CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
Film Review: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ a Gleeful Space Romp
CHICAGO – “Guardians Of The Galaxy” is a gleeful Star Wars knockoff dressed up in Marvel Comics clothing. It occupies the same universe as Marvel’s other properties, but its tone is decidedly sillier. It has a spirit more akin to the later joke heavy installments of the Star Trek franchise or low budget exploitation mogul Roger Corman’s “Battle Beyond The Stars” than the ponderous pontificating of “Thor.”
Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
It’s also a movie that seems created specifically for only the most obsessive of fanboys. It is so in love with its own in-jokes it risks turning off those who aren’t familiar with the characters in the first place. And with a comic this obscure, that’s nearly everyone.
Chris Pratt stars as Peter Quill aka “Star Lord” – an earthling who was kidnapped by aliens as a pre-teen and now gets by as an interplanetary junk collector. We first meet him sporting a banana yellow early 80’s era Walkman rocking out to a cassette called “Awesome Mix Vol. 1” while he explores a far away planet for a mysterious orb. Zoe Saldana is the green skinned adopted daughter of intergalactic baddie Thanos with her own plans for the mysterious orb. Add in Bradley Cooper as the voice of a wisecracking talking raccoon bounty hunter, wrestler-turned-actor David Bautista as a muscle bound escaped convict with a thirst for revenge and Vin Diesel as a lumbering giant tree named Groot, and you have one of the odder rag-tag combinations to go jaunting across the galaxy.
The Team of Warriors in ‘Guardians of the Galazy’
Photo credit: Walt Disney Studios