I’ve always liked the first GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, but I’ve never been able to love it the way so many people online seem to. First, the stuff I like: The soundtrack is incredible, the jokes are pretty good, and — most importantly — the visuals are striking. While
most Marvel movies look “kind of ugly,” Guardians is colorful and inventive and really committed to the mission of being a different sort of movie from the preceding MCU flicks. That said, I have a hard time locating the characters that should be guiding us through this fantastic land because their motivations are so surface-level: Revenge, lust, greed, power, loneliness. The villain in particular, a wannabe-Space-Hitler named Ronan the Accuser, feels like a lesser Doctor Who villain-of-the-week, and never really coalesces into a believable threat. Also, special commendation to Dave Bautista as Drax, the absolute MVP of this movie. Every one of his line deliveries is gold.