As the final showdown of Guardians of the Galaxy approaches, our five “heroes” prepare for battle. They march resolutely towards the camera in slow motion, clad in red and black leather. It’s a familiar sight: the slow motion walk toward the camera is a common device in superhero movies. What’s different in Guardians is the execution. Instead of an epic score, a 1976 punk-rock song plays in the background, and the Guardians yawn and look around self-consciously during their march. Immediately, Guardians twists a cliché into something deliciously sardonic and self-referential. If there were one scene that perfectly sums up Guardians of the Galaxy’s essence, this would be it.

Guardians of the Galaxy proves, if nothing else, that Marvel can pull off anything, even a geeky space opera. Featuring characters obscure to the general public, Guardians of the Galaxy has all the stylized charm of a comic book. It’s zany, goofy, heavy on the sci-fi, and features characters such as a wisecracking racoon and a sentient tree. Guardians is a departure from the rest of the Marvel lineup, both in its light and zippy tone and in its far-from-mainstream interstellar setting.

The movie follows five outlaws brought together by circumstance. These outlaws must team up, first for money, and later to save the galaxy. The main character is Peter Quill (aka Starlord), a sassy human who dances around the galaxy to 70’s pop, stealing and selling space artifacts while extolling the importance of Kevin Bacon. He is joined by Gamora, a genetically-modified assassin, Rocket, a sarcastic, gun-toting, bounty-hunting raccoon, and Groot, a (kind of) talking tree. Rounding out the gang is Drax, the ultimate straight man to the rest of the group’s humor, who is unable to comprehend metaphors or sarcasm and takes everything literally. Even though each character is entertaining in his or her own right, the team’s chemistry is really what defines the movie, whether the group dynamic is being used in a humorous or emotional situation.

The villains are weaker points of the movie. In a film so focused on the origin story of the main characters, there is less time to spend on much else. The bad guys are serviceable enough, continuing the trend that’s been plaguing Marvel movies for a while: they’re good enough, but not iconic. Nebula, Gamora’s pseudo-robotic adopted sister, feels particularly underused.

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Plotwise, Guardians is nothing special. The heroes spend most of the movie chasing a magical MacGuffin (another trend in Marvel movies) around the galaxy, trying to keep it out of the hands of the bad guy. What sets Guardians apart is how entertainingly this tired plot is executed. It’s a familiar journey, but it’s still fresh and fun. Basic villains aren’t as bothersome as they could be. Likewise, the formulaic nature of parts of the plot doesn’t matter that much because Guardians isn’t about the plot. At the end of the day, Guardians of the Galaxy is a character-driven movie about five criminals’ road to (quasi)redemption. The plot becomes more of a backdrop, but that is excusable because it is not meant to be the focus.

In a world where comic book movies are becoming increasingly more gritty andrealistic, the fantastical qualities of the intergalactic setting are like a breath of fresh air. There are nebulas and giant space heads and new planets and various alien species, and sometimes the physics really doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t matter because the audience is fully invested enough to come along for the ride. What helps viewers buy the world is that the movie assumes the audience is smart enough to follow along. Facts are presented as needed, but the movie is never so lazy or condescending to use something as blatantly spoon-fed as narrated exposition. It takes a bit of effort to wrap your head around what’s going on at first, but the viewer is never confused.

Though Guardians is a literal galaxy away from the rest of the Marvel cinematic universe, it still establishes threads to tie itself in with other Marvel films. The previously mentioned MacGuffin is actually part of a larger Marvel plot that links to Captain America, The Avengers, and Thor 2: The Dark World. Several characters from various Marvel end credits scenes also make appearances.

Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy is pure summer fun. There are explosions, and metal body part gags, and a space pirate trading banter with a racoon, and quips about Footloose. The dialogue is snappy, well-written, and genuinely funny, and the characters are obviously flawed while still impossible not to root for. It’s worth noting that Guardians of the Galaxy has done what the Avengers needed five movies of setup to do–create a fun, charismatic, likeable team and set them up for a broadly-scaled, epic conflict–in just over two hours. Bravo.

P.S. Not that it matters, but how is Quill charging his Walkman when he hasn’t been to Earth in 26 years?