Review: It’s a solid A-. It’s about as unsucky as Disney can get but it still sucks… because everything Hollywood excretes on the screen sucks lately. This movie, shitty as it is, is about the best you can do.
Details: It doesn’t completely insult your intelligence. Also what the hell else are you doing with your time; reading Elizabethan tragedy? attending Opera? Feeding the poor? Further, it’s a Disney product so resistance is futile. Just suck it up dollar donor. Even if they made a six hour movie about jock itch in marsupials us lemmings would pay for it. If there’s a kid in your house between the ages of 12 and 36, you’re going to watch it and if the kid has a Y chromosome (that’s a boy to those of you who live in Berkeley and are confused) you’ll watch it at least twice. You’ll also invariably buy a shitload of plastic merchandise that has Guardians’ logos lovingly applied by sweatshops flunkies in Bangladesh. Even if Mickey Mouse has to come to your house and hit you with a tire iron, you’re watching. Capiche? (See: Frozen. See also… every movie Disney has made for decades.)
Pros: I found a cool little theater where tickets were $5.50. This allowed the family to drag me away from my homestead without me wanting to kill anyone. Very quaint. I saw a young Mennonite couple holding hands (scandalous!) in the line to see the next showing. It was like a Norman Rockwell scene and the word “courting” came to mind. Who am I to complain that “courting” now includes watching blue female aliens swordfight?
Cons: It’s not Shakespeare. There are flaws which extend into different dimensions of space and time. There are plot holes through which you could drive a bus… sideways.
Pros: Everyone in the movie is armed and tries to kill everyone else. Loudly. Many things explode.
Cons: For the love of God would someone please cut the goddamn CGI budget and use it to hire people who can write a story?
Pros: I like Drax. I have renamed him Captain Literally. He should preside over congressional hearings.
Cons: Sylvester Stallone is still alive and for some reason (he needed money?) they put him in this movie.
Pros: They make fun of the planet of Sorority Bitches.
Cons: This is the big one and it’s hard to endure; it almost sinks the whole damn movie…. the “moral” is the usual knee jerk horseshit. As required by law, the entire climax is all about using “heart” over “mind“. This is why everyone you meet in a typical day is a dumbass. It’s fucking Disney’s fault! You know what happens in real life to people with lots of heart who go up against overwhelming odds? They get crushed like the whiny little shitheads they are. They’re too damn stupid to succeed. They get bent, folded, and spindled by superior competitors who are smart and strong. Their competitors dispensed with the “heart” bullshit and instead studied physics and got busy at the gym. This means they can and should crush the tiny little empty snowflake head of those who have heart. Ugh… it’s just too repetitive. I would just once like to watch a movie where they don’t insert, suppository style, shitty moralizing onto a juvenile two hour explosion fest. Also there’s the very real possibility that there are idiots out there who really buy into the “sing kumbaya and that will give me the power to nuke the living shit out of those who oppose me” morality that’s never ever far away from any Hollywood production. These people walk among us and when they’re done bringing down the national IQ we’ll be lucky if the power grid lasts long enough to heat my last cup of coffee before I jump in front of their autonomously driven Uber-car. It frustrates me… that’s all I’m sayin’.
Spoilers:
The movie begins when Captain Literally, played by Vladimir Putin, takes out Trigglypuff. Meanwhile the rest of the useless twits fire randomly and a puppy/cornstalk hybrid dances.
From there action progresses to the planet of the Sorority Bitches and their leader, played by Hillary Clinton’s ego:
Predictably, the team’s roguish space squirrel Rocket misbehaves. He raids the chicken coop, keys their Prius, and rips off a pack of Duracells. Which just goes to show; raccoons should be shot on sight.
This causes the snowflakes from the planet of Sorority Bitches to launch an attack of Twitterbots. These unmanned drones prove the Bitches have no stomach for a real fight against the mighty Firefly (pictured in center).
Meanwhile, for no reason whatsoever, a camera is pointed at Sylvester Stallone. Given that he’s cast as Judge Dredd, leader of the Space Ravagers, it’s difficult to understand why he’s dressed like Liberace.
Chris Pratt rips off his shirt for the six teenage girls in the audience. Beer gutted dads in the audience mutter about steroids while every MILF in creation pants heavily.
In a moment of comedy gold, sure to eclipse the Marx Brother’s timeless one liners from Duck Soup, Captain Literally comments on a recent bowel movement. He has estimated it weighs 108.6 courics, thus exceeding the accomplishments of both Randy Marsh and Bono.
Then, they go camping. Starlord meets a Space Hippie. Never trust a Space Hippie. In case you’ve been dropped on your head and can’t understand the symbolism, the Space Hippie is named Ego. He’s got epic God like powers and really excellent hair; but he’s still a goddamn hippie and his planet looks like a My Little Pony playset.
The Space Hippie has a sexbot named Mantis. She “helps him sleep”. Suuuuure.
Speaking of sexbots, the Blue Murderous Angry Chick and the Green Murderous Angry Chick do not have a freaky lesbian sex scene so quit hoping for it. This is Disney y’all. Though I’m sure someone is making one right now for their fan-fiction page.
Completely ignoring a perfectly good sexbot, the Green Murderous Angry Chick goes into heat while staring at lint on Starlord’s collar. Again, Disney… so don’t hope for it.
Meanwhile a space biker shows up with his magic arrow. He has prosthetic teeth that make him look like he’s got a wad of chew in there that’ll give cancer to an Ox.
Starlord shares his deepest insecurities, hoping for a moment of touching emotional connection. Captain Literally and Sexbot respond appropriately.
Then things blow up for about 45 minutes. About a zillion working class Ravagers get disemboweled while elitist Sorority Bitches don’t get a hair out of place… because there’s no bias in Hollywood. Also the Hippie God, who has powers beyond comprehension, uses his immense intellect to punch people in the face to get his way. This proves that Hollywood people understand both persuasion and battle tactics like lemurs understand particle physics.
Luckily, CGI computers overheat to render everything. That way the audience doesn’t have to use its atrophied imagination for even one second.
The surprise twist ending is that Yondu, the blue dude with the magic arrow, is actually the love child of Judge Dredd and Wez, from Road Warrior 2. See the resemblance? Uncanny! Clearly something weird happened in post-apocalyptic Australia.
Concerned fans, all six of them, along with 200 million of us who could enjoy a story with actual humans interacting without punching but won’t get that option, will invariably watch Guardians of the Galaxy 3… in which we find out how long Stallone will get paid for useless cameos.