I just saw Guardians of the Galaxy last weekend, and despite my high IQ and expansive vocabulary, nearly all I can say about it is “YES YES YES!”

This movie has EVERYTHING. Characters with personalities and development, a plot with a sense of urgency, knee-slapping humour, independent strong female characters with agency, and a truly AWESOME MIX soundtrack that made me feel like I was a kid again.

The film was two hours, but felt too short, perhaps because we didn’t get the 90 minutes of disaster porn I’ve come to expect from comic book movies. It was epic but lighthearted, and I walked out of the theatre in a fantastic mood that’s stayed with me all week long– and when that does wear off, I’ll just go and see it again.

I can’t describe how happy it made me that the leader of planet Xandar was a woman, and that her title was not “princess” nor “empress” nor any other kind of aristocracy ostensibly inherited from a male, but “Prime” That’s right, the female leader’s title was gender neutral, “first among us.” Just one of the many factors that contributed to how easily this film soared to the top of my list of cinematic appreciation. Guardians of the Galaxy is, far and away, my #1 film EVER.