Guardians of the Galaxy is the 10th feature film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the ambitious multi-phase shared movie and TV continuity that includes the Avengers and their associates. This project has been wildly successful and mostly of consistently high quality. There hasn't really been a "bad" Marvel movie and even the most flawed of the movies are solidly entertaining. So it has become fashionable for people to predict which upcoming Marvel movie will be the company's first flop. First, the WWII period movie, Captain America was going to be a flop. Then the weird cosmic Thor was going to be a failure. Neither of those did.
Ten films in, it's hard to argue that Marvel doesn't take risks. The whole crazy concept of interconnected superhero movies was a risk and something that had never been done before. Films based on second and third tier superheroes was also a risk. Making bold stylistic choices within the superhero genre is also risky such as bringing Kenneth Branaugh on to Thor to make it a classically tinged tale of family power struggles or bringing Shane Black onto Iron Man 3 to make it an 80's style action movie with noir detective elements.
The Guardians of the Galaxy was predicted to be a risky endeavor for Marvel since it is a big-budget space opera with characters who are not widely known outside the comic shop and have little to do with the Earthbound Avengers action (yet.) Also, two of the main characters are a talking raccoon and an ambulatory tree. But this past weekend, the movie opened to rave reviews and a record-breaking opening weekend. So now people can move their concern (justifiable this time) on to the upcoming Ant-Man.
Guardians is a lot of fun and is one of the warmest and most enjoyably idiosyncratic blockbusters to come out in a long time. It's collection of flawed "looser" characters are treated with great humor and affection. It is a profoundly entertaining movie that in some ways is a throwback to the best Spielberg and Lucas movies from the 1980's. It is not unreasonable to compare it to the original Star Wars, another profoundly fun and imaginative space adventure. It's a good deal more like the original Star Wars movie than any of its dark, plotty prequels.
Much of the credit for the movie's success rests in the director and co-writer James Gunn, who helmed some very quirky indie genre movies like Super and Slither. Guardians is very much infused with his unique voice and point-of-view. This is not one of those blockbusters that was directed by committee and it seems like Gunn was given free reign to make the movie his own, even when it means that the film doesn't necessarily feel like any of the previous Marvel movies. In fact, one could say that it is refreshingly unconnected to stories told in the other movies. The fact that it takes place out in space frees it from having to connect to a bunch of other movies. Although, I'm sure the Guardians and Avengers will be meeting up at some point, I'm in no rush for this to happen. I like that it is its own thing.
In a way, Guardians of the Galaxy is a bit edgy. That's not to say that it goes out of its way to be dark or attempts to be "cool" but it is edgy in the sense that it's characters flirt with being unlikeable at times (They are variously referred to as "a-holes" throughout the movie) and some of its humor is a bit sharper and weirder than your typical Marvel movie. It's a PG-13 movie but you get the impression that any of the characters could yell out "Fuck!" at any given moment. This is a movie that opens with the protagonist's mother dying of cancer and then veers into a sequence of him dancing to pop music on a bleak alien planet, alternately kicking rat-like creatures and singing into their screaming faces. But it all works, somehow.
I find this idea of authorship in the Marvel movies very interesting in light of the whole Edgar Wright departure from Ant-Man which created a kind of narrative that Marvel domineers or doesn't allow freedom for its directors. I don't have any special knowledge of their process but based on the movies that the company has released so far, Marvel really allows their directors a good amount of freedom to shape their movies. Certainly, Iron Man is a unique combination of the visions of both its star and its director, Jon Favreau. Joe Johnston certainly put his stamp on Captain America. Shane Black absolutely shaped Iron Man 3 to his particular style and interests. The Russo brothers seem to have been given a great amount of authorial control over the Captain America sequels. Guardians might just be the ultimate Marvel auteur movie
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