Marvel gets a-DORBZ-able!

As you may have guessed, we here at Muppets, Monsters, and Magic love Funko items. From Pop! figures to collecting the Hikari vinyl figures, we can't get enough. Now, Funko introduces the incredibly cute and aptly named Dorbz line of figures. Standing about 3 inches tall and displayed in a double-window box, Dorbz are the most adorable figures you will find. An adorable smile and closed eyes emulate the pure expression of happiness on these Marvel figures. Take a look below for the series one release.

If you received your Marvel Collector's Corps. box for April, you know that Ultron was the exclusive.  As one of my favorite villians, I have to say he's a little tiny tin terror you can love!

Review 2: Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy

August 1, 2014

I'm not even sure how to start this review except that this movie is absolutely outstanding! I went into this film knowing very little about it. Every time I saw an advertisement for it, I was sold more and more on seeing it and wanting to be part of the action that is Guardians of the Galaxy (great job advertising team!). Why did I like it so much, just keep reading and you'll find out.

At first this Marvel property seemed like it would be a hard sell. Who didn't doubt the talking raccoon who had a gun and was in space and was on a team with a green-skinned lady and a tree alien? Yes, at first it sounds so far-fetched. But I think that is its biggest attraction and appeal. What we got in the film is a team of almost anti-heroes with obvious flaws and a whole lot of heart. We got a hilarious joy-ride through the universe. A story that moved along at a brisk pace, allowing us to learn about the characters as we followed them through their journey.

I really loved the fact that this was an ensemble movie driven by the characters. We didn't have five other movies explaining origins of each character. We get to know these characters through their flawed interactions with one another. It was touching to hear each of their stories and how they have all been brought together. The casting helped tremendously and was spot-on. This film excelled in being unpredictable and often hilarious. The Awesome Mix Tape helped underscore scenes in a meaningful way and understand Star-Lord, a man trapped in his past but so ready for the future.

This Marvel film also seemed to have a good time poking fun at superhero movie cliches. For example, after a somewhat touching speech by Star-Lord, the team stands up to literally stand by his side as Rocket watches on and eventually stands up saying, "Alright, I'm standing. Now we are all standing. You happy? A bunch of jacka**es standing in a circle." Hilarious and perfect. The film has so many moments like this one. These characters have no idea how to be heroes and it fits them perfectly.

Between the mayhem wrought by Ronan, the films lead villain, there are so many scenes of beauty - Groot spores, Groot cocoon, the first time we see Knowhere. Even the infinity stone, the macguffin in the film, has moments of visual beauty. If you didn't walk out of the theatre with a big smile on your face, you might have missed the movie, so go see it again. 

Though the film may have suffered from an over abundance of baddies, it was still great. Nebula didn't quite get her dues and doesn't really get a nice wrap-up either. Which is fine, especially since we know Thanos is still out there plotting.

I really only have good things to say about Guardians of the Galaxy. It was big, it was fun, it was hilarious in all the right places, it had characters I really liked and really wanted to see succeed. It was great to see Thanos in all of his purple glory. I loved Rocket Raccoon. I loved that he did not want to be bullied and that he was so smart and cared so much (you know, even though he might not admit it himself).

Also, potted Groot was hysterical! Just saying. 

Final Thoughts:

Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite Marvel film so far. It has all the right pieces coming together to make for a perfect superhero movie - great characters, a driving plot, fantastic visuals, kickin' soundtrack, and most of all heart.

I can't wait to see them again!

By the way, it made $94.3 million its first weekend, easily the biggest box office opening for August and heading to become the highest grossing movie of the season. 

Review: The Guardians we've been waiting for.

Free poster when seeing Guardians on IMAX

*****WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD******

If you're looking for the most fun this side of the galaxy, look no further than Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel brings us the unlikely team of misfits that must save the galaxy from certain doom. While certainly not The Avengers (referring to the actual team, not movie), the Guardians bring non-stop laughs, awesome action, spectacular battles, and a well-conceived story.

