Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Movie rating: 8/10
You can learn a lot about writer-director James Gunn watching his third and, we’re told, last Guardians of the Galaxy joint. One is that Gunn appears to be greatly troubled by animal cruelty. The plot of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 focuses on the titular heroes’ efforts to save Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) from the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a classic mad scientist whose experiments on animals to create “improved” species and a utopian society were responsible for Rocket’s transformation into the talking racoon we know and love. Flashbacks throughout depict Rocket’s life before the Guardians, and his close friendship with other animals experimented on by the High Evolutionary.
The second thing Vol. 3 tells you about Gunn is he deeply loves these characters. Each member of the Guardians gets a chance to shine, along with plenty of funny or emotional moments between them: Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) — or at least a variant of Gamora from a different timeline; long story — Drax (Dave Bautista), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Groot (voice of Vin Diesel). Everyone has their favourite, but mine is probably Nebula. Gillan’s raw anger as the blue-skinned alien warrior/cyborg is leavened with some lighter moments here, as Nebula loosens up a bit.
Bautista has proved to be our greatest wrestler-turned-actor. While Drax was his breakout film role, he’s complained since about how the character’s tragic backstory has been largely forgotten, with Drax relegated to comic relief. Thankfully, although Drax is still primarily a comic figure, Bautista gets to flex his dramatic acting muscles a bit. Pratt continues to be an effortlessly charming everyman lead. Klementieff takes down alien monsters in an impressively subdued way as Mantis, and Groot finally expands his vocabulary. Supporting characters from previous films return such as former Ravager, now Guardian Kraglin (Sean Gunn), high-ranking Ravager Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone), and Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), golden high priestess and leader of the Sovereign people. There are also new characters like Ayesha’s son Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), who makes a welcome addition even if he’s a bit underused.
The most moving additions to the Guardians lore are Rocket’s fellow anthropomorphic animal test subjects: otter Lylla (voice of Linda Cardellini), walrus Teefs (voice of Asim Chaudhry), and rabbit Floor (voice of Mikaela Hoover). All are adorable and endearing. There’s an innocence and joy to their friendship and their wonder at the world, which couldn’t be more different from the world-weary cynicism we associate with Rocket. Not only do we come to understand Rocket more, but in this film it becomes evident that he’s the heart of the Guardians. It’s an incredible achievement that Gunn was able to take something that seemed so ridiculous in 2014, a live-action talking racoon, and give that character dramatic weight. There’s a real tragedy in the flashbacks to Rocket and his friends, hitting me in the feels in a way I wasn’t prepared for watching a Marvel blockbuster in 2023.
The third thing about James Gunn apparent in the latest Guardians is that this man is a talented, inventive writer able to bring the most bizarre, outlandish concepts to the screen in a way that holds together. I haven’t read any of the Guardians of the Galaxy comics, so I can’t say how many of these ideas originated with Gunn and which were adapted from the comics. But it’s remarkable how easily he convinces us to go along with concepts like Orgoscope, the headquarters of the High Evolutionary’s bio-engineering company which is like an organically grown space station; or Counter-Earth, a replica of Earth populated by the High Evolutionary’s anthropomorphic animals. We’ve reached the point in comic-book cinema where audiences are willing to go along with pretty much anything if it’s entertaining enough, allowing filmmakers like Gunn to let their imaginations run wild.
Even so, one of the refreshing aspects of Guardians Vol. 3 is how it’s only tangentially related to the broader Marvel Cinematic Universe and multiverse, and content to be its own thing. The film’s main link to larger MCU plotlines is the fact that this is a different version of Gamora, following the death of Gamora Classic at the hands of her father Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s interesting to ponder what Gunn’s original intentions for the character might have been in the absence of a larger MCU. But he and Saldaña manage to make this new Gamora interesting to watch with her disdain for Quill, who is pining over his loss of the old Gamora, and her greater propensity for violence.
