Guardians of the Galaxy - 4 smiles

“Guardians of the Galaxy,” much like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more recently, Galaxy Quest, is an irreverent mix of mismatched characters, heavy-handed baddies, huge battle sequences and sharp one-liners. All this movie wants to do is have fun and invites you to come along for the ride. The narrative centers on Peter Quill (aka Star Lord), played by Chris Pratt, who is handsome enough to pull off the hero thing with the comic chops to handle the humor. When Quill was a little boy on Earth, a spaceship beamed him aboard just after his mother dies.  He has with him his Sony Walkman, which provides the wonderfully out-of-time soundtrack for the movie. Twenty years later, Quill is a space scavenger. When he comes upon the magical silver orb (one that, naturally, everyone wants), he suddenly finds himself the center of a lot of attention, which comes from two scoundrels, the tree-like Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) and his partner Rocket, a machine-gun toting hyper-intelligent raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper). They are soon joined by the green-skinned Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a trained assassin send by the evil Ronan (Lee Pace), to steal the orb. When this group ends up in jail, they meet the hulking Drax (Dave Bautista), who has sworn to kill Ronan, but opts instead to kill Gamora until she explains that she was set to betray Ronan. At which point the gang begins to meld into the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Groot and Rocket Raccoon are the instant attractions, doing a type of Mutt and Jeff routine that manages to be both comical and sincere at the same time. And the CGI makes them fit easily into the story. Everyone talks to a raccoon and a tree-like humanoid, right? Pratt is the surprise, however. He plays a rather chubby character in Parks and Recreation, but with the loss of 40 pounds, he slips easily into an action hero reminiscent of Han Solo or Indiana Jones. One of the reasons this franchise feels so fresh is that the Marvel Comics on which the story is based is not well known and director and co-writer James Gunn strikes a skillful balance between dark humor and action. There’s plenty of heart in “Guardians of the Galaxy” and after seeing it, you’ll want to get in line and see it again. Well, I did. 8/3/2014