Some of our favorite stories and reviews by Joe Williams - STLtoday.com
Whizzy, wondrous and wildly funny, “Guardians” is the first Marvel release that rightly could be called a comedy. But notwithstanding the talking tree and the gun-toting raccoon, it’s so much more than a spoof of space operas or a freeze-ray aimed at doleful competitor DC Comics. The maestro is Missourian James Gunn, whose previous movies were modest-budget exercises in body horror (“Slither”) and superhero psychoanalysis (“Super”). but given a bottomless pot of Marvel’s gold, he has built a vehicle that can accommodate fanboys and families alike, with room in the back seat for a big, beating heart. On a technical level, it’s astonishing, with World of Tomorrow cityscapes and pop-flavored 3-D imagery that demand to be seen on a big screen. The AM-radio hits are on a cassette inherited by an earthling named Peter Quill when his mother dies in 1988. At the end of that Spielbergian prelude, the grieving boy is levitated from outer-ring St. Louis to outer space, where he becomes an... Like Indiana Jones, the cocksure explorer plunders artifacts, and when he finds a mystical orb on an abandoned planet, he double-crosses his kidnapper/benefactor Yondu (Michael Rooker). Source: www.stltoday.com
