Guardians of the Galaxy

It was decided that $10 to see the highly regarded Guardians of the Galaxy. The film is loaded with known actors, but few "stars", which I really like. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista (he's decent in this one), the voices of Vin Diesel & Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, and Benicio Del Toro (Small doses of the last 3) round out the quality cast. The film does an excellent job of creating the story & creation of the team (which I knew nothing about). It starts SOOO depressing that I thought for a bit I was in the wrong movie. It then quickly picks up into the action/adventure tale it wants to be. It moves fast, has some funny stuff, but it gets REALLY heavy on the overdramatic/self-sacrificial stuff. It gets over-the-top and goes even over-the-topper on the "friendship" stuff. Maybe I'm just mean and cynical, but I found it to be a bit much. I liked the movie a lot still, I just know it could have done without SO much of the dramatic stuff. I was impressed by Dave Bautista actually being in character on this one and I didn't think he was capable of anything besides breaking stuff and looking huge. Bottom Line: 8.3 out of 10. Certainly not a necessity to see this one in theatres, but it's your typical big budget, Summer action movie. It just lacks Will Smith, the Summer movie God.