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Gunn, an underrated talent who also made Slitherin 2006, is the clear MVP here, not just earning some big laughs – the scenes with the whole team together, trying to make a plan but only succeeding in getting on each other's nerves, have a back-and-forth snap that's often hilarious – but ensuring the film isn't just a brittle snark-fest.

Not only do these characters squabble before saving the day, but they are given to involuntary bits of physical business that puncture the epic nature of the plot... The film is also Marvelesque, however, in its attempts to evoke societal relatability, and here the shorthand of narrative becomes troublesome. Much is made, both visually and plot-wise, of the cosmopolitan nature of the good planet Xandar, but none of the alien races seem to adhere to any cultural specifics...

The climax is big and loud and filled with indiscriminate destruction and slaughter of sentient beings. But as it takes place on a planet other than the one the audience is on and so doesn't involve the razing of a recognizable city, it's a little less troubling than it might have been. It seems as if I'm listing a lot of not-fun things in what I've called a fun movie, but again, I'm just voicing some frustration because, in my puny mind, the not-fun parts seemed entirely avoidable.

In tone, this feels like the odder, cheaper Star Wars imitations of the 1980s (Battle Beyond the Stars, The Ice Pirates or The Last Starfighter) but with state-of-the-art effects that deliver astonishing throwaways like a space boom town built in the severed head of a godlike alien giant, or a fleet of Nova Corps atmospheric fliers linking to form a net to trap Ronan's enormous spaceship.

That there's a palpable directorial sensibility in "Guardians of the Galaxy," along with other signs of genuine life, helps separate this latest Marvel cash grab from a lot of off-the-rack movie cartoons. Here, a pulse, wit, beauty and a real sensibility have been slipped into the fray, alongside the clockwork guffaws, kabooms and splats.

Director James Gunn, who co-wrote the script with Nicole Perlman, has a rare talent, one that George Lucas also had but few filmmakers working in this genre do: He can effortlessly cut between evocative worlds we've never seen before without losing sight of the action and the pace of his narrative.

Gunn has to juggle so many plot elements — so many booming galactic battles, so many whisker-close brushes with death — that it's little wonder he loses his grip on the thing. He inserts occasional moments of wonder but doesn't bother to smooth over the seams. Time and again, he cues us what to feel, which is different from creating the perfect weather conditions for it and then stepping back.

For every scene that soars into the dizzying heights of the pop sublime, there's another that crashes back down into the mundane troughs of studio-mandated formula. The result is a superior pulp entertainment whose greater potential is nonetheless stifled by the airless confines of the Marvel assembly line.

You can have the most dazzling special effects, the slickest action, even Bradley Cooper voicing a trigger-happy rodent, but it all counts for nothing if you don't give the audience a character they can invest in. Above all, then, this is a triumph of human storytelling. Marvel may not see Guardians as its prize asset, but this could be the start of a truly awesome franchise.

An unusually prankish and playful Marvel Studios vehicle, director James Gunn's presumptive franchise-starter is overlong, overstuffed and sometimes too eager to please, but the cheeky comic tone keeps things buoyant — as does Chris Pratt's winning performance as the most blissfully spaced-out space crusader this side of Buckaroo Banzai.