studio's stellar track record of hits. It wasn't going to reach Avengers-level box office numbers. It was going to be the next Green Lantern, the next John Carter, or even the next Batman and Robin. 

But, upon release - the whole box office doom prospects...never happened.

Instead, GOTG overcame all odds and became yet another critical and financial hit for Disney/Marvel. Garnering a glowing 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and making enough money to secure its place as the third highest-grossing movie of 2014 and the highest-grossing widest August theatrical release, the movie managed to make a group of oddball comic book characters who were once considered obscure into major players who are now known and loved. 

We begin the movie on Earth in the year 1988, where we see a young Peter Quill (Wyatt Oleff) waiting out in a hospital room and listening to his Walkman when his grandfather (Gregg Henry) comes in, and tells him to join the others in a patient room of the hospital. There, he and the others witness Peter's mother, Meredith (Laura Haddock), who is in her final moments of her life and very sick with cancer. Meredith tells Peter to take her hand, and Peter outright refuses out of fear of harming her. And then, the monitor flatlines, and Meredith doesn't make it. She dies from the cancer that plagued her. Peter, becoming very distraught, cries and wails for his mother as he is sent out of her room and immediately runs out of the hospital, where he gets abducted by the Ravagers and is sent into Space.

Flash forward to 26 years later, and we now see a grown-up Peter (Pratt), AKA Star-Lord, dancing around on Morag, and then we see him go into an abandoned temple that houses a mysterious orb. He grabs the orb, and is then suddenly cornered by Korath (Djimon Hounsou), who is serving under the movie's big bad, Ronan (Pace). He manages to flee Morag and Korath, with the orb in tow, and goes back on his spaceship to traverse the galaxy. Star-Lord had grown bitter and angry at the Ravagers, led by Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker), for abducting him and ruining his youth. As a result, in spite of being a member, he goes on the run from the Ravager clan.

Meanwhile, Ronan, who is in service of Thanos (voiced by Josh Brolin), learns of the orb, as he wants it to exchange it to the Mad Titan so that he can help lay waste to the planet Xandar, which he had developed a hatred for because the Nova Corps signed a peace treaty. So, he sends one of his female enforcers - Gamora (Saldana), to go to said planet to help retrieve the orb and deliver it back to the Mad Titan, while Nebula (Karen Gillian) stays behind with her master.    

Star-Lord arrives on Xandar, where Rocket Raccoon (Cooper), a raccoon outfitted with cybernetic prosthetics, and his best friend Groot (Diesel), a tree-based life form, are out checking out the planet. Gamora had also arrived on the planet, and she wants the orb. Rocket and Groot also want the orb, but they want to sell it for a healthy amount of money.    

Like The Avengers before them, the Guardians, when they first meet, don't know each other, and are at each other's throats, all of them driven by their inner flaws instead of selflessness, with the exception of Groot. Star-Lord, Groot, Rocket and Gamora all fight for the orb, and in the process, ultimately get arrested and transported to the Kyln by the Nova Corps, led by Irani Rael (Close), with lower-ranking members Dey (Reilly) and Denarian Garthan Saal (Peter Serafinowitcz) as their comrades.

While at the Kyln, the four Guardians run into Drax the Destroyer (Bautista), who had his home, his wife and his child stolen by the forces of Thanos and Ronan. His home planet was laid waste to, and his wife and father were all killed by the two baddies. As a result, he is seeking revenge towards Ronan for his callousness. The Guardians are forced to work together to break out of the Kyln. However, they are not tight-knit friends yet. They are still controlled by their inner flaws, and as such, are still fighting each other.    

Like The Avengers before them, the Guardians' inability to trust each other and their constant fighting with each other ultimately leads to devastating consequences that put the entire setting in grave danger. The Guardians set off to Knowhere, where they meet up with the Collector, Tanleer Tivan (Benicio del Toro) and her assistant, Carina (Ophelia Lovibond), who examine the orb, and uncover an Infinity Stone inside it. The Collector tells that the Infinity Stone has the power to kill any ordinary mortals, and the ability to destroy planets with its immense power. Even after they know what was inside the orb, the Guardians, still selfish even after teaming up, want to sell it for an incredible amount of dough. Drax, who called Ronan to Knowhere in order to get his revenge on him, ultimately summons trouble, which results in an intense fight that ends poorly for the Guardians - with Gamora left out to die in the coldness of space, Ronan defeating Drax easily and leaving him to perish in a vat of fluid, and him succeeding in gaining the orb and the Infinity stone along with it, subsequently backstabbing Thanos in the process and leaving to destroy Xandar to succeed in his main goals.

Now, it's up to the Guardians to set aside their differences and work together with the Ravagers and the Nova Corps to stop the mess that their mistrust towards each other started - only doing so after they shed their inner flaws and fight them off. Star-Lord gives the Guardians a moving speech about them losing everything they held dear due to Ronan, and that their loss cannot keep them holding back from their goals forever. Gamora, Rocket, Drax and Groot all elect to go along with Star-Lord, and they make a truce to the Ravagers to help save Xandar from the wrath of Ronan, ultimately creating a plan in the process. The Guardians then contact the Nova Corps and tell them to get ready for Ronan's arrival. The Nova Corps ultimately turn their hearts around and trust the Guardians. 

