Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is the best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back. Yes it’s even better than Return of the Jedi as well as the two JJ Abrams Star Wars masquerading as Star Trek movies, not to mention Revenge of the Sith (a perfectly competent action film, for what its worth). Sure, sure a lot of films pay homage/rip off Star Wars (or Independence Day, more on that later) but this movie just is Star Wars. We’ve got your Luke Skywalker (Starlord), your Leia (green lady), your Han “Rocket Raccoon” Solo, your Chewie (I am Groot), your crazy guy who doesn’t fit this analogy at all. The Emperor makes a cameo before he’s due to return in 2 Avengers 2 Furious and Samurai Darth Vader is your big baddy; who sort of casually does a little to create an aura of intimidation.

I highly doubt the new Star Wars movie will surpass this one for overall quality, given that they have to have dozens of cameos and it’s the good but never great Abrams directing. This film is funny, well paced, and has an extremely diverse set of action sequences featuring all sorts of different, beautiful environments. There’s Mos Eisley, a Super Star Destroyer, the Millennium Falcon, Coruscant, and a prison sequence which very loosely fits the Star Wars theme. It’s not quite as funny as Iron Man 3, that glorious comedy of comedies; but it’s certainly much better as a super hero/sci fi movie and surpasses all other films except the magnificent Edge of Tomorrow thus far this year.

While the comedy in this is good it sort of just has the first Pirates film appeal, which is perfectly fine and popcorn worthy but not extremely dark like Edge of Tomorrow’s infinite death sequences.  There’s some odd “maturity” as it were to Edge of Tomorrow that this film doesn’t have and doesn’t need; but that’s still enough to propel the other forward, alongside some phenomenal thoughtfulness in the other film which is sort of lacking here, though not entirely. Space Racism is handled in a reasonably un PC fashion in the film which is rather amusing. Note: if you’re really into space racism you should definitely check out Defiance, a fabulous show.

Wait, wait one second, you thought cities were safe, you thought one summer action film wouldn’t mercilessly destroy millions of innocent civilians abodes? You thought wrong! Bahahahaha, that’s right, Independence Day reigns supreme once again as yet another city falls to the might of American Cinema, joining the aforementioned Edge of Tomorrow, Godzilla (which does get a pass), X Men, Captain America, Transformers, and undoubtedly every other major action film since the dawn of 2010. While previous years may have tried it looks like 2014 is going to be a strong contender for the most mass city destruction of all time. ALL TIME! Okay, old joke but it fits the humor chain of more or less every joke in the awesome film.