Who would have thought that the best Marvel movie of the year - or indeed of Phase 2 to date - would star a formerly chubby comedian, a WWE wrestler, a raccoon and a sentient tree with a limited vocabulary spoken in Vin Diesel's voice? If you're protesting your faith, you're lying. But even despite the apparent limitations of the source, Guardians was a triumph; partly because James Gunn absolutely got the tone needed and partly because of the quality of the story, script and cast. It was a brave move from day one, but Marvel and Gunn smartly allowed the characters to sell the movie, rather than trying to shoe-horn in too many insistent bridges to the rest of the MCU in the hope of success by proximity. And that was the film's chief virtue, allowing for successes like Dave Bautista's gloriously dry warrior and Chris Pratt's Han Solo-lite performance as Starlord: but the biggest win was Groot - the Chewbacca substitute - whose dynamic with Rocket was genius, and who won the entire film thanks to a brief dancing scene into the credits that threatened to burst hearts with glee. Cue a million Google searches for where to buy Dancing Groots.
