The Scene: Guardians Of The Galaxy was a heck of a lot of fun. On these, we are all in agreement. Marvel's most recent comic book adaptation looks to be as big a blockbuster as the rest of them - or perhaps even more so, since it's still bothering box offices a good month after its release. That's despite it being the studio's first big gamble, a relatively untested and unknown property that audiences nonetheless took to like a Howard The Duck to water. That's despite it being a singularly odd sci-fi actioner starring a dude from a sitcom, a green lady, a wrestler, a talking raccoon and a walking tree. Even more odd was the fact that it was the latter two characters who provided the emotional core of the film, especially in the climactic scene where Groot - the tall, wooden guy with the tiny vocabulary - sacrifices himself for his new friends. Why It's Awesome: Seriously, is James Gunn some sort of wizard? Because, somehow, he made us care about a raccoon and his tree pal. Rocket and Groot were the two weirdest elements of Guardians Of The Galaxy (a film not exactly lacking in weirdness), and yet they provided two of the stand-out scenes. Scenes where we just happened to get something in both our eyes. Rocket's drunken brawl with Drax, during which he starts to tear up over the tragic past that lead to him being a bipedal, talking raccoon was bad enough, then you have to throw in the bit at the end where Groot extends his body into a makeshift escape shuttle from a crashing ship. Rocket gets all upset again, asking why Groot's doing this, when he knows it'll kill him. With just a change of a pronoun, he explains and provides a real sucker punch to our emotions: "We are Groot," he says slowly. Sniff. It probably helps that both these moments come during a film where mostly everyone is out for themselves, the characters are all jerks to each other, and that the performances are handled by Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, two actors severely underrated for their dramatic acting chops. Yes, even when they're voicing a raccoon and a tree. Especially so, in fact.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
