Imagine I tell you that I just got out of a movie where a villain goes to great lengths to retrieve missing intellectual property in the form of a long-lost brain that will bring intelligence to his new army of creepy mumbling children dressed in white. This villain spends all his energy crafting new grotesque creatures. The heroes of the story must venture into the villain's territory to save their loved ones (who have a hidden backstory the heroes are only just learning about) and along the way encounter thick, beige-colored henchmen.
You would tell me that it's 2001 and I have just watched the iconic Spy Kids, where Carmen and Juni Cortez go toe-to-toe with Floop, his Thumb Thumbs, and the army of robot children to save their parents and keep the top-secret Third Brain safe.
I would say to you, "No—well, yes, but no—I'm talking about Guardians of the Guardians Vol. 3!"
That's right, folks. Spy Kids in space!
Although, let it state for the record that Spy Kids is a respectable 88 minutes long and Guardians 3 comes in at a whopping 150 minutes(!).
The Guardians, now composed of Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Rocket the Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), and Mantis (Pom Klementieff), have established their newly established home of Knowhere. They're joined by Kraglin (Sean Gunn), space dog Cosmo (voiced by Maria Bakalova), and a small colony's worth of beings. The movie opens as Adam (Will Poulter), a Sovereign warrior created specifically to destroy the Guardians, enters Knowhere and attempts to kidnap Rocket the Racoon. A massive fight ensues before Adam flees wounded, leaving a critically injured Rocket behind. As the group tries to save their friend, they discover that he has a "kill switch" installed in his body, meaning that someone considers Rocket their intellectual property and the Guardians are unable to take any life-saving measures without engaging the switch and sentencing their friend to death.
Quill, unable to cope with the thought of losing another loved one, initiates a mission to get the code to override the kill switch. The Guardians suit up, leaving Kraglin and Cosmo in charge of Knowhere until they return.
They join forces with an alternate reality Gamora (Zoe Saldana) who has become a Ravager (space pirate) after being sucked into this timeline. This Gamora never met Peter Quill in her own timeline and has no interest in joining the Guardians or forming a romantic relationship with Quill. Still, they must work together to infiltrate Orgocorp to steal Rocket's file. After an altercation with the Guardian's universe equivalent of Thumb Thumbs, they manage to get the file but find that the code they need has been wiped.
As the present-day action unfolds, the narration cuts back and forth between the Guardians and Rocket's backstory. We learn that a young Rocket was experimented on by The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) in his attempt to create the perfect species and populate a utopia called Counter-Earth. Scared and confused, Rocket meets other animal experiments Lylla (voiced by Linda Cardellini), Teefs (voiced by Asim Chaudhry), and Floor (voiced by Mikaela Hoover). The group forms a tight-knit family, dreaming about seeing the sky when their master and creator decides to let them go live on Counter-Earth. After Rocket learns that he and his friends will never be set free, he attempts to escape resulting in the deaths of his friends. He escapes on a rocket and has evaded The High Evolutionary ever since.
As the Guardians head to Counter-Earth to find The High Evolutionary and retrieve the code, The High Evolutionary has also sent out more lackeys to find Rocket. We learn that this isn't the first species The High Evolutionary has created, and in fact, he's got quite the penchant for creating and destroying whole worlds without a second thought as soon as the species fails to live up to his aspirations to create the most perfect species. Rocket is unique, in that he is the first creature to exhibit true intelligence.
The final showdown takes place as the destruction of Counter-Earth begins. Quill and Groot manage to get the code and revive Rocket, but then everyone, including the citizens of Knowhere, converges again on The High Evolutionary's ship to rescue Drax, Mantis, Nebula, and the horde of genetically engineered children dressed in white and animals used for experiments hidden in the depths of the ship.
The High Evolutionary vanquished, Gamora returns to her crew of Ravagers, and Quill, confronting the misconception that everyone in his life leaves him, decides to return to Earth to reconnect with his grandfather before it's too late. Mantis also announces her leave, stating she wants to go find out what she really wants. Gamora and Drax elect to stay on Knowhere to raise the creepy child army. Rocket takes charge of the Guardians, now comprised of Rocket, Groot, Cosmo, Kraglin, Adam, and one of the children called Phyla (Kai Zen).
This is a farewell tour for several members of the Guardians team. Gamora does not return to the fold, and Zoe Saldana has stated this is her final performance as Gamora. Likewise, Dave Bautista has been vocal about not wanting to return to reprise Drax. Peter Quill has stepped down as leader of the Guardians, although an end-credit scene did confirm that Starlord would return so we likely haven't seen the last of Chris Pratt. Importantly, though, this is the final Guardians flick for James Gunn who, after a few years of controversy with Marvel's parent company Disney, has been poached to reconstruct the DC Comics cinematic universe.