***The following is intentionally vague so you can enjoy the movie without it being ruined by a review***

The Guardians begins many years in the past, setting up our hero, Star-Lord/Peter Quill. Fast forward 28 years later and we meet our hero as an adult and rocking out to great 70’s music while dancing and kicking creatures on a desolate planet. Instantly we know our character: a loner, running from the past he cannot change, and making his way in the universe any way he can (odd jobs, stealing precious artifacts, and being an all-around not nice guy). Not to mention the scene is hilarious and had the audience laughing. Star-Lord is played by the brilliant actor Chris Pratt, which you may know from Parks & Rec. Quickly the movie introduces out villain, Ronan the Accuser and our second main character, Gamora: the son of Thanos and assassin for Ronan. Her mission, to hunt down what Star-Lord stole and bring it to Ronan. Next, the comedic but heart-felt duo of Rocket Raccoon and Groot. These two characters steal the show and have the wittiest and most heart-felt scenes in the movie. Out on the hunt, Rocket and Groot are trying to capture Star-Lord for a bounty. And finally, Drax, the man with a  dark past and is out for blood.

All their paths collide within a 15 minute time span. The script shines when showing us the characters. Their stories are given to us in a matter of a few minutes per character or through key dialogue and you feel as if you know everything about them. This works extremely well because rather than spend the majority of the movie explaining back-story and tacking precious time away from the plot (the movie runs a little over 2 hours), the movie stays focused and the action can move forward fluidly. These are characters you feel for, feel with, and most importantly, care about. The most touching moments occur with Rocket and Groot and when they team is attempting to be good at something but they just don't know how to articulate it well.

The plot is very simple, stop the villain from committing genocide of entire planets so he can rule the galaxy. There are a few twists and turns in the plot, but the movie stays grounded to the main story and doesn’t try to set-up minuet sub-plots and side stories. Because these are unknown characters in the Marvel universe it’s important to give us everything they’ve got on the first go and Marvel did just that. The movie is really driven by the Guardians and the plot was secondary but supported them, fueled them forward, and inevitable created memorable moments for the Guardians to share. While they aren’t the clean-cut and organized Avengers, this movies shows us that ordinary losers can become extraordinary.  I, for one, cannot wait for our second adventure with the Guardians.

However, the whole event was marred by the fact the speakers blew out before the movie and I (and the rest of the audience) could barely hearing the characters speak. The sound effects and music were big and loud, but I missed a lot of what Ronan, Thanos, and Drax said but could piece it together. The 3D was really good but not necessary. I do recommend seeing it on IMAX however.

Needless to say, I will be seeing Guardians of the Galaxy again to enjoy it fully and to just revisit the universe they inhabit and have some more fun with a Raccoon, a tree, a thief, a killer, and a man with a  vengeance. 

Rocket Raccoon

Rocket Raccoon

First Appearance
Marvel Preview #7 (1976)

Hundreds of years ago, humanoids from an unidentified planet sought a world to use as an asylum for their outcast insane members, and settled on a planet located in the Keystone Quadrant, out by the stars of Sirus Major. There the psychiatrists created robots to care for their patients' particular brands of insanity. For years they studied the functions and dysfunctions of the mind, writing their observations in the starship Gideon's logbook until their funding was cut off and they were ordered back to their homeworld. As they left, they erected a forcefield-generating Galacian Wall around the star system to keep their uncured patients safe from the normal society that loathed them. 

Galacian Wall

For generations the robots faithfully watched over their charges, whose children were born insane themselves, or affected by their insane environment. The Loonies, as they came to be known, created a religion worshiping the ancient Shrinks as gods, with straight-jacketed priests called the Good Humor Men venerating the logbook as their Bible, housing it in the Admissions Ward and performing rites to attain the Final Cure. Gaining sentence (due in part to radiation from a nearby star going nova), the supremely logical robots sought a way out from directly caring for their illogical charges. They played around with the genetics of the various companion animals left by the Shrinks and created a race of animal people to care for the Loonies while the robots retreated to their own side of the planet and began to work on a giant humanoid starship, and started to deduce how to shut down the Wall from the inside. Over time the planet came to be known as Halfworld, divided between the robots' industrial half, and the verdant half occupied by the others, with the robots building toys designed by the animals to keep the Loonies entertained, and making other machines and weapons for the animals' use only, and giving many animals requested cybernetic enhancements. Over time the animals created their own advanced society somewhat apart from the Loonies, with the major industry toymaking for the Loonies' amusements, and the Loonies paying for services rendered with animal cracker currencies.