One of the chief appeals of the MCU through Endgame was its interconnected nature. But dialectically, everything turns into its opposite. The existing MCU mythology and interconnectedness of all these different characters has now become more of a liability than an asset when it comes to creating satisfying blockbuster entertainment. Truth be told, I’ve checked out of the MCU for a while now. The last Marvel movie I saw in theatres was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Nothing since then has compelled me to venture back to movie theatres for the latest MCU effort. This is a franchise that could have used a break after Endgame, which provided a natural endpoint. But the needs of Disney shareholders required endless new movies and TV shows, which ironically have oversaturated the market and diluted the MCU’s appeal amid a slew of weak entries.
The reason I was willing to check out Guardians Vol. 3 on the big screen was because reviews were good and Gunn seemed less interested in franchise extension — the central factor in the failure of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which existed largely to introduce Jonathan Majors’s Kang as the MCU’s new “big bad” — than in providing a satisfying conclusion to a series and characters we’ve grown to love. Coming out of this third Guardians film, I was convinced it was the best of the trilogy. The first one was fantastically entertaining space opera, the 21st century’s closest equivalent to Star Wars: A New Hope (that includes all Star Wars films made since Return of the Jedi). The second wasn’t quite as good, but expanded the lore in a satisfying way. The third, however, gave the series more emotional heft and reminded us why we loved these characters. It even makes The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which I found enjoyable enough, better in retrospect.
Being more separate from the broader MCU has also allowed Gunn to go darker. Though there are plenty of funny lines, the film doesn’t feel like the quip-a-thon recent Marvel efforts have become. The latest Thor movies and series like She-Hulk have become so overtly comedic that nothing has dramatic import anymore. Even the most serious or tragic moments, like the destruction of Thor’s entire planet in Ragnarok, are immediately undercut by a lame joke that robs them of any impact.
Guardians Vol. 3 strikes a much better balance between comedy and seriousness, which is impressive considering how strange this world and its characters are. There are even some moments of legitimate horror. At one point, a character’s face is ripped off and you see the fleshy, bloody skull underneath in a way even the R-rated Face/Off didn’t dare back in 1997. I imagine there were plenty of parents and/or children upset over that scene, but for me it was nice to see Gunn go back to his horror roots. The third Guardians also sees the first F-bomb in a Marvel movie, which isn’t used in a super inventive way or anything, but is still a funny moment.
The themes of animal cruelty embodied in the High Evolutionary make him a particularly odious villain you want to see get his comeuppance. He’s certainly a more interesting villain than, say, Ronan the Accuser in the first Guardians, which suffered from the recurring MCU problem at the time of weak villains. Thankfully, the villains have gotten better since then. The High Evolutionary’s plan combines genetic engineering, eugenics, animal experimentation, and casual genocide, which is quite the combo. Iwuji is very good, despite doing a bit too much over-the-top screaming at his subordinates and the Guardians.
If there are any problems with Guardians Vol. 3, it’s that the movie is way too long. It’s one of those movies that keeps going long after the point at which the main story could have been resolved. The action is better than most CGI slugfests and involves characters we care about — often the key missing ingredient when these kinds of blockbusters devolve into noisy third acts. Some of the best character moments also happen in the last 30–40 minutes; there’s a clever visual nod to Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam I appreciated. Even so, the movie gives you a feeling similar to when you go to a good restaurant, but the portions are too big and you overeat. It’s the latest example of blockbuster bloat. Most would-be tentpoles now seem to clock in at a minimum of 2 hours, 30 minutes.
There’s been a lot of talk about superhero fatigue lately, which is understandable considering how oversaturated the market is. The Guardians get by in part because they aren’t really superheroes, despite their comic-book origins. More importantly, they’re in the hands of a good writer and director who knows how to write good characters and a compelling story. That gives me hope for Gunn’s upcoming Superman reboot, which announced casting for Clark Kent and Lois Lane the day before I went to see Vol. 3. If Marvel and DC want to get back on track, they need more films like this that stand on their own and allow filmmakers creative freedom, and less that feel like just the latest corporate product rolling off the assembly line.
