THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS.
by Jarrod Jones. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy changed Marvel Studios for better or worse, depending on your point of view. His grungy space movies made Marvel weirder; that’s better in my book. That’s why it was a mistake for Disney, Marvel’s parent company, to oust him from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. (Read this if you don’t know why they did it; their reasons were dumb.) Who else could possibly close out a James Gunn story with the same scuzzy gusto as James Gunn?
Disney got wise to their foul-up and convinced Gunn to return to the fold, but not before losing him to their Distinguished Competition. His new Superman should be good. For now, the rambunctious filmmaker is back to finish old business with this third Guardians movie, and the tone he strikes here — grimmer, more violent, more prone to splotchy sobbing than ever before — makes this a fittingly messy and awkward end. The Guardians are back, and this time, it’s personal.
Or more personal, if you can believe that. As this paradigm- (or tone-) shifting Marvel franchise has aged, it’s also matured: the first Guardians (or maybe we call it “Vol. 1” now) inserted minor notes of emotional abandonment into its walkman-blaring bombast. Vol. 2 effectively worked out themes of paternal abuse and forgiveness. Vol. 3, which unearths the distressing origin of Rocket (Bradley Cooper) while balancing a squadron of misfits who are one argument away from a break-up, grapples with change, be it natural, traumatic, final, or for the best.
And in Vol. 3, change comes abruptly. The film begins as Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) mourns the death of Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) with space-booze, while Nebula (Karen Gillan), Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Groot (Vin Diesel), and Rocket set up their first Guardians headquarters on the skull-city of Knowhere. Gunn establishes a maudlin tone by hooking Quill’s Zune to Knowhere’s PA system, which wafts a soft rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep” into the film (lots of that going around right now). Enter: Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), a cosmic superboy born from that cocoon we saw at the end of Vol. 2, out to kidnap Rocket for The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a scientific demi-god who wants to perfect all biological life through heinous means. Warlock leaves a path of destruction in his wake and lands Rocket in intensive care.
This sequence puts Rocket, the series’ wily marvel of computer effects and Cooper’s East-Coasted vocal performance, on the sidelines for a big part of the movie. So, as Quill gets his act together to save his friend — a feat made more complicated with the sudden appearance of a past version of Gamora, now a part of his old running crew, The Ravagers — Vol. 3 intermittently pulls us into flashbacks from Rocket’s early days. (Sean Gunn, Rocket’s on-set performer, lends his vocals for these scenes.) Iwuji spends most of his screen time there as the cruel architect of Rocket’s cyber-raccoon genesis, and I’ll say this for The High Revolutionary: he’s one of Marvel’s more memorable nemeses in recent memory. Someone even compares him to Thanos at one point. It’s an apt comparison.
Here, Gunn’s dramatic string-pulling is most felt. These fraught remembrances feature cute animals built into twisted mechanical creatures, all of whom have the sweetest hearts and seem designed to deliberately break yours. (They’re voiced by Linda Cardellini, Mikaela Hoover, and Asim Chaudhry.) Other animal-robot hybrids in this film, all assembled by the Evolutionary, are conceptually wilder and lend the film an energy that’s evocative of grodier 80s comics and cartoons. The relentless designs of cybernetic eagle commandos and war pigs with cannons for arms look like they were pulled from sketches in a cool teenager’s composition notebook, and contribute a vicious aspect to the film’s decidedly gooey aesthetic. Here, skin pores, peeled flesh, and an astonishing amount of goop and mechanized gore convey the chaotic nature of growth. Think David Cronenberg fused with Kevin Eastman merged with Walt Disney.
Trilogy cappers are generally overblown affairs, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is no different. It’s really long and eats up precious screen time to give each of its characters (including new ones, like Maria Bakalova’s Cosmo the Spacedog and Poulter’s Warlock) their moment to jam. On that front, this movie is overloaded, and one or two core characters get marginalized. (Sorry, Drax.) So, if you’re not already sold on Gunn’s distinctive brand of raw emotions, this might be like attending a high school reunion as a plus-one. For those who are, this is coming home to say goodbye.
Imperfect, ambitious, glorious in its execution (this boasts one mother of a hallway fight sequence), and gnarly as few modern blockbusters are allowed to be, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a fit conclusion for Gunn’s grody cosmic saga. (It also serves as a fitting epilogue to Avengers: Infinity War.) The Guardians series has been a vivid, creative sunburst amid Marvel’s increasingly dusty house style. This is one franchise I’ll miss, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that Marvel will, too.
8.5 out of 10
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is in wide release now.
Written and directed by James Gunn.
Cinematography by Henry Braham.
Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova, Sylvester Stallone, and Nathan Fillion.
Produced by Kevin Feige.
Rated PG-13 for cybernetic gore, animal harm, and one glorious use of the word ‘fuck.’
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