Just behind the new Transformers movie, Guardians of the Galaxy is easily the 2nd best movie that I have seen all summer, and coming from a guy who sees more movies than he an remember, it's a pretty good honor. From the first time that I have seen the trailer for the movie, my friend had kept saying that he was really excited about the movie ad that we had to see it. I was a bit skeptical of it after watching the trailer a couple of times, it did look like it was a very funny movie, though from the trailer, I didn't really like the premise of it.

I had gone with this friend on the day the movie came out or the day after, and I was quite happy about seeing it. Overall, I did pretty much forget most of the movie, but there were plenty of great scenes that were both hilarious and really cool looking.

EFFECTS AND GRAPHICS *GREAT*

When it comes to effects, there's really just a few others that can compete with this one because there were so many. All you have to do was look at the 5 main characters of the movie, just one of them looks like a normal human while the rest of them have all kinds of special things done to make them look like they did. I don't really remember much about the characters names, the only ones I remember are Rocket and Groot, and those two are the ones who had the most unique looks. Rocket was a talking, fighting racoon while Groot was a talking, fighting tree basically and it looked so real and worked well.

Next there was the main female character who was all green, though that wasn't CGI or anything, that was actual green paint and then there was the big guy who had all sorts of red marks on his body. All those special designs and such just for the characters, there's a whole lot more to the effects of the movie than just the main characters.

Some of the other characters have even better designs to them. There are other people that also wear different kinds of paint, or just have all sorts of various features, and there are different creatures, and of course, the villains all have epic looks. Beyond that, you have the graphics of the surroundings itself. At the start of the movie, where the main character lands his ship to go into some kind of a ruins, you can see how much effort the makers of the movie had put into making sure that this world looked as realistic as possible, while also making it some sort of a futuristic nuclear wasteland.

Everything else looks all high tech as well, the buildings and the vehicles, the prisons, and everything. I would have to say that just from a graphical standpoint, including all the makeup and props, and all of the CGI, that a 2D version of this movie would easily match up with an IMAX 3D version of the new Transformers movie in terms of graphics. Oh, and on top of all that, the actual fighting was made even better with all of the graphics that the makers had at their disposal. The movie basically had perfect graphics, so I see no reason to not give it a perfect 10 out of 10, and I would definitely give it a much higher grade if I could.

SOUNDS AND MUSIC *GREAT*

Next up we must go over the sounds and music of the movie, which is technically just as good as the effects because the makers have taken a different approach to working with the movie when it comes to the music. First, let's go over the regular sounds of the movie before we move onto the music. There is noise all over the place, whether it's a car or ship, or it's some sort of an explosion or weapon. There is always some different kind of noise that either adds to the drama and action of the movie, or also adds to the comedy of it. It's because of this that I feel the movie was so great, because it was able to balance the action and comedy so perfectly.

Next up we have the music, which unlike most movies does not use a standard soundtrack. When it comes to the standard movie, somebody is hired to compose the music of the soundtrack, but that's not the case for this movie. This is one of the few movies that for the most part uses actual lyrical songs throughout the movie, and most of them are actually really good. The songs themselves most of the time add to the comedy, or it may make the movie feel a bit more energetic and happy.

In my opinion, the movie had done a great job with actually intertwining the music with the movie, and that's through the use of the music player that's carried around by the main character for the entire music, because it's set up to show that most of the time, a song that we hear in the movie is actually being listened to by the characters, and I feel that this is a really nice touch. For this aspect of the movie, I am mostly going to base my grade on the music portion because that's really what had hit me the most and I liked everything that they had done with it, so just like the effects, it's going to be another perfect score.

CASTING AND ACTING *GREAT*

Next up we must go over the acting and casting of the movie, and for this, I don't feel that a more unique cast could have been pulled together. The movie had been full of great actors and non actors as well who have done a great job with each of their roles. The main character was played by Chris Pratt and I think he did an excellent job. He hasn't really been in any big roles as an actor, and then he came along with this masterpiece. Zoe Saldana was in the movie as well, and I think that she did an awesome job, in the movie, she was strong, quick, and smart. I also don't really know her from anything else, but she had been a perfect fit for the movie.

Next we move onto some of the more well known actors, first off being the wrestler Bautista. Because of his hall of fame like wrestling career, I feel that he had been a perfect fit for the character that he portrayed because this character was pretty much the biggest, strongest, and most fierce of them all. Then we have Rocket and Groot. Bradley Cooper had done the voice for Rocket while Vin Diesel did the 5 words of Groot, and both voices were perfect for their roles. It was a unique cast who had done everything that they could to make sure that their performances did not go unnoticed.

As for the actual acting, the acting was just as good as the casting because all of the actors have pretty much done everything with great accuracy, nobody had ever missed a beat. I'm pretty sure that the scene near the start where the first four main character meet each other for the first time and fight must have been the toughest scene to film. Not only was it a lot of fighting that was all done in a very short amount of time, but the actual means of fighting were very intense as well. There were flips, and jumps, and all sorts of various stunts, most of which did use some amount of CGI or at least a harness, but still, a ton of skill was needed in order to film this scene and each of the actors, needed great timing. This is especially true when you consider the fact that Rocket and Groot weren't actually there and that Chris and Zoe were just doing their stunts alone with the CGI of Rocket and Groot added in later.

I would even go as far as to say that the expressions that each of the actors had made were professional and had fit in with the tone of the movie as perfectly as it could. If I could give a separate grade for each category of acting and casting, I would, and I would give each of them a perfect score because it's just that good.

STORY *GOOD*

When it comes to the story, I don't really remember much. The main section of the movie, which begins after the first scene starts off with the main guy finding some sort of an object in a ruins and then people start going after him to get it. Some, like the female character want it so they can sell it, while some are just after him for a bounty. After the giant fight scene that I had mentioned, the two main characters along with Rocket and Groot end up in jail which is where they meet the character played by Vin Diesel. They agree to bring this object to where they can sell the object and they agree to "Tolerate" each other as they escape from the jail.

Of course, like all great action movies, there is always a great and powerful villain who tries to stop them in order to get that item. The rest of the movie focuses on them trying to stop this evil force and save the galaxy. Honestly, my favorite scene is the very first scene, it didn't have much in relation to the movie itself, but I was like "What the heck just happened?" There's that meme from Anchorman with the title "That Escalated quickly" and I have never before seen a better that escalated quickly scene in any movie.

This scene starts off with the main character as a child in the hospital visiting a family member. After a while, he gets angry and sad and runs out of the hospital and stops in a field. Then, simple a spaceship appears above him, he looks up, and is abducted. That has absolutely nothing to do with the main part of the movie, but it was a funny scene to watch and think about. Overall, the story was unique and had some drama while also offering a bunch of comedy, though unlike most of the other categories of this movie, I wouldn't really say that it was perfect, instead, I am going to have to say that it's an 8 out of 10 or maybe a B+.

OVERALL *GREAT*

Overall, this had been a great movie to watch. It is the 2nd best movie that I have seen of all the movies that I have seen during the summer, though I wouldn't really say that it can compete to be one of the best movies of the year for me because there have been better movies that I have seen at other times. Overall, it was definitely an upper tier movie for me and I will suggest it to anybody who likes a good movie that combines action and comedy. The movie was a lot of fun to watch and my overall grade for it is going to be a 90.