Staring – Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper
This is a Marvel film comedy which does not feature any of the Avengers team.
On Earth in 1988, a child called Peter Quill is listening to “Awesome Mix Tape no. 1” on his Walkman. He is called in to say goodbye to his dying mum. She give him a present and tells him that his dad was an angel and Peter is just like him. She asks him to take her hand but he is too scared and she dies. Peter runs outside and is immediately abducted by a group of space pirates led by Yondu Udonta.
26 years later on the planet Morag, Peter Quill (aka Starlord) is looking for an Orb and listening to his Awesome Mix Tape no. 1. He finds the Orb but is then found by Korath and his henchmen who work for the fanatical Kree Ronan. After a shootout, Peter makes it to his ship, the Milano, and escapes.
His partner/mentor Yondu calls and tells Peter to give him the Orb. Peter decides he’s going to sell it on his own. Yondu offers a bounty for his capture and Ronan send his assassin Gamora to retrieve the orb.
Quill tries to sell the orb on the Nova Empire capital world Xandar but Gamora ambushes him and steels the orb. Peter fights back and they are joined by a couple of bounty hunters a talking racoon called Rocket and a walking tree called Groot.
The Nova Corps arrive and arrest all 4 of them and they are imprisoned in the Kyln. In there a powerful inmate Drax tried to kill Gamora as Ronan killed his family and she worked for him. Quill convinces Drax that it would be better for Gamora to bring Ronan to him so he can kill him directly. Gamora reveals that she has betrayed Ronan and knows someone who wants to buy the orb and the 5 of them work together to escape from prison and escape on Quills ship the Milano and go to Knowhere a criminal outpost in space
Ronan then meets with Gamora’s adoptive father Thandos to discuss her betrayal. Drax gets drunk and contacts Ronan while the other meet Gamora’s contact, the collector Taneleer Tivan. Tivan opens the orb, revealing an Infinity Stone which has immeasurable power which destroys all but the most powerful beings who hold or use it. Tivan’s tormented assistant grabs the Stone, triggering an explosion that explodes Tivan’s archive.
Ronan arrives and defeats Drax, while the others flee by separate ships, pursued by Ronan’s followers and Gamora’s sister Nebula. Nebula destroys Gamora’s ship, leaving her floating in space, and Ronan’s forces capture the orb. Quill contacts Yondu and then rescues Gamora by giving her his helmet to survive.
Yondu arrives and captures the Quill and Gamora. Rocket, Drax, and Groot threaten to attack Yondu’s ship to rescue them, but Quill negotiates a truce by convincing Yondu that they can recover the orb. Quill’s group agrees that facing Ronan means certain death, but that they cannot let him use the Infinity Stone to destroy the galaxy. On Ronan’s flagship, the dark Aster, Ronan puts the Stone in his warhammer, taking its power for himself. He contacts Thanos, threatening to kill him after the destruction of Xandar; hateful of her adoptive father, Nebula allies with Ronan.
Near Xandar, the Ravagers, the Nova Corps, and Quill’s group confront and breach the Dark Aster. Ronan uses his empowered warhammer to destroy the Nova Corps fleet. On the Dark Aster, after Gamora defeats Nebula, she unlocks Ronan’s chambers, but the group find themselves outmatched by his power until Rocket crashes the Milano Milano through the Dark Aster. The damaged ship crashes on Xandar, with Groot sacrificing himself to shield the group and he ends up in many twigs. Ronan emerges from the wreck and prepares to destroy Xandar, but Quill distracts him, allowing Drax and Rocket to destroy Ronan’s warhammer. Quill grabs the freed Stone, and with Gamora, Drax, and Rocket linking hands together to share the burden of its power and they use this to destroy Ronan.
Quill then fools Yondu into taking a container supposedly containing the Stone, and gives the real Stone to the Nova Corps. As the Ravagers leave Xandar, Yondu remarks that it turned out well that they did not deliver Quill to his father per their contract. Quill’s group, now known as the Guardians of the Galaxy, have their criminal records wiped. Quill learns that he is only half-human, his father being part of an ancient, unknown species. Quill finally opens the last present he received from his mother: a cassette tape filled with her favorite songs marked Awesome Mix Vol 2. The Guardians leave in the rebuilt Milano along with a sapling cut from Groot.
In a post credits scene, Tivan sits in his destroyed archive with two of his living exhibits: a canine cosmonaut and an anthropomorphic duck. the Guardians of the Galaxy will return.
7/10