Ranking Every MCU Phase 2 Movie From Worst To Best
2. Guardians Of The Galaxy
Remember when the $774.2m-grossing and critically-acclaimed Guardians Of The Galaxy was labeled as Marvel Studios' biggest risk? James Gunn became just the second writer/director to be hired by the studio after Joss Whedon in what turned out to be an inspired move, as the potentially-tricky adaptation of the obscure team was well-cast, smartly written and directed with a confidence that belies a filmmaker whose most expensive feature to date was made for less than one-tenth of Guardians' budget.
In a movie full of brilliant contradictions, Gunn has the two biggest names in the cast voicing a sentient tree and a talking racoon respectively, packs the movie with both futuristic technology and a retro soundtrack, gets six-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close to spout space-exposition and call someone a prick, casts sitcom schlub Chris Pratt as a chiseled action hero and even sneaks a semen joke into a family-friendly comic book movie for good measure.
Stop me if you've heard this before, but the movie's climactic airborne action scene is a bit of a letdown and the presence of four villains (Ronan, Nebula, Korath and Thanos) means none of them make a real impression, but Guardians Of The Galaxy remains an irreverent, often hilarious and massively entertaining space opera that stands out as markedly different from the rest of Marvel Studios' previous output.