ALMOST a decade ago, the world was introduced to the “Guardians of the Galaxy”, a ragtag group made up of a former space pirate, an assassin and daughter to a megalomaniacal space tyrant, a psychotic raccoon and his monosyllabic sentient tree partner, and a hulking murderer with an IQ in the low 10s.
At the time, prior to release, 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 was considered a “risky” release due to the characters being relatively unknown to the general audience compared to the other hot properties in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Despite that, co-writer and director James Gunn did the impossible, and Vol. 1 became a global hit. It was followed up with Vol. 2 three years later, which was an even bigger hit.
Now with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Gunn finally breaks the gang up after putting them through their most emotional wringer.
Dire situation
Taking place after the events in Avengers: Endgame, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is still grieving – and drinking himself to death – over Gamora’s (Zoe Saldana) demise, while the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy have set up a home base on Knowhere.
Not long into the film, the Guardians are attacked by Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) is badly wounded. Drunkenly attempting to heal him, Quill causes further damage and makes the injury grievous.
Discovering the existence of a “kill switch” inside Rocket, placed by those that experimented on him to stop any unwanted intrusions into his body, the Guardians resolve to find Rocket’s “creator” and save him with the override code for the kill switch.
This pits Quill and the gang against Orgocorp, an intergalactic bioengineering company that has broken multiple “space laws” involving illegal genetic engineering, and the company’s leader, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji).
Ties that bind
The emotional core of Vol. 3 is straightforward; it’s centered on Rocket, his mysterious background, and the lengths that his friends go in order to save him.
This is in stark contrast to the first two films.
The first film was about the Guardians stopping a space warmonger from annihilating the universe using a magic purple Tic-Tac, and the second film was about them stopping a cosmic being – Quill’s father – from absorbing Quill in order to gain enough power to “remake the universe in his own image”.
By downsizing the stakes from cosmic, universe-threatening nonsense to “Rocket is dying, we need to save him”, Vol. 3 – despite all the fluff – is a very effective, intimate film on friendship and loss.
Rocket’s background, which many had guessed was traumatic, is proven to be true, and also, equally beautiful.
Gunn impressively introduces three new characters that form a crucial part of Rocket’s formative years, before everything goes the way these things usually end up when it comes to animal experimentation.
The effects are devastating; on Rocket, on the viewers that spent the last two hours or so getting to know these new characters, and on the High Evolutionary’s face.
And though the stakes are not quite as absurd, Gunn retains his signature weirdness from the previous films; Counter-Earth was quite the trip, and so was the fleshy, rectum-esque Orgosphere.
Too much and too little
However, Vol. 3 is not without its flaws. It’s overstuffed, for one, where it Vol. 3 feels both breezy and slow at the same time.
Things would be happening on-screen, but they would feel like both unimportant filler and important scenes overlapping on each other, like any scene involving Poulter’s Warlock or his mother, Elizabeth Debicki’s Ayesha.
Warlock, who was teased in the post-credits for Vol. 2, barely plays an important role in this film except at the very end.
Then there’s the usual MCU juggling act that these directors often have to do.
Being possibly – for now – Gunn’s last Guardians of the Galaxy film, he has to provide a proper send-off to his original roster for the Guardians, while at the same time, he has to introduce a new roster for whichever film Disney and Marvel Studios chooses to have them in next.
For what it’s worth, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a fitting, galactic send-off for the most beloved, yet bizarrely put together group of superhero misfits.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is currently in cinemas.