James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy has been one of the stronger series within the larger MCU. Off that alone, there were already huge expectations for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Add in the perceived “superhero fatigue,” the discussion of which has seemingly increased after the mixed reception of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and you can add some pressure to those expectations. And THEN, James Gunn has since left Marvel to co-run DC Studios with Peter Safran. Suffice it to say there a lot of behind the scenes and moving parts involved here can both raise and temper expectations. I was most curious about the effect of this being Gunn’s Marvel farewell.
He can leave it all on the field closing the Guardians trilogy. A common ding against the Marvel movies, especially recently, is a poor balance between serving the single movie and its characters and laying the groundwork for what’s to come in the MCU at large. Hopefully, with this being Gunn’s sendoff, he might have some more freedom to fully do this thing with Vol. 3, which could theoretically make it more of a self-contained story. And while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 does succeed in that regard, it’s a bit of a bumpy ride along the way.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 picks up with the team establishing a new headquarters on Knowhere. Leader Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is proving to be of no help, as he is still mourning the loss of Gamora (Zoe Saldaña). As a quick refresher, Gamora died in Infinity War, but then a past version of herself appears in Endgame. That Gamora had never met the Guardians, and Quill, still deeply in love with her, has fallen into a drunken depression as he fails to deal with this loss.
That recovery has to be pushed aside, though, when their home is attacked by Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), an extremely powerful being created by the Sovereign empress Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki). Warlock seems to be focused on one member of the Guardians in particular: Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper).
Rocket is badly injured in the attack and appears to be on the brink of death. When the team tries to save him, they discover a kill switch embedded in his chest, preventing them from being able to do the necessary medical procedures to save him. With Rocket in a critical state, the Guardians will have to confront the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a scientist from Counter-Earth who made Rocket in one of his many attempts at making hybrid creatures with the ultimate goal of creating a utopian society.
The setup here is great. In addition to the tough balancing act between the current movie and the larger MCU framework, another common complaint is how big the stakes are in so many of these movies. If you constantly have world or universe ending stakes at play, the audience can become numb to that. The best MCU movies tend to have a smaller focus. Smaller in the sense that entire worlds won’t be destroyed if our heroes fail to save the day. And that’s what Vol. 3 presents us with. Rocket is hurt and his friends are trying to save his life. Great, I love that.
Give us something with real emotional stakes, something authentic viewers can invest in. With the huge, sprawling world the MCU has set up, it’s seemingly become harder for the studio to make movies that have much their audience can truly connect to. But when they give us real investment like this, it shows that no matter how far into space you go, no matter what other worlds you might visit, love for your friends and family is paramount everywhere.
And it’s in these moments where Vol. 3 shines. James Gunn understands these characters as well as or better than any other writer or director in the MCU understands theirs. He knows what makes them tick, he knows how each would act and react in any given situation. When you talk about a perfect match between characters and writer, this what you’re talking about.
Gunn deploys a perfect mix of humor and drama within the various Guardians scenes and storylines. He knows when to cut the tension with a joke and when to let the deeper – and here, often darker – emotions sit with you uninterrupted. That’s been an unwelcome hallmark of several MCU properties. A great, emotional scene will happen, and someone has to come in at the end with a little joke. Sometimes a scene can just be sad, or dark, or depressing. Gunn gets that here, and it makes the deeper parts that much more effective.
But as great as the Guardians are, the surrounding stories are bland, at best. The High Evolutionary is one of the worst villains in the entire MCU. He’s nothing more than a stereotypical mad scientist. Iwuji is fully committed to the performance, but that commitment amounts to him yelling and screaming what feels like 95% of his lines. If that’s the villain you’re going to go with, fine, but there needed to be a lot less of him.
Without getting into spoilers of course, the story doesn’t only remain the Guardians’ quest to save Rocket. There is an out-of-nowhere escalation of stakes that almost completely ruins the goodwill the movie had built up by focusing solely on the Rocket story. Sure, it makes sense logically for the High Evolutionary, but it wasn’t needed here. The movie had already set up all the motivation and emotional payoff necessary for, at worst, a satisfactory ending. At best, it could have been one of the strongest in the entire MCU. That being said, Gunn does right the ship for the very end, with the final goodbye for the Guardians.
The introduction of the Adam Warlock character was also a huge swing and miss. He mostly exists as comic relief, and in a rare occurrence for Gunn, most of the jokes were pretty bad. I think there’s potential for this character moving forward, should he return, but he just felt out of place here. He’s not a consistently central character throughout the movie, and that helps. But the scenes where he does appear are often some of the weakest in the movie.
Rocket’s origin story providing some darker than usual themes to the MCU, combined with the usual fun and family themes of the Guardians, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is able to mostly rise above some of its clunkier aspects. Add in creative set design and some fight and action sequences that are better than you might expect from a Marvel movie, and the end result is another “good” MCU entry. I was hoping for great, given the strength of the first two in the series. But personal expectations aside, this is still easily a successful movie.
Score: 82/100
