It took a while, a span of time that saw writer-director James Gunn move from Marvel to DC and then back again, and then back AGAIN to accept a very senior role at DC, but we got there eventually. The third, and final (at least in this incarnation), adventure for the Guardians Of The Galaxy. A lot of people are happy, most seem to think that Gunn managed to stick the landing. I am not in agreement with those people.
Our main group aren’t in a great place when the film starts, with Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) spending time drunk and sad while the others are unable to snap him out of his funk. Everything gets much worse when Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) turns up, picks a fight with our gang, and then leaves after being seriously wounded. He isn’t the only casualty though. Rocket (Bradley Cooper) ends up in critical condition, and the fact that he has some kind of killswitch inside him makes it impossible to immediately heal him. The guardians have to figure out how to bypass the killswitch, which means they have to find out more about Rocket’s past, putting them on a headlong path towards someone known as The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). Well, we find out about Rocket’s past as we see many flashbacks showing us everything that the Guardians may or may not find out about at a later stage.
While I am not going to say that this is the worst Marvel movie since Thor: Love And Thunder, there are a lot of the same problems dragging this down from the great ending it could have been. Much like Waititi being encouraged to further indulge himself with his second Thor movie, Gunn seems to have been given free rein to cut loose and go crazy for the final instalment of this trilogy. With the exception of The High Evolutionary, who is a fantastic main villain, almost everyone now speaks in banter and gags. There are very few instances without an abundance of jokes. I get that these movies have been full of humour throughout the previous instalments, but it’s all overdone here in a way that jars with the more serious moments. And, hooo boy, are there some serious moments here. The whole backstory for Rocket is an upsetting and emotional look at animal vivisection, and the third act feels even more callous than some of the other Marvel movies, when you fully consider the impact of the large-scale destruction. So I can see that Gunn would have wanted plenty of humour to offset these moments, but it just doesn’t work well enough, mainly due to him twisting other characters too far away from how they used to be. Even a surprising Groot (still voiced by Vin Diesel) moment feels a bit disappointing and at odds with the charm of his essence.
The production design is wild throughout, and that also feels as if it has gone too far. Gunn wants every scene crammed full of alien species and strange environments, but too much of everything just has you wishing for a moment or two of something refreshingly normal. And then there’s the soundtrack, which people have once again marked as a highlight. No. This is a selection of obtrusive needle-drops that simply don’t work as well as by soundtrack choices from the first two movies. I love most of the songs used here, but they rarely felt like a natural fit for the scenes they were shoehorned into.
The cast generally do a good job, working well with what they are given. If you enjoyed Pratt, Cooper, Diesel, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, and Sean Gunn in the previous movies then you should enjoy them here. Poulter is sadly wasted in his role, as is Elizabeth Debicki (playing his “mother”), Maria Bakalova provides the voice of Cosmo, another fairly wasted character, and I am sure fans of Gunn’s work will enjoy seeing a small role for Nathan Fillion. Iwuji would steal the film though, were it not for the fact that many of his scenes involve him interacting with a super-cute, younger version of Rocket. His genuinely threatening and cruel villain is good enough to lift the whole film up a notch or two.
It’s hard to stay angry or disappointed with Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 though, knowing that everyone involved really wanted to come back and do their best to ensure a fitting end to this particular chapter in their cinematic incarnation, but it’s not one I will be revisiting, as opposed to the previous two adventures. Not only is the main storyline surprisingly predictable, it’s also surprisingly unsatisfying. One moment near the very end had me thinking that Gunn was actually committed to making the most of this opportunity to provide a properly emotional ending for this ragtag bunch of reluctant heroes, but it was soon undercut by one of the many easier options available in his storytelling toolbox. And it's also worth noting the most egregious and unnecessary "f-bomb" I can think of, seemingly just to take full advantage of the 12A rating here in the UK.
There are still moments here to enjoy, and many other people found less to be critical of than I did, but I was disappointed, and it feels like yet more proof that Marvel will struggle to get back to the consistent greatness they made seem so effortless as they built everything towards the cinematic conclusion of the Infinity Saga.
5/10
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