The Series in Review
GotG 1 was about a band of misfits thrown together by chance to form a family. There was humor, and there was banter, and there was some crazy space stuff, and there were some dark moments, too, but it was a great intro.
GotG 2 was about challenging that family, re-defining it, expanding it. But it was also about cranking up the already-high level of humor to 12, and going bananas with the special effects. It had some serious threads, too (salute to Yondu), but it was overall pretty frothy.
(Insert a few other appearances here and there — holiday specials, cameos in other MCU movies, and so forth. Fun, but relatively shallow, leaning into the tropes, music, the mayhem, and the humor. )
GotG 3 … brings us back to the first installment in a good blend of tone. It’s dark in a lot of places, especially toward the beginning, to the point of being sort of even grim in tone. I would hesitate to bring a kid to this one, and people sensitive to body horror should probably steer clear.
Repeating that note: this is NOT kid-friendly.
The violence, suffering, and (I’ll use the word with consideration) atrocities that are shown or hinted at, and the level of (cartoon) violence in some of the battles, are very intense for an MCU film.
But it’s not gratuitously not-kid-friendly
A lot of the more gut-wrenching stuff is setting the stakes, teeing up the villain and one of our hero’s reactions toward him. That ties into a theme here: paying off past outstanding threads, some going all the way back to the beginning of Vol. 1 (Quill’s flight from his Earth family, and the tight-lipped secrets of Rocket’s origins), others being shaped neatly for the other characters.
It’s not always comfortable to watch, but it serves the narrative.
By the end, after trial, travail, confronting old ghosts and getting ready to confront new ones, we reach a satisfying set of reasons as to why this is the final volume of the Guardians, at least as we know them. Stories are wrapped up — or, if not wrapped up, set on new courses, some of which we may never see, others of which … who knows?
Heroes need a villain
The MCU hasn’t always done well with villains, and GotG as a series is an example of that. Vol. 1’s Ronan (Lee Pace) was a grim non-entity (and a lackey at that). Vol. 2’s Ego was, with the rest of the movie, equal parts humor and jerk.
The main heavy here is (I doubt this is a spoiler) the High Evolutionary, a self-created mad genius of great power and greater ambition to produce perfection in living things. What that looks like, what he’s willing to do, re-do, discard, try again, etc., makes him in his own way a deeper, darker adversary than your Thanos or your Ultron (or Ego, for that matter), perhaps because in some ways his motivation reverberates off of too many of humanity’s own darker moments.
But it also tees up a bunch of Marvel backstory fun, including places and groups that the High Evolutionary of the comics is associated with (i.e., Easter Eggs a-plenty here). The HE of Marvel Comics has always been a mix as a villain — very much the “everyone is a hero of his own story” and more of a bad guy because of his dispassionate pursuit of perfection than because of twirling mustachios. The HE here (Chukwudi Iwuji) plays up the zeal and ego a lot more, and it works pretty darned well.
Indeed, all the actors play their roles well, in parts great and small. There are no real weak links in this ensemble. And I have to give a big shout-out to Bradley Cooper, whose voice work for Rocket is a key to so much here, and carries so much of the (superbly animated) character.
The Special Effects
Fun and detailed and much more transparent, in many ways, than in Vol. 1 and 2. Practical, makeup (a world record in prosthetics), and CGI all blend together delightfully and such that I really stopped noticing it, even with creatures and characters that were a mixture or were all-CG.
We watched in the theater in 2D. There was stuff that I’m sure was very cool in 3D, but it wasn’t necessary to pay the extra money or headache.
The Music
The film score was done by John Murphy, replacing Tyler Bates from Vol. 1-2. The ever-present pop songs seem to have trended a bit more modern (though there are still some good rock classics in there).
Openings and Closings
The Marvel Studios opening sequence is a tribute to the GotG, rather than the current standard. It’s nicely done.
There are two credits scenes, at the usual spots. Both are worth watching for their own reasons (esp. since the credits themselves are a nicely done scrap book of photos — from the movies and not — of the characters we’ve come to know and love over the series.
A few minor bits of glee
1. After getting just a passing glimpse in the Collector’s collection, I am so glad to see Cosmo the Space Dog getting some decent screen time.
2. Rocket learning his secret origin — not just the origin that he remembered but never wanted to talk about (and with reason), but the origin behind that — was delightful, esp. in its payoff.
A few minor quibbles
1. I’ve follow Adam Warlock’s career from the beginning (as the cosmic “HIM”) to his Roy Thomas Counter-Earth Christ-figure days, to becoming another Jim Starlin cosmically wise / clever / menacing type. Will Poulter’s rendition here is pretty much nothing like any of those, which is kind of a pity — but the character does line up well both with his Vol. 2 origins and with the general theme of the Guardians.
2. I love the Guardians comic-style uniforms, and to the extent that they have been trying to be an organized force to protect the galaxy, sure, makes sense. That said, they do seem to come out of nowhere during the film.
Overall
I was a bit worried about Vol. 3 continuing the trends from Vol. 2 (make it louder! make it funnier! make it more psychodelic!), but James Gunn has made a movie that is both a great wrap for the saga, send-off for our characters, and a good film in its own right. Bravo.
Do you want to know more?
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) – IMDb
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – Wikipedia
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) | Cast, Release Date, Characters | Marvel
(A draft of this review was posted to Letterboxd.)