Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
He loves his outcasts does James Gunn. What has been most exciting about his “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies is the way they show a struggle between Gunn’s instincts as an outsider and an inside-the-Beltway franchise factory that is second to none. He’s among a small handful of filmmakers who have ever managed to work within the massive apparatus of the world’s biggest movie money making machine without completely giving up their voice, and watching this third “Guardians” film is like seeing a director who understands how to make blockbusters personally. For the most part. This sci-fi/action/comedy still suffers from some of the MCU problems of late too many characters, things go boom finale, bloated runtime but there’s an inventiveness to both filmmaking and dialogue here that frequently goes missing in modern superhero movies.
Speaking of which. Have you heard about AI-generated blockbusters? That’s where its messiest, as far as I’m concerned.
Gunn is that kid who not only plays with action figures, he breaks them apart and smashes them back together into new combinations. He doesn’t just love these losers, he wants them to save the universe again. So will you.
“Vol. 3” opens with Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) listening to “Creep” by Radiohead. It’s one of many clever needle drops in this film, but it sets a feeling more than it does a scene. Rocket is our weirdo, creep; and this movie is going to teach him that he’s so f-ing special, obviously.
It starts with an attack. Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), all golden hues and glowing eyes and muscles that would give Superman pause comes flying into Knowhere faster than light speed on crack cocaine pummeling anything or anyone between then and eternity standing in his way. Rocket takes worst beating nearly dying over and over and over again. That puts the film on two tracks a present-day story about the Guardians trying to save him, and a flashback to Rocket’s origin story. Their mission takes them to the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a mad scientist who once tried to speed up the evolutionary process for a utopia called Counter Earth where he created Rocket many years ago.
The Guardians have brought some emotional baggage into this one. Peter (Chris Pratt) has not been doing well since Gamora died at the hands of Thanos, only to return as an alternate timeline version of herself who doesn’t remember any of her time with the GotG, but she gets sucked into Rocket’s mission anyway. Their love story isn’t like part 1 or part 2, where getting Star-Lord and Gamora back together would’ve been most of what “Vol. 3” was about it’s more in service of a backdrop for Rocket’s tale, which allows for different chemistry between Pratt and Saldana, who is really good here looking at everyone else with one eyebrow raised, especially this dude who says he loves another version of her
For the other members, it has become too large for a single film. Dave Bautista is enjoyable again, but Drax has very little to do; Karen Gillan’s Nebula has become a functional part of the team without any actual development, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) is back for comic relief, Groot (Vin Diesel) does his thing. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that this “Guardians” is overcrowded and that’s not even mentioning the talking dog (voiced by Maria Bakalova), Elizabeth Debicki as Adam’s creator Ayesha or Sylvester Stallone’s return.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is at its most exciting when it’s clunky and weird, when it stops worrying about being “product over art.” It may sound a bit strange to say that a movie is best when it’s less refined but so many recent blockbusters lack that human touch. There’s something thrilling about watching Gunn push through some of his genuinely unsettling creature designs, or settings that look like they’re actually taking place in physical space rather than bland CGI making superhero movies feel like watching somebody else play a video game. There’s an even more chaotic and personal “Vol. 3” out there especially in its final act, which feels like it’s knocking off prerequisites on an MCU checklist but every time this blockbuster felt like it was edging more toward content than art, it won me back.
It’s in those small choices made by Gunn and an ensemble cast who would clearly follow him into battle at this point: Pratt has been phoning in some of his lead film roles lately, but he always clicks best on screen as Peter Quill, equal parts hero and chump giving him a broken heart allows Pratt to push away some of the cocky smarm that has derailed him in other projects and allows us to like Quill again. Saldaña is clearly having a blast returning to the basics of a warrior like Gamora, convincing us she could carry a movie like this alone. But, most of all, this is Rocket’s film; it’s the story of how he overcomes trauma to become the hero he was always meant to be.
Although the villain is a little bit underdeveloped, as most characters are in this cast of thousands, there’s something going on here thematically that rises above the basic hero ,villain stuff. Without giving away too much about Rocket’s origin, things changed for him when he fixed something in one of the High Evolutionary’s experiments himself, setting the baddie off into a tailspin of self-doubt and sociopathy. In a way, it’s a story about a vengeful god someone who strikes back at his creation after it not only becomes independent but arguably smarter than its creator. Tales of creations turning on their evil creators go back to myth if not further, but Gunn threads that idea through a Marvel vision with just enough nuance to give his film more depth than many others in the franchise. What if there is an evil God? One who sees his creations as nothing more than experiments. It’s a narrative that suits Gunn well as he battles against Hollywood by bringing his mind’s eye to life a creator who wants his creations to outshine himself.
The flashback mission structure of “Vol. 3” occasionally saps momentum from the movie, and anyone who has seen any Marvel movie knows we’re building towards some team ups and explosions here. And yet even when the film is checking those boxes off, it does so with Gunn’s personality still intact; whether that’s in music choices or intense imagery that may be slightly too scary for young kids, so much of what has been wrong with recent MCU fare feels like calculated desperation to merely do enough business to get by these are movies made by corporations because they know they’ll turn profits rather than artists who have anything interesting to say or new ways to say it with beloved characters. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is another reminder that the best blockbusters don’t just sing along with a well-known tune like “Creep”; they make that song their own. Because, after all, we’re all the weirdos. And Gunn would say that makes us all pretty fucking special too.
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