Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

"I don't believe that anybody could be 100% dick..."

I'm an old-fashioned Marvel geek in that I bought a ridiculous number of titles up until around 1994, when most of my favourite runs were winding down, Mark Gruenwald died and I started building up my record collection, which left less budgetary room for comic books. I know an awful lot about Marvel up to that point (I had a lot of back issues going way back) but I'm patchy thereafter. I do, however, remember Jim Valentino's run on Guardians of the Galaxy, a title set a thousand years on the future and with characters called things like Vance Astro and Charlie 27. This film isn't based on any of that, but a load of Marvel's cosmic characters, many of them associated with the great Jim Starlin.

We have fanwanky Marvel goodness aplenty. There is Drax the Destroyer, Rocket Raccoon(!), Ronan the Accuser, Thanos(!), a strange cyborg version of Nebula who hears no relation to the character as written by Roger Stern in The Avengers back in the mid-'80s, the Collector, the best Stan Lee cameo yet and even footage of a Celestial!

But this isn't a po-faced epic film; it's  witty, fun action film full of funny and charismatic rogues turned heroes, a cross between Star Wars and Firefly. Chris Pratt stars as Peter, a transplanted human with mysterious parentage and the Han Solo of the film. Karen Gillan disappoints vaguely as Nebula. But the best thing in it is Bradley Cooper's Rocket.

This is a superbly plotted and scripted sci-go action film with wit, action, top tuneage (we get Bowie's "Moonage Daydream" and the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb"!) and an amazingly realised space opera world with some of the best CGI I've ever seen. If you haven't seen it, do so now. It'll be on at cinemas for a good while. 

Oh, and remember, this is a Marvel film. Stay to the end.