Trailer Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) – Trailer 2

A new trailer for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is online and it is full of interesting ideas. This sci fi action/adventure film is directed by James Gunn and the screenplay was written by Nicole Perlman.

Chris Pratt stars as Peter Quill aka Star Lord, a thief who joins up with a motley crue of aliens to save the universe. Quill steals a rare and powerful orb which becomes the MacGuffin that everyone is after in the film. It turns out an evil super villain with a rather ordinary name called Ronan wants the orb and he is hunting Quill. Quill teams up with a green skinned former assassin called Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana), a walking tree man called Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a hard nut bruiser with red skin called Drax (Played by Dave Bautista) and a talking, rocket wielding raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper. Together, this ragtag bunch must prevent Ronan from obtaining the orb and try to defeat him.

The film has a damn good supporting cast including Benicio Del Toro as a collector of powerful alien artifacts, Glenn Close as the leader of Nova Corps which is an intergalactic police force, Djimon Honsou as a hunter, Michael Rooker as a bandit and father figure to Quill, John C. Reilly as a Nova Corps officer, Lee Pace as Ronan and Karen Gillan as the blue skinned villain called Nebula. Gilllan’s role is interesting as both her character and Saldana’s Gamora were adopted by Thanos and raised as assassins. Thanos is one of the most feared and powerful super villains in the Marvel universe. He is also rumoured to play a big part in future Marvel superhero movies.

Marvel are keen to introduce movie goers to some of their more unusual characters which is cool. Chris Pratt has signed a multi-film contract with Marvel so if things go well this could be the first film in a series.

The trailer is colourful, comical and it features a lot of crazy stuff including what appears to be a talking planet rumoured to be Ego, the Living Planet. Ego is another powerful villain who was created by Stan Lee and the artist Jack Kirby in 1966. During the mid sixties Kirby and Lee created a bunch of cosmic characters who form the Marvel space age mythology. Guardians of the Galaxy is an attempt to introduce more of this mythology to movie goers and the trailer is a good teaser of what is to come.

There is plenty of action in the trailer too and most of the main characters get some screen time. James Gunn has also used a mixture of CGI with practical effects in the film and the effects on show are great. Rocket Raccoon in particular looks really good and convincing as a character. The music is also fun and unusual as both Blue Suede’s Hooked On A Feeling and Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit In The Sky are used well. For some reason the trailer doesn’t give viewers any information regarding the plot which is strange. The previous trailer explained what is going on but viewers who missed that clip may be a bit confused by this one. The powerful orb everyone covets is shown briefly but not given any prominence. This is the only real flaw with what is otherwise an excellent trailer.

Guardians of the Galaxy will be released in the UK on July 31st and in the US on August 1st. Check out the trailer and share your thoughts.