New & now: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Burned out on Marvel? Me too. But give this one a chance.
Though I had pointedly been ignoring any mention of it up to that point, last night at the movies I got a very long, exasperating trailer for The Flash, Warner Bros.’ big tentpole movie that they’re putting all their chips on1 to save the studio after a long series of decisions that seemed to be made specifically to destroy it.
I say “exasperating” not because it looks bad. No, it looks fine, even though it still appears to heavily rely on that grayscale effect DC movies love to use so you’ll know that their movies are very serious works of art made for grownups. The problem is that minimal effort seems to have been made in trying to distinguish it from the last twenty or so comic book movies that have been released over the last decade. It’s another origin story about a hero with a tragic past who confronts a megalomaniac from an alien world who wants to destroy Earth. Thanks to yet another variation on the interminable “multiverse” theme that’s in both Marvel and DC, previously dead characters are now alive again (which means there are virtually no dramatic stakes), and different versions of the same character exist in the same place at the same time.
I guess like a toddler when colorful keys are shaken in my face I’m supposed to get excited by seeing Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck back as Batman, but Marvel already pulled that trick out of their hat back in 2021 with Spider-Man: No Way Home2. I have no doubt that the biggest challenge the Flash will have to face is not General Zod, but accepting that he can’t change the past, no matter what kind of superpowers he has. I’m good, I get it. I’m tired.
The irony of saying all this is that the movie I was waiting to see when I got a trailer for The Flash was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, part of a series of comic book movies that also involves tragic backstories (several of them!), megalomaniacs (several of them!), and even a character who dies but then returns as an alternate universe version of themselves. It’s almost exactly the same tired nonsense I just complained about, and yet, I found myself engaged, and even moved at times by it, even if I had a pretty good idea of how things were going to work out in the end. There’s a lot of heart to it, enough so that even when it occasionally drags, you know your time will be paid back in a joyful ending.
There’s also a tiny bit of homework required, in that you’ll need to watch last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special to get a few references3. Other than that, it picks up more or less where 2018’s Endgame left off, with the Guardians returning to Knowhere, the floating city they’ve designated as their headquarters. Even though things are relatively peaceful, there’s a lot of moping going on: Guardians leader Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) over the loss of Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who died but later returned from an earlier timeline, where she doesn’t know Peter (and angrily rejects the idea that they were ever a couple), and wisecracking raccoon Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) over feeling as if he doesn’t belong4 among the humans and humanoid aliens.
Before any of that gets a chance to be resolved, however, mysterious being Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), so powerful that not even Drax (Dave Bautista) is a match for him, shows up to try to kidnap Rocket. Though he narrowly escapes, Rocket is grievously wounded, and an attempt to save his life only makes things worse. It’s soon discovered that he has a kill switch implanted in his body that makes it impossible to heal his injuries, and the only way he can be saved is if they find the override code for it, which is located somewhere in the planetary headquarters5 of Orgocorp, a company that specializes in biological experimentation.
Joining the Guardians as they leave for Orgocorp’s headquarters is Gamora, though she’s only there because her sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan), paid her. Either way, they’re going to need her, because they’re about to encounter a villain of a different kind. The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) is a eugenicist who, as we learn through flashbacks, ran brutal experiments on a young Rocket and other animals in his quest to create the perfect genetically altered anthropomorphized being, with the greater goal of creating a sort of Planet of Dr. Moreau to replace Earth.
His plan doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (human-kangaroo hybrid + ???? = profit), but it doesn’t make him any less dangerous. It was the High Evolutionary who sent Adam Warlock to capture Rocket, his most successful experiment, so that Rocket can be killed and his brain examined. It’s a fairly gruesome plot for a movie that also features a character bantering with a talking dog, but writer/director James Gunn mostly manages the balancing act, and maybe that’s what makes the Guardians movies among the better ones in the MCU. They’re odd combinations of goofy comedy and tear-jerking tragedy that somehow work in spite of themselves.
Despite its often brutal twists and turns, focusing on Rocket’s story while Peter’s lost romance with Gamora takes a backseat was a wise choice. There are a lot of eye-rolling directions that particular subplot could go, but it ultimately zags on the audience, as Peter gradually chooses to accept that what he had with Gamora is gone, rather than continue trying to convince the “new” Gamora otherwise. It also gives Chukwudi Iwuji an opportunity to flex his muscles, playing a truly odious villain who can’t decide if he loves or hates his most miraculous creation, but either way has no issue destroying him and everything he loves. Iwudi chews on the scenery with relish, absolutely delighted to be playing someone who will never get the “maybe he was right about some things” treatment afforded to Thanos and Black Panther’s Killmonger. The High Evolutionary is just a flat-out monster, and Iwudi is having the time of his life.
If Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 suffers anywhere, it’s the same problem (well, one of them) with comic book movies overall: too many characters, not enough time to do anything with all of them. This is particularly true of Adam Warlock — despite this presumably being a setup to his own eventual movie, his screen time is limited, and the script can’t quite decide if he’s an innocent simply acting under orders from his malevolent creator (Elizabeth Debicki, who’s given even less to do), or just kind of dumb. While their banter is always entertaining, both Drax and empath Mantis (Pom Klementieff) mostly seem to be there out of obligation, while Nebula, having completed her “bad guy to good guy” character arc two movies ago, has also outlived her usefulness. That’s not a slight against any of the actors; in fact, their likability makes such a criticism fairly minor. It’s enjoyable just to spend some time with these folks, even if they’re often just relegated to the background.
Though Saldana and Bautista both have said they don’t plan to return to the roles that made them fan favorites, there’s no doubt (even without the two teasing credits sequences) that Guardians of the Galaxy will keep on trucking6. That's fine. Where the movie ends would be a perfectly good, upbeat conclusion to the series overall, but we know that's not how these things work. It's certainly a stopping point for me, for a while at least. It seems like a good place to stop, on a high, happy note, rather than "god, again?" annoyance.
So much so that they’re even relying on audiences to simply forget (or ignore, whichever works) that star Ezra Miller, hardly a huge box office draw in the first place, has been accused multiple times of physical assault and grooming a minor.
Which was a perfectly fine movie! I liked it!
And the sight gag during the final credits sequence.
In case you don’t get it, he mournfully sings along to Radiohead’s “Creep.” James Gunn do love his really on-the-nose needle drops.
Orgocorp’s entire planet being made out of some kind of organic tissue is a nicely icky touch, though at times it looks that the whole place is covered in melted pizza toppings.
The second appearance in the series by Howard the Duck seems like both a funny sight gag, and an ominous portent of things to come in the MCU.