Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

By: Mike Ward on Sunday, May 07

PG-13 Running Time: 150 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

The third film for the Guardians and the 32nd film for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to make a lot of money. You likely have your tickets already.
Perhaps delivers one of the most satisfying conclusions to a Marvel movie to date.
The Guardians’ films balance humor, music cues, brilliant sound and visual effects, with humorous and endearing characters that audiences absolutely love. There is all of that and more in this final (?) installment of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

NO

Trigger warning: The film contains scenes and a major plot point around animal abuse, experimentation, and confinement. These scenes can be very intense for younger viewers and takes the film in a different place than most other MCU movies to date.
The nod-and-wink elements from previous Guardians films don’t quite land as good here. The music cues are too random, the film spins its wheels for a fair amount of its running time, and a promising villain shouts his way into irrelevance.
Overall, this is the weakest film of the trilogy, putting lots and lots of eggs into the basket of an exuberant final half hour or so to help you forget the stumbles and melancholic tone that precedes it.

OUR REVIEW

Without a doubt, Guardians of the Galaxy will go down as a beloved trilogy within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). And there are certainly many who will point to Guardians as shifting the vibe and tone of the MCU into a franchise which now blends humor and action and complex world-building into largely everything they do. Sure, before the Guardians arrived, Robert Downey, Jr. was cutting one-liners as “Iron Man” and the Avengers were goofing on each other, but these Guardians, in all their ragtag glory, brought humor to the forefront. Chris Pratt’s buffoonery lined up next to Dave Bautista’s endearing, and at times simplistic, view of the world. Then we have Rocket Raccoon’s obnoxious bravado and the iconic Groot’s singular statement, which somehow fits any and every situation (“I am Groot.”)

At the conclusion of this third volume in the saga, some version of the Guardians will continue in the MCU. Though this existing iteration of “Star-Lord” Peter Quill (Pratt), Drax (Bautista), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), alien warrior Nebula (Karen Gillan), Peter’s half-sister Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and tree-based Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) do take their final journey together in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Surprisingly emotional and an absolute crowd-pleaser by the end, film #32 in the MCU gives fans a scattershot cinematic experience, largely coasting on past successes to mask over some of the film’s structural and storytelling stumbles.

At 150 minutes, Vol. 3 is the third-longest Marvel movie to date, and for a decent portion of the film, we can tell. Director James Gunn’s film balances the novel idea of giving Rocket Raccoon an origin story, but then decides to tamp down much of the film’s enthusiasm with a series of sequences involving animal abuse, experimentation, and confinement. As it turns out, Rocket’s anthropomorphic abilities come from medical dabbling by someone known as “The High Evolutionary” (Chukwudi Iwuji). The dastardly heel in this Marvel movie wants to build a place called “Counter-Earth,” which is his personal re-creation of Earth - only in his version, everything is perfect and nothing ever goes wrong.

And if movies have taught us anything, we know how that will turn out.

Nonetheless, Rocket’s backstory finds him as a baby raccoon who befriends other baby critters - an otter, a rabbit, and a walrus, each with weepy eyes and kind hearts and the type of personalities that make younger viewers instantly fall in love and want these characters as either pets or stuffed animals.

Allow me to take this moment to remind parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, etc. who plan on taking young kiddos to see this: the film is rated PG-13 for many reasons.

Significant time is spent on Rocket’s story, which allows a couple of subplots to percolate. A golden-hued flying troublemaker named Adam Warlock arrives (Will Poulter), who decimates the Guardians upon contact. He is doing the bidding of his mother Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki). In turn, Ayesha is connected to the High Evolutionary who now wants Rocket back. A variant of Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) is also here, leading the criminal Ravagers faction, which also brings around a fun Sylvester Stallone cameo.

As a villain, the High Evolutionary is fine in design, certainly sinister and vicious enough. However, once his master plan becomes threatened, Iwuji spends nearly the last half hour (or maybe the full final hour?) shouting and screaming every…single…line. At first, it makes sense. However, Gunn never reins in the performance. Great villains need not shout how evil they are, but with Iwuji, there is no subtlety at all and his appearance becomes grating and off-putting the longer it goes.

The trademark Guardians song cues, or music drops, balance between fun and confounding. Typically, the songs which drop in a Guardians film either support or amplify the story as it unfolds. Here, the songs largely do not seem to match much of anything, with one significant exception. More on that in a moment. And yes, I understand these are Star-Lord’s favorite songs. However, while it’s great to hear “No Sleep Til’ Brooklyn” by the Beastie Boys again - why? And why here? Wouldn’t it make sense to call back to previous songs that connect the other films and the Guardians’ shared experiences together?

I don’t know. Maybe I’m nit-picking a bit.

There is a lot to like across these two-and-a-half hours. The characters are all having a ball, and there are some great moments as the Guardians splinter off into different mini-missions. We see Mantis more involved than ever before. Drax grounds himself in a way we have never quite seen before. Cooper’s voiceover work is engaging and moving, and the sound design and visual effects are stellar as always.

The film also delivers one of the all-time great fight scenes in MCU history. Already dubbed “The Hallway Scene,” there is a battle near the end of the film that is stunning and breathtaking in its choreography, execution, and presentation. Gunn and his team knock that sequence out of the park and if you are just waiting, hoping for something to lift the melancholy tone the film latches onto, this is the sequence to jolt you to attention.

For a film full of bungled music cues, they get one right. Really, really right. For a film that struggles to find a consistent tone and balance, there comes a blast of enthusiasm, exuberance, and celebration that truly delivers one of the MCU’s finest moments. If “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + the Machine doesn’t return to the top of the Billboard charts in the days following the release of the film, we are all doing music wrong.

In the end, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is a decent conclusion to this rather entertaining trilogy of films. People I have talked to who absolutely love this film, hone in hard on those last 15-30 minutes. And I admit that the eyes might get wet and you might get swept up in all the enthusiasm those moments provide.

Though as fun and rewarding as all of that is, Vol. 3 is enjoyable but inconsistent. This is frequently a dark film, with imagery that could jar some viewers. We have a villain who shouts their way into irrelevance and then leaves you with teasers in the credits that amount to little more than a head scratch and a chuckle.

Perhaps with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the dog days are indeed done.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Bradley Cooper, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Chukwudi Iwuji, Sean Gunn, Will Poulter, Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova, Sylvester Stallone, Linda Cardellini, Asim Chaudhry, Mikaela Hoover, Miriam Shor, Nico Santos, Judy Greer, Tara Strong, Nathan Fillion

Director: James Gunn
Written by: James Gunn
Release Date: May 5, 2023
Walt Disney Studios

The third film for the Guardians and the 32nd film for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to make a lot of money. You likely have your tickets already.

Perhaps delivers one of the most satisfying conclusions to a Marvel movie to date.

The Guardians’ films balance humor, music cues, brilliant sound and visual effects, with humorous and endearing characters that audiences absolutely love. There is all of that and more in this final (?) installment of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Trigger warning: The film contains scenes and a major plot point around animal abuse, experimentation, and confinement. These scenes can be very intense for younger viewers and takes the film in a different place than most other MCU movies to date.

The nod-and-wink elements from previous Guardians films don’t quite land as good here. The music cues are too random, the film spins its wheels for a fair amount of its running time, and a promising villain shouts his way into irrelevance.

Overall, this is the weakest film of the trilogy, putting lots and lots of eggs into the basket of an exuberant final half hour or so to help you forget the stumbles and melancholic tone that precedes it.