Gunn, the writer and director of the other two Guardians movies, has been afforded far more creative license with this trilogy than other Marvel directors, something that shows in the continuity of aesthetics and character growth. This finale feels less like a formal goodbye, and more like a new beginning for these characters to go out and be better versions of themselves as compared to their Movie 1 or Movie 2 counterparts. Interestingly, Rocket Racoon, whom Gunn has stated several times he sees as a deeply personal stand-in for himself, will remain with the Guardians as its new leader, outlasting Gunn's tenure.
Guardians 3 certainly feels like a glory lap for those involved, which is where the largest problem lies for me. It was so damn long. I felt my hair gray as I sat in that AMC recliner. 150 minutes is waaaaay more than enough time to tell this story and tell it well. There were several scenes that I felt established the same dynamic or reiterated something that had already been articulated onscreen. The biggest example of this for me is the flashback scenes, which make a lot more sense when you learn that James Gunn relates most strongly to Rocket. These flashbacks were whole, entire fleshed-out scenes, not just snippets here or there that dangle little bits of information stretched throughout the entire movie. I think you pretty much understand the backstory after the first two flashbacks where Rocket is plucked from his cage and experimented on before being dropped into a new cage where he meets the other anthropomorphic experiments. We could maybe get a snippet towards the end of Rocket indirectly causing their deaths, but instead, we get whole swaths of them playing and talking and more experiments and a drawn-out death scene. I was just like, "I get it." Even in spite of my Spy Kids in space observations, I enjoyed the storylines. The pacing was just so incredibly lagged that the movie on the whole couldn't keep my attention.
And part of that feeling is definitely because this stuff is predictable. Marvel villains on the whole have really started to feel copy/paste, with a lot of them doing their evil deeds "for the greater good." Thanos wants to restore balance by taking out half of the universe, Ultron wants to eliminate humanity to create world peace, Killmonger wants to take over Wakanda to use its power to make amends for the historic racist treatment of black people outside of Wakanda. Even Namor in Wakanda Forever is guided by a desire to protect his people from the rapidly encroaching threat of modern countries on the surface. The High Evolutionary spews a lot of the same rhetoric and shares the same fatal flaw, which is blindness to reason in the pursuit of a "noble" goal. (I knew he was a supervillain the moment I saw that his utopia included rows and rows of depressing, cookie-cutter suburbia). These kinds of villains are interesting when they are used for a purpose, but I struggled to see one in this film given the oversaturation of "Greater Good" villains in the MCU.
I really enjoyed the landscapes created in Guardians 3. The world was lush and varied, exactly what you want from a space adventure. The section in Orgocorp especially had a lot of fun and interesting visuals and world-building. Performances from Pratt, Gillan, and Saldana were particularly strong. Each had several layers of emotional baggage they carried convincingly together and separately. Bautista, Klementieff, Iwuji, Gunn, and Poulter's performances did well, but never extended into the same emotional depth. Nathan Fillion's stint as a Thumb Thumb was refreshing, breathing some dry humor back into Marvel. The voice acting was on par, with Cooper's Rocket obviously putting in the most legwork.
Overall, this was an enjoyable story and visually pleasing movie with interesting worlds and performances. I would just hate to have to sit through the director's cut.
Overall
3 stars out of 5.
End Credits: 2/5
They used the standard end credits structure with big screen-wide credit pages for the main actors before transitioning to a rolling credit format. They did incorporate the rolling portion with pictures of the Guardians and other characters important to the series. It had strong "farewell" vibes, marking the end of this era of Guardians. Even the multiple end credit scenes didn't help make this credits roll stand out (in fact, at that point I was actively asking myself why the Lord stopped time). End credits should be cool in and of themselves. They don't need end credit scenes to be worth staying for. I just think Marvel has the resources and imagination to go bigger.
Soundtrack: 4.5/5
Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the most famous soundtracks in recent times, establishing a very distinct classic 70s rock aesthetics. This soundtrack breaks some of those conventions established in the first two, using a more eclectic mix of songs from different genres and eras. I think that music has always been a strong suit of the series, and this volume was no exception, especially now that they have allowed themselves to include unexpected songs. The opening usage of "Creep" by Radiohead set such a palpable scene and I nearly jumped out of my seat hearing "San Francisco" by The Mowglis. I appreciated using "Come And Get Your Love," a callback to the first Guardians movie. The final scene with "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence and the Machine added to the bittersweet finality, utilizing the 2010s song's growing nostalgia to evoke similar feelings in watchers as their time with this first batch of characters came to a close.
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