GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: VOL. 3 - Mark Reviews Movies

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3, Marvel Studios

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | May 4, 2023

Leave it to the weirdos to bypass what's becoming the same, old same-old in this franchise. The promise of these characters, from the start of returning writer/director James Gunn's trilogy about the spacefaring adventurers, has always been that they could be odd, playful, and outside the status quo of what their fellow superheroes were doing. It might not always have worked, but Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 gets to the main reasons for how it could and why it did when it did.

The new entry in this series within the broader—and increasingly ungainly—franchise of the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe finds the eponymous team of semi-superheroes on another self-contained adventure. Once again, it is filled with strange alien worlds and plenty of humor, but this one continues the previous installment's move toward looking at these characters as more than pawns within a galaxy-hopping plot and the means of communicating a lot of sarcastic jokes.

It's kind of a shock, in fact, to realize just how much groundwork Gunn has laid with these characters, their internal problems, and their shared need to connect as a makeshift family of wounded people. The revelation comes as this film provides a surprisingly affecting subplot revolving around—of all the likely candidates, considering the number of potential human and humanoid alien or robotic characters within this series—a computer-generated raccoon.

The story picks up after, well, a lot. If one hasn't been keeping up with this franchise in terms of all the movies and at least one piece of its recent TV programming, it would take up most of this review to summarize everything that has led the Guardians of the Galaxy to this point—with some of the most important details happening outside of their own movies.

Gunn's screenplay smartly evades the more complicated matters, such as the universe-halving-and-restoring events in which the Guardians played a role and that led to one of their members being killed and sort of resurrected by way of a time-traveling loophole. Some of that convoluted back story becomes a bit of joke here, as Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), aka Star-Lord, tries to explain to Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) why he has romantic feelings for her, even though, from her perspective, she only met him briefly one time.

Gunn clearly wants to cut through all of that as quickly and simply as possible, because there's an adventure to be had, some jokes to make, and plenty of devastating character background to reveal in this tale. We return to the Guardians as they take some rest at their headquarters on the giant floating skull known as Knowhere, only for the relaxation to be interrupted by a powerful, golden god-like figure known as Adam Warlock (Will Poulter). He's after team member Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper), the foul-tempered tinkerer of a raccoon, on behalf of the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a scientist with a god complex who experimented on a baby Rocket to turn him into this lovably grumpy anomaly.

That's really the only plot summary that's necessary here, because it sets Peter, warrior Drax (Dave Bautista), telepath Matis (Pom Klementieff), cyborg Nebula (Karen Gillan), and talking tree Groot (voice of Vin Diesel) on a mission to deactivate Rocket's "kill switch" so that they can properly heal him after near-fatal battle. There are a few other characters, and indeed, there are too many, no matter how amusing they may be (a Soviet-era cosmonaut dog, voiced by Maria Bakalova, with telekinetic powers) or how much potential they might have (Adam and his mother, played by Elizabeth Debicki, and Sean Gunn's Kraglin) if the story weren't so busy with everything else.

The "everything else" is what really matters, anyway. It's quite a bit of imaginative fun in its exploration of different worlds, consistently funny in continuing to allow these characters of distinct personalities to bicker with each other in their assorted groupings, and surprisingly touching in the way Gunn gets to the core of how deeply these character care about each other by way of the plot.

Those new worlds in this installment include a corporation that's housed within a biological structure, meaning that a break-in of the place involves cutting through flesh-like walls and dealing with guards wearing uniforms that make them look like fleas in fat suits, and a "counter-Earth," where the High Evolutionary has created a planet for his more advanced animal-based experiments to live out a suburban lifestyle. This villain, with his stretched-out mask of a face and desire for "perfection," is a fine one, too, and credit is due to Iwuji for making him the adult embodiment of a petulant child.

All of the characters get their moments, but the exposed heart of the story belongs entirely to Rocket, whose secretive life story of physical agony and shattered hopes is detailed through a series of flashbacks. It's a testament to the character work Gunn and these actors have accomplished over the course of these three films that a digital creation that started as a joke—a talking, gun-toting raccoon who refuses to acknowledge its species—can lead to the sort of emotional payoff as the one provided by the scenes of Rocket's past.

If anything, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 feels like a culmination of the connections that have grown among this cast of outcasts and wounded souls, in between the wise-cracking and the laser-blasting action (A rotating one-take of the group working together as a team in a narrow hallway is a particular highlight, partly because it arrives at a particular moment and for a specific reason). Obviously, there are no set endings in a franchise where half the universe can be snapped out of and back into existence, but as a (likely temporary) departure for this team, the film serves as fondly unusual and unusually fond farewell.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Soundtrack

Buy the Soundtrack (Digital Download)