In recent years, the Incredible Hulk (Bruce Banner) was transported to Halfworld via energies released during the destruction of the energy creature Galaxy Master. The Hulk met Quadrant guardian Rocket Raccoon and his partner Wal Rus, who tried unsuccessfully to figure out how the strange green human got through the Galacian Wall. When the head of Inter-Stel Mechanics, Judson Jakes, had the mercenary Black Bunny Brigade steal the Gideon's Bible and held his ward, the otter Lylla, as a hostage, Rocket enlisted the Hulk's aid to rescue both the Bible and his girlfriend. They invaded Jake's orbital Spacewheel spacestation and rescued both the book and Lylla, but not before Jake's chief scientist/toymaker, the tortoise Uncle Pyko, sent the Hulk back to Earth to prevent the Hulk's presence from destroying the political status quo among the various Halfworld animal factions.

The saurian Lord Dyvyne, head of Dyvynities,Inc., forcibly took over Inter-Stel Mechanics, forcing Jackes and Pyko from Spacewheel, and hiring the Black Bunny Brigade away from Jakes. Relocating to Halfworlds's equator, Jakes reincorporated as Mayhem Mekaniks, where he had Pyko created more members of his mechanical Psycho-Circus (a.k.a. Killer Clowns) and the cybermetric bat-like Drakillars, and plotted to find a way to marry Lylla to gain permanent control of her late parents' fortune and the toy company they had founded. Desiring to be the top toymaker, Jakes had one of his mechanical Killer Clowns assassinated Lord Dyvyne's chief toysmith, igniting a trade war. Rocket went after Jakes to stop the war, but then Dyvyne had Lylla kidnapped to force a marriage between them to gain control of her fortune, forcing Rocket and her uncle Wal to rescue her instead. They tracked Lylla to the Loony shrine Asylum, where Brigade leader Blackjack O'Hare had taken her to seek her fortune for himself, putting him on the outs with his employer. When the Killer Clowns vacuumed up the Black Bunny Brigade, O'Hare was forced to rescue Rocket and himself from the wrath of lord Dyvyne's misty creature Red Breath. luring the pursuing Clowns on their vacuum sleds to vacuum up the erasing Red Breath, destroying both sets of assassins.

Now finding both toy moguls allied against them, Rocket, Wal Rus, Lylla, and O'Hare fled to the robotic side of Half World, where they found Uncle Pyko; he had "borrowed" and deciphered Halfworld's Bible, learning the truth of Halfworld's origins, and left Jakes to pursue his own agendas of becoming the Quadrant's chief toysmith for the pure joy of creating toys. Escaping from the treacherous O'Hare and his cronies, Pyko led the other three to the Assembly Line to meet the head robot, where Rocket handed over the Bible to the robots to uses psychiatric knowledge to create the Wonder Toy, a helmet designed to correct the imbalances in the Loonies' minds, curing them. Jakes and Lord Dyvyne combined forces for one last attack on Rocket and Pyko to keep them from distributing the Toys and destroying their markets forever. The Killer Clowns and Lord Dyvyne's simian samurais almost succeeded in slaying them until reinforcements - the robots, a repentant O'Hare, and the now-cured Loonies - arrived to turn the tide of battle against Jakes and Dyvyne, who were deliberately thrown from their Drakillar perch onto the ground below, apparently killing them. While some animals elected to stay and help the former Loonies rebuild their world, Wal, Lylla, O'Hare and many other animals joined almost all the robots aboard the humanoid Ship with Rocket as its captain, seeking adventures among the stars.
Note: 10,000-15,000 years in the future, Rocket Raccoon, now called Rocky Raccoon, met Ithican Prince Wayfinder on the planet Hailailae, also known as Witchworld, where he aided the offworld Prince by instructing him about the dangers of Witchworld, and helped him battle the animal men of the sorceress Kirke. How Rocket survived the intervening millennia, or if he was somehow transported there through space/time to the planet remains unrevealed.

More on Marvel.com: http://marvel.com/universe/Rocket_Raccoon#ixzz38xbK8SUE

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Guardians of the Galaxy Disney Infinity 2.0

We finally have our first look at the Guardians of the Galaxy figures for Disney Infinity 2.0! They look amazing and I cannot wait to play them all.  Well, Groot and Rocket Raccoon.  Enjoy!