Shorts Review: Groot – Part 1 (8:58 p.m., ET/PT) & Part 2 (9:58 p.m., ET/PT)

When the animated adaptation of Guardians of the Galaxy was announced, the first thing that hit me was that the producers would ruin Groot similar to the way other Disney television producers had ruined the Hulk. Instead of a character that only has one or two lines, I was half-expecting Groot to be fed pages filled with lines that featured coarse dialogue and ham-filled punch lines. Fortunately the two Groot shorts showcased on Disney XD proved otherwise.

Featuring narration by Rocket (whom for some reason is voiced by a Chucky doll), we get a sense of the Avatar-esque world of the Groots before it is destroyed by Ronan the Accuser. The result of this Independence Day-like cataclysmic event more or less fills in the reasoning as to why Groot would want to take part in the eventual battle that would be the premise in the Guardians of the Galaxy blockbuster effort.

As mentioned before, as interesting as the Groot backstory was, Rocket’s voice. For whatever reason, Trevor Devall was asked to do his best impression of Carrot Top or Johnny Depp’s take as the titular character in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Fortunately, the star of this week’s short aka Groot sounded just fine, so much so that if you were to blind me and tell me the Groots (except for the oft-putting younger variety) were voiced by Vin Diesel and not Kevin Michael Richardson, I would have believed you no questions asked.

Overall, there’s nothing in this week’s two shorts that doesn’t make me want to watch the full blown series when it premieres this September on Disney XD…yet.

Score