Guardians of the Galaxy

This movie, oh man, this movie was a bit different than I was expecting, which I think was a good thing. In all honesty, I didn't know what to expect from this movie, but it did things that were quite wonderful. It is probably for the best that Marvel had waited until the end of their 2nd phase of movies to release this movie, it is based on a comic, but I honestly had no previous knowledge of the characters, although I did recently get a copy of the first Rocket Raccoon, I just haven't read it yet.

This movie does something that none of the Marvel movies to date had done by including lots of music, and I thought the music was very well selected as well, a list of the tracks can be found here. The music is a lot of 70's pop music, and I think the combination would be something that my mom would really like getting and listening to. None of the other Marvel movies have more than maybe one of two songs within them, and there are 5-10 songs played in part during the movie. I thought the music and the reasons it was so prominent helped the story and motivation within the movie.

This movie has been called the funniest Marvel movie in ads, and also on Rotten Tomatoes I will say that this could not be more true! Other Marvel movies have had humor in them, but this movie really has humor through the entire movie. There are so many good laughs, even within the action and fight scenes. This movie has such a wonderful sense of humor, but just because it is funny doesn't mean this movie doesn't also have heart. There is some sadness in this movie, in fact there is sadness in the movie for each of the main characters, some more than others, but some of them have extremely tragic moments in the movie. I was close to crying in this movie a few different times, that is just something I would not have expected from the funniest movie in the Marvel world.

I must say that this movie should be a launching platform for James Gunn the director. He has already done 2 movies that I own and love, the Dawn of the Dead remake, and also the scifi horror movie Slither, but this will likely enable him to make other studio films, that is if he wants to. Marvel announced that there would be a second Guardians movie even before the first one was released, and the movie beat projections by more than $20 million, which is crazy from a lesser known comic.

This movie was just so much fun, there really isn't much wasted time, and the pacing is fast, but just the right speed to allow the brain to follow everything that was going on. All of the characters have their moments, and also all of the characters are funny in their own way. The movie is extremely well written, with lots of funny jokes, each of the characters have their own personality which is more than can be said for some other comic book movies.

I don't think that there is a weak link in this cast. The 5 main characters are all amazing. Vin Diesel as Groot is great even though he has a limited vocabulary. I wouldn't have known that Rocket was played by Bradley Cooper from the voice, but he did such a wonderful job in that role. Chris Pratt is well on his way to being a star with 2 awesome movies out this year, and he will also be the lead in Jurassic World coming out next summer. There are also many wonderful actors in smaller roles including academy award nominees Glenn Close, John C. Reilly, and Djimon Hounsou, as well as one winner in Benicio Del Toro. Also for all of the Whovians out there we have Karen Gillan is also in the movie, with lots of makeup and prosthetics.

The movie has some wonderful 80's references in it, and it also makes fun of it self at times, such as when something convenient happens to help advance the plot. They also make fun of the fact that Groot only says "I am Groot" which is wonderful when it happens in the movie.

Because there is already a sequel in the works, I have a strong feeling that a lot of the things introduced in this movie will come back in the sequel. There are some lines that hint at more, but there so many of them it is hard to know exactly which direction the series will go. There is also the possibility of a crossover as sometimes in the comics some other marvel characters fight alongside the Guardians.

One thing that sets this apart from the other Marvel Studios movies is that these characters are not really superheroes. They are more along the lines of a ragtag group of losers than superheroes. I really look forward to where the movies go in the future, and I will gladly pay money to see the next movie.

This year has been wonderful for movies for me, I will likely buy all of the movies I have seen today, and that says a lot because I don't buy many movies anymore. This movie was just so engaging and moved at a wonderful pace that it just flew by. I have seen it twice and will gladly go see it again. Because of all of these things I had to rank it first for the year, and it is hard to imagine a movie beating it, but we will see.
2014 Movie Rankings:
1. Guardians of the Galaxy
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. How To Train Your Dragon 2
4. 22 Jump Street
5. X-Men: Days of Future Past
6. The Lego Movie


Rankings of the Avengers Movies:
1. Guardians of the Galaxy
2. The Avengers
3. Iron Man
4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
5. Captain America
6. Iron Man 3
7. Thor
8. The Incredible Hulk
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Iron Man 2

The Lego Movie

Well it has been a week and a half since I have seen the movie, I normally give myself only a few days to ponder something, my life has been hectic the past week plus so I am just now getting around to writing about the movie.

I really wanted to start by talking about my limited expectations for the movie originally. January and February is usually the dumping ground for movies that did not live up to their expectations, so even though I love Lego, it was something I had limited expectations for at best. The movie however got an enormous boost in my mind because of its elevated rating on RottenTomatoes.com, when I saw the movie it was sitting around 97% positive reviews. I don't go by ratings, but they can definitely make me more interested in a movie that I was on the fence about.

The movie really was everything I thought it would be and much much more. It had great casting of its characters, great imagination behind it, great jokes, great writing, and great twists involved in it. The Lego universe has greatly expanded since I was a kid with all sorts of branded merchandise including Star Wars and DC Comics. A lot of the things I grew up with were generic imitations of these things. The movie has characters that I definitely remember playing with as a kid as well as all sorts of newer additions.

I have to say that Chris Pratt has been on a roll with his movies, starting with being in Moneyball, he was also in Her (my favorite movie of 2013), and was now the leading role in The Lego Movie. I am also really looking forward to seeing him in The Guardians of the Galaxy this summer, which has a ridiculous cast in it!

This movie is honestly for anyone who like Lego or pop culture, its full of references, it has so many jokes, sometimes too many because the laughter has not yet subsided from the last joke, I am sure I missed a joke or two. I am an easy one to make laugh, but I still found this movie's jokes creative.

They honestly did a good job of creating a universe in this movie, as well as explaining how the universe works. The movie pays homage to all sorts of different generations of Lego builders and it even has some deeper cuts including numbers for certain parts that only the most in depth collectors would even get reference to.

I will be very honest and admit that I didn't think The Lego Movie would have a complex plot, but boy was I ever wrong. I did not see a lot of the different things and creative turns coming. My advice is that if you have somehow not seen the movie and still want to, do not read anything about it, I would hate it if any parts of the movie were spoiled for someone, because I really enjoyed some of the different reveals and twists in the movie.

I think that my favorite cameo in the movie would have to be Billy Dee Williams making a quick appearance in the movie as Lando himself. I mentioned liking the casting, and I really mean that, all the way down to the role that Jonah Hill plays in the movie. I could go down the entire cast list stating that everyone did a good job in the movie, but I won't do that. I just wanted to point out both Billy Dee Williams and Jonah Hill in the movie. Also what the movie did with Batman was quite amusing.

Well this is the first and only movie that I have seen so far in 2014, so of course it stands alone at #1:

1. The Lego Movie