When it was announced that Guardians of the Galaxy would be one of Marvel Studios' reelases for 2014, there was probably a collective 'Who?' from the mainstream public.
The group of interstellar n'er-do-wells were more of a cult comic success until recently and weren't really known outside of the comic-shop network of fans. Then again, Iron Man was hardly Marvel's most commercial hero until Robert Downey Jnr and Jon Favreau blasted him into orbit as part of Marvel Studios' first phase of Hollywood domination.
So a trailer for the forthcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film had to both entertain and educate the public as to why they'd want to spend their money on a cinema-ticket in a crowded season of movie-going. The trailer, premiered last night on America's Jimmy Kimmel Live talkshow largely does that - hitting a series of anarchic beats and giving us our first solid look at the main characters and standards of special effects. There's definitely a subversive vibe, falling somewhere on the spectrum between a Han Solo in Mos Eisley atmosphere, the zany side of Farscape and a high-budget Firefly - possibly not a bad yardstick for any film.
Chris Pratt (recently heard in The Lego Movie) is Earth-born Peter Quill who likes to refer to himself as 'Star-Lord', Zoe Saldana (Star Trek, The Losers) is the sexy and deadly Gamora, Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper essay the CGI creations of Groot and Rocket Racconn respectively. There's able support from the likes of Lee Pace, John C Reilly and Benecio Del Toro and sharp-eyed viewers will also glimpse a bald(ish) Karen Gillan, looking very different from her days as Doctor Who's Amy Pond.
It's still early days to tell how successful the film will ultimately be, but there's a huge amount of anticipation and on the strength of the trailer this could be enormous fun...
