2 Okay Movies We've Seen Recently: Guardians and Maleficient

Over the last couple of weeks, we managed to see 2 new movies on DVD. 

 

Chris Pratt needed more time like this in Guardians

Here are our reviews:

1) GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY - Gave this a "C". For a movie that remained #1 in theatres over the past summer and supposedly made $772 million dollars around the world, we thought it was a poor-man's Star Wars. 

     It's based on a Marvel Comics group of space villains turned unlikely heroes. (The comic book was never a big hit, btw). It's about a group of intergalactic criminals are forced to work together to stop a fanatical warrior from taking control of the universe.  There was a wise-cracking, speaking raccoon, a walking tree named Groot (who was a good character), a woman with an attitude, a big bruiser of an alien, and a smart-ass, handsome leader named "Starlord." The Starlord character, played by actor Chris Pratt, needed to take his shirt off for more than 60 seconds (he's in great shape). If he kept it off for at least half the movie, we would've given the movie a "B." 

2) MALEFICIENT - Gave this a "B"  We thought this was visually magnificent, but the storyline reminded us of the musical Wicked, where the evil character tells it from her point of view and she was misunderstood. Maleficient was the "evil" female character who put Sleeping Beauty into a deep eternal sleep- who was fortunately awakened by a kiss of true love (there's a twist on that in the movie).