With the sequel on release now [read our review here], Sean Wilson casts his mind back to summer 2014 when the original Marvel adventure became the true underdog champ of blockbuster movies…
A kindly tree-like creature named Groot illuminates a series of spores, imbuing his superhero misfit buddies with a profound sense of wonderment. Tyler Bates’ score soars off the back of a beautifully managed synthetic/choral arrangement. The integration of CGI with physical actors is exquisitely handled. And it’s official: Guardians of the Galaxy has, against all the odds, become one of my favourite Marvel movies of all time.
Like many great movies, it’s tempting to begin midway through the action. But let’s back up a bit.
It’s July 2014. I’m more than midway through what has been an extremely strong year for cinema encompassing, among others 12 Years a Slave, Under the Skin, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Raid 2, Calvary, Boyhood and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. But the biggest surprise of all is yet to come, a Marvel movie teased by a profoundly unappetising trailer that promised bantering interplay between, among other things, a talking, gun-toting racoon and a walking, humanoid tree.
Upon viewing Guardians of the Galaxy however, I was completely won over by this delightfully irreverent Marvel gem, one packing a massive beating heart beneath the razor-sharp jokes. By this stage the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) had already become famous for taking so-called ‘second tier’ characters like Iron Man and Captain America and spinning box office gold out of them. But this was surely their most unlikely candidate for success, although with the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to see why Guardians won over its many detractors.
The most obvious ingredient for success is the person who never appears on-screen: director James Gunn whose clear affinity with the freaks and geeks comprising the Guardians ensemble helps invest the movie with a palpable sense of warmth. Prior to his 2014 breakout hit he was a noted, if not exactly feted, cult filmmaker famous for splattery Troma movies, space slug chiller Slither and bizarro comic book oddity, Super. Yet it’s precisely Gunn’s quirky and idiosyncratic background that helps win the day: whereas many directors would surely have been overcome by the sheer weirdness of the Guardians script, Gunn turns it to his advantage, finding emphatic character beats in the likes of the genetically enhanced Rocket (voiced with winning bravado by Bradley Cooper) who hates the thought of people looking down upon him as a rodent.
The real A-lister in the making was of course the enormously likeable Chris Pratt, who until this point had been noted for small roles in the acclaimed (Zero Dark Thirty) and the reviled (the shudder-inducing Movie 43) whilst garnering a massive audience for his ongoing role in TV hit Parks & Rec. It’s fascinating to note that he originally turned down the role of blissfully chilled-out hero Peter Quill aka Star Lord, having been denied in so many auditions up to this point.
It’s to the movie’s everlasting benefit that Pratt was able to not only claim the role but put his uniquely idiosyncratic stamp upon it, wonderfully downplaying the comedy sequences whilst meshing perfectly with the wider ensemble both human (Zoe Saldana as the green-skinned Gamora; a spectacularly scene-stealing Dave Bautista as the irony-free Drax) and, well, non-human (the aforementioned Rocket, played via motion capture by Gunn’s brother Sean, and Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel). If ever a lead role was star-making, Star Lord was it, paving the way for further world-conquering Chris Pratt performances in the likes of Jurassic World.
Then there’s the soundtrack. Oh, the soundtrack. It’s all-too-easy for a movie to populate itself with glib pop hits in a bid to induce a cheap high (hello Suicide Squad) but Gunn resorts to no such measures, deploying an expertly crafted array of bubblegum classics that often play in joyous opposition to the eye-melting space vistas gorgeously lensed by DP Ben Davis. Nowhere is this better evidenced than in the glorious opening sequence, one that lays down both the wider tone of the movie and the unflappable nature of Star Lord’s character as he boogies his way across the creature-infested planet of Morag to Redbone’s ‘Come And Get Your Love’. It’s such a wonderful inversion of the usually portentous Marvel opening sequence, and one that practically has the audience feeding out of Gunn’s palm.
Further juxtapositions using David Bowie’s ‘Moonage Daydream’ (accompanying the jaw-dropping entrance into deceased Celestial skull Knowhere) and The Jackson Five’s ‘I Want You Back’ (Baby Groot’s deliriously funny climactic dance) further put the awesome into what came to be known as Awesome Mix Vol. 1. It’s a soundtrack not only designed to induce euphoria but which also carries significant emotional ramifications for Star Lord, and his relationship with his deceased mother. When it comes to using pop music as a narrative device, Guardians has few modern equals.
In the end however the movie’s strongest presence is the one who says the least. Amidst a wickedly entertaining onslaught of oddballs and villains, the peaceful, loveable Groot encapsulates the utterly winning spirit of Gunn’s movie, less a walking tree than an embodiment of all that is great and glorious about blockbuster cinema. Funnily enough, for an actor who is often a bit of a non-entity in his live-action roles Vin Diesel packs more pathos and conviction into the infamous words ‘I am Groot’ than many could manage with a long-winded monologue. In the end, it’s Groot’s clear-sighted morality, personality and decency that resonate the most, a reflection of what is one of the warmest and most likeable Marvel movies to date.
Guardians Vol. 2 is on general release now. But if it packs even one iota of the freshness or surprise of the original, I for one will be very impressed.
Sean Wilson is a journalist, nerd and soundtrack fan and can be found on Twitter here.
Originally published April 28, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
