Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Apart from his real-life persona, you do have to admire James Gunn for being one of the few massive-budget major-studio filmmakers whose unique aesthetic and style have never wavered. It's not easy, especially these days, especially the way whole committees of producers work under mega corporations like Disney or DC. Admittedly, Gunn's work isn't generally my preferred aesthetic, though I do enjoy his movies in these franchises; here, in his much-anticipated finale to the Guardians of the Galaxy series, he lets out all the stops to deliver a rambunctious, eye-popping, and heartrending story that feels more grounded and emotionally honest than maybe anything he's ever done. 

That's not to say it doesn't still feel very much like an MCU movie, complete with the usual hang-ups that are increasingly decried by audiences: marathon running time, overwhelming reliance on CGI, tag scenes to set up yet more movies, so many characters and plot points that you need special Wikipedia fan pages to guide you through the mess. These are all here, to be sure, but Gunn offers a distinctive flair for knowing that's what the audience will expect, so he leans heavily into manipulating how we feel rather than just what we see. His control over tone -- from the actors, from the soundtrack, from the pacing and screenplay -- exerts a certain magnetism for our experience of the stories he tells, and this one is a doozy.

Vol. 3 is solidly Rocket Racoon's story, and it was a long time coming. Bradley Cooper's beloved tinker and berserker character has had his past darkly hinted at before, but this film opens with him listening to Radiohead's "Creep" from Star Lord's prized Walkman. Indeed, the horrors of his past are thickly dramatized in this film, running parallel with the primary plot, and Rocket will learn that while he might indeed be a weirdo, he's also so very special. Trigger warning for anyone who doesn't like graphic harm done to animals, because there are some scenes in this movie I could hardly watch myself, and I wouldn't have said that was a particularly sensitive spot for me; at least not more sensitive than, you know, humans being brutalized, which tends to be less shocking after thirty-something movies in a violent franchise. Rocket, you see, was "created" as he is by a villain called the High Evolutionary (a stunningly scary Chukwudi Iwuji), a cruel scientist with a god complex who seeks to found a utopia of human-animal-machine creatures called Counter-Earth.

Interestingly, Rocket plays little part in the central plot of this film. Early, he is attacked by Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), sent from his Sovereign mother for revenge on the Guardians after the events of Vol. 2, and spends most of the film unconscious and near death. That gives him time to "tell" us his own story of torture and imprisonment by the High Evolutionary. The parallel (main) plot is of the other Guardians desperately trying to save him by traveling to the headquarters of Orgocorp, the High Evolutionary's company, to deactivate the "kill switch" that hinders their healing efforts. But the beloved team of misfits all have their own issues to handle as well, even apart from the constant threats of Adam Warlock and others. And yes, Sylvester Stallone cameos in this movie, too.

Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is still devastated by Gamora's (Zoe Saldaña) death, and can't quite handle the new, alternate timeline version of her who leads the Ravagers and joins the race to infiltrate Orgocorp. She can't stand his simpering self-pity, nor his hopeless attempts to woo her, and while these make for interesting interactions between them (and some refreshingly sincere acting from Pratt), the would-be-romance doesn't drive the plot, which is refreshing even as it stings. It does teach Peter some valuable lessons, though, which land satisfyingly well by film's end. Drax, Nebula, Mantis, and Groot (Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, and Vin Diesel, respectively) are all present, and have some shining moments, but don't really have much to do except shoot off sassy or silly one-liners and help in the battles. Then add in all the cameos, the other characters -- I mean what about Cosmo the Spacedog, voiced by Maria Bakalova, or Lylla the otter, voiced to heartbreaking perfection by Linda Cardellini? -- and this movie feels like an entire miniseries crammed into two and a half hours.

The parallel plots do occasionally throw off the film's momentum, and I felt more than a little jarred when we'd go from relatively quiet, painful scenes in Rocket's past to bizarre locations and manic fighting scenes in the present. Thankfully, there are some really great practical effects and sets, the bread and butter of Gunn's demented charms, and some really freaky creatures out of his darkest imaginings, though the finale goes boom in big ways that only the MCU has really trademarked successfully. But generally speaking, this is one of the strongest MCU products we've seen in a long time. Its smart villain is one to remember, perhaps mostly because of the weird existential dilemma he signifies: his relationship with Rocket is as a jealous parent or jealous god who resents and fears the intelligence and goodness of his creation. No wonder this movie reads so much like Gunn's manifesto, as he always seems to want his movies to succeed beyond his legacy. And if you doubt me, check out the film's closing sequence, mostly a dance party to Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days are Over," which had me weeping for the rest of the day.