The Ravagers and the Guardians all head to Xandar, where Ronan, in his warship, the Dark Aster, are headed alongside his army, Korath, and Nebula. The Guardians infiltrate the Dark Aster, while Yondu deals with Ronan's Army, and the Nova Corps help evacuate the civilians and protect them from Ronan's attack. The Guardians manage to knock out some of Ronan's army and Korath on the Dark Aster, but Nebula flees after Gamora pleads with her to help stop Ronan. The battle, however, suddenly turns dire as Ronan uses the Infinity Stone's power to enact a massacre on the majority of the Nova Corps - including Saal. The Guardians once again lose to Ronan as he defeats them all, with Ronan even picking up Drax by the throat with the intent to murder him, only to be stopped by Rocket crashing his mini spaceship into the Accuser, seemingly incapacitating him.       

As the Dark Aster is heavily damaged, it loses power and ultimately starts making landfall towards Xandar. Groot, in perhaps what is arguably the saddest scene in the entire film (and this version of the character's only movie appearance, for extra sadness), protects the four remaining Guardians by growing a cocoon out of his body. Rocket becomes deeply upset and begs him to not do so. Groot, however, doesn't listen, and says "We are Groot."

The Dark Aster crash-lands on Xandar, and while Star-Lord, Drax, Gamora and Rocket all survive, Groot does not. However, it's the tree-beast that ultimately was responsible for the Guardians going from selfish misfits who only care about themselves to being the saviors of space. Groot kept the heroes in check, serving as the heart of the team, and 

as the emotional caretaker of the team. His selfless act of protecting the Guardians from perishing in the Dark Aster's crash-landing. This allows the four other Guardians to thrive, and it pushes all of them to save Star-Lord and themselves from being disintegrated by the Infinity stone's power when he is wielding it, with Gamora's appeal to take her hand allowing Star-Lord to do so, doing the one thing he couldn't do when he was a child on Earth in 1988: taking the hand of someone else in need. After defeating Ronan and making his efforts end in failure, the Guardians are praised by the Nova Corps, who are grateful for their efforts in saving their home planet, ultimately wipe clean their criminal records and repair the Milano for them, and the Guardians - plus a newly born Groot planted by Rocket - all leave Xandar in the Milano for more galaxy-saving outings, hailed and praised as heroes, while the Collector sits in his wrecked collection room, mocked by Howard the Duck.  

The first Guardians of The Galaxy movie is about five completely different individuals who initially didn't care about each other all coming together for a much bigger purpose. The ragtag bunch of losers, as what Star-Lord called them, each with their own flaws, all uniting as one to safeguard a universe that they live in from a maniacal psychopath and the Mad Titan. First fighting with each other, then realizing that their distrust towards each other resulted in a horrendous mistake, and the same individuals all uniting together as one to fix things and save the universe from disaster. The first two times the individuals battled with others, they ended poorly. The climatic third one, though, was fatalistic: A test to see that the individuals would prove their worth as heroes and be defenders of the galaxy. By working together to stop Ronan and save Xandar from complete destruction, all of the guardians - like The Avengers before them - were able to become friends and change significantly, for the better.

GOTG is an absolute delight, deftly blending humor and action, getting emotional when it needs to be, and set to a collection of oldies-but-goodies music hits from the 1960s, 1970s and the 1980s. It also has impressive character development and a decent story. It's one of the most well-written MCU movies ever, and its success helped launch a sub-franchise within the MCU mega-franchise - consisting of two sequels, an animated TV show, a video game, several rides at Disney Theme Parks, a Disney+ Holiday Special, and the Guardians themselves getting appearances in the Infinity Saga 2-part closing chapters Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and even making an appearance in Thor: Love and Thunder. It also helped spawn several films trying to recapture its success - David Ayer's Suicide Squad, the 3rd film in the DCEU, and the Borderlands movie - both with the same premise of a ragtag band of heroic misfits who have to work together as one to save the day and set to a soundtrack full of oldies' hit songs - but with less-than-stellar results. 

In the end, the first Guardians of The Galaxy movie's success was a major underdog story for both Disney and Marvel. It proves that Marvel could do no wrong, and it's incredible, coming off the heels of the first Avengers movie released two years prior. Having watched it alongside the first Avengers as a Blu-ray double feature, it is, like the former film, a MCU goodie that still holds up even years after its original release. And, like the former film I mentioned, it also reminded me of Transformers: Rise of The Beasts, which follows a identical story structure: Outsiders who have never made contact with each other start off disliking each other and having mistrust towards each other, which leads to a disastrous ending of the film's second act, then they learn that their animosity towards each other led to a grave mistake, the heroes then set aside their differences to defeat the baddie and save the world that they live in, one character makes a sacrifice to protect their loved one(s), then gets revived later on, the bad guy is defeated and his evil plan is stopped, the individuals are now close friends towards each other and have changed into different and better individuals because of their role in saving the setting that they are in, and the world is protected from evil - albeit with some differences.   

Guardians Of The Galaxy is a rip-roaring good time - with instantly likable characters with obstacles that they have to overcome, flippant and weird, has humor and is full of heart, and visually stunning. It secures its place as the best-reviewed movie of Phase 2 of the MCU's Infinity Saga, and is enjoyable no matter how you watch it - whenever its once or the billionth time. It shows that heroes are best and stronger together when they stand united, and succeed only when they have a clear goal, a plan, and a common enemy to go up against. Lightning did indeed strike twice for Marvel Studios when they did another team-up movie to follow on the critical and commercial success of the first Avengers movie two years ago. It made a group of previously C-list superheroes in the Marvel Universe into bonafide A-listers, and proves that comic book movies don't have to be dark, edgy, and humorless most of the time. If you're a junkie of comic book movies or want to have a great time, I wholeheartedly recommend this film.