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Galaxy Jest

If you find yourself wondering in the coming days why everyone's suddenly walking around humming 70s pop tunes and intoning, "I am Groot!", it likely means that you haven't seen "Guardians of the Galaxy" yet - and you should.  Terms like "cinematic rollercoaster ride" and "great summer fun" are probably being overused by every reviewer who takes a crack at describing "Guardians", but that's just because those words are truly a fit for this surprisingly breezy sci-fi action flick.  It's the latest offering from Marvel Studios, and it's the lightest thing we've seen from them in some time - in fact, maybe ever.

"Guardians" lays out the MacGuffin-y tale of Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), aka "Starlord"- he's fighting a losing battle trying to make the moniker stick, and the film gets a couple of laughs out of his frustration there.  We learn a little about this footloose adventurer, petty criminal, and ladies man via a childhood flashback that opens the movie, so viewers will understand early on why Quill carries a beatup walkman and is passionate about 70s music.  When we meet up with Quill as an adult he's about to acquire a mysterious and clearly dangerous silver orb on behalf of a black market buyer, and he's cutting his longtime business partner/father figure Yondu (Michael Rooker, continuing to mine the "tough redneck with a sweet side" vein that made him such a favorite on "The Walking Dead") out of the picture.

This orb, when cracked open, turns out to contain a stone that - oh, but it doesn't really matter.  What matters is that in the course of this outing Quill runs afoul of steely green-skinned assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), bounty-hunting raccoon Rocket (Bradley Cooper, voice) and his walking tree sidekick Groot (Vin Diesel, voice), and Drax (Dave Bautista), a towering hulk of an alien who's on a quest for vengeance.  This unlikely crew starts out at wildly at odds, with a four-way tussle in a public square as Quill tries to defend the orb against Gamora, who wants it for her own purposes.  At the same time, he's defending himself against Rocket and Groot who want to turn him over in exchange for a lucrative bounty set by Yondu.  Shipped off to prison post-fight, the quad meets up with Drax and the group of now-five forms an uneasy coalition based on tenuouly aligned goals.  Basically, everyone's in agreement that they have to stop main baddie Ronan (Lee Pace), a meglomaniacal religious fanatic out to obliterate a culture that he sees as "nonbelievers" and needs the orb to do it.

Chris Pratt sets the tone for "Guardians", and announces himself as star in the process, in an early sequence where he dances his way across a grungy space cavern in search of the mysterious orb.  Backed by the strains of 70s pop tune "Come and Get Your Love" and played without a hint of irony, the scene is a gem.  In fact, it's that aforementioned lack of irony that makes "Guardians" work so well.  Slick without being cynical, it's a post-modern mashup that's just as concerned with heart and substance as it is with storytelling and structure.  But being irony-free doesn't mean the film is overly-earnest: Bradley Cooper voices Rocket, the raccoon bounty-hunter, with a sarcastic bravado that provides a punchy counterpoint to the gravely literal-minded Drax.  Quill is heroic, but he's not above putting the cheesy moves on Gamora, even though she sees right through him.  And the introduction of Mr. Pace's Ronan, where he dons ceremonial makeup and conducts a grisly execution based on his outsized religious fervor, is genuinely creepy.

There may be a contemporary political metaphor to be unearthed here, but a masters-level interpretation of the "Guardians" plot isn't necessary.  Viewers can easily ride the momentum of the storytelling, even when they're faced with an ever-growing collection of single-word  character names that all seem to include one too many consonants, or asked to keep track of who's out to maim/capture/kill/outwit/humiliate/seduce/slaughter who, in which oddly-named location, for whatever "ok, that makes sense" reason.

That's not to say that the story ever feels out of control.  It doesn't - and in a film with this much going on, that's some kind of a miracle.  Director James Gunn moves everything along at a tidy pace, conveying enough information to give scenes context and allow for fun and revealing character interplay without weighing things down.  Of course, it helps that Mr. Gunn is working from a screenplay that he co-wrote.  And he's clearly got a love for the genre: "Guardians" is packed so full of sci-fi adventure tropes that it could be destined for a drinking game all its own, but it's never predictible.  Half the fun of watching the film is to see which of these tropes will be upended and how, versus which will play out and provide the audience with the satisfying beats they've come to expect in a big summer blockbuster.  And lines that may appear to be sentimental or comedic throwaways (watch for a seemingly-offhand Kevin Bacon namecheck partway through) pay off in unexpected ways, or are revealed as subtle setups for future storylines.

Overall, "Guardians" is just plain fun, and it's got tons of heart.  Audiences are bound to fall for these characters, particularly Groot, who's animated with a sentience and sensitivity that you'd never expect from a tree, and voiced wonderfully by Vin Diesel, who gets unexpected mileage out of his character's three-word vocabulary.  And the film's soundtrack is likely to stand as the most unexpected use of decontextualized 70s pop music since "Reservoir Dogs".  In fact, both films share one track in common, and after hearing it in "Guardians" you won't be able to get it out of your mind.  So, how many of you downloaded "Hooked on a Feeling" from iTunes this weekend?  Yep, thought so.