Guardians of the Galaxy

If you are a friend or relative who enjoyed watching Guardians of the Galaxy, please read no further; I value my relationship with you too much to upset you with my rant.

When I watched the trailer for Guardians, I said to myself: “This looks like one incredibly stupid movie, which I will be happy to miss.” But the critics really liked it and the masses downright loved it, making it easily the biggest blockbuster of the year so far. So I figured I’d better watch it before I condemned it. Big mistake! I went in with low expectations, but they were nowhere near low enough for this unbelievably stupid mess of a film.

Let me be clear that while the abundant amount of action and redemptive violence alone would be enough to limit my appreciation of the film, these are not at issue here. What is at issue is the critical acclaim for the film’s humour, acting and characters. I do believe I have a sense of humour (I think Airplane is hilarious), but apparently my sense of humour is immune to most comedies made this century. Not only did I not laugh even once during Guardians, I never even smiled. And I thought Zoe Saldana’s acting was okay, making her the best actor in the film. 

But I have rarely in my life seen such an inept screenplay get such acclaim (I guess The Hangover films would come close). The dialogue was awful from word one until almost the very end of the film. Did the slightly redeeming dialogue and character development at the very end of the film cause viewers/critics to forget the inane mess that had gone before? I guess it’s possible. But the story of five enemies who become friends and are willing to sacrifice their lives to save the universe, while promising in principle, didn’t work for me even a little bit (I’d go into details about how the bad acting, dialogue and characters insulted me in scene after scene, but I have wasted enough time on this film already). 

I also found nothing to like in the cinematography, special effects and score. Guardians of the Galaxy was, for me, an incredible infuriating bore. Time and again I almost walked out, wondering how much of this nonsense I could take. I’m glad I stayed, because there were a few almost-worthwhile moments at the end, but they were much too little much too late. I might have given Guardians a star for those moments if it wasn’t for the acclaim and popularity, which deserve to be redressed. The big zero for one of the worst films I have watched in a very long time. My mug is down!