I’m not generally a “Guardians of the Galaxy” fan, but I did like the spaceship in the first one—best-looking spaceship since the Millennium Falcon in “Star Wars,” looking, as it did, like a galactic F-14 Tomcat. Okay, I tried to say something positive.
While the ragtag Galaxy crew—the misfits of the Marvel Comics Universe—burst onto the cinematic scene in 2014 and were a big hit and the 2017 sequel was an even bigger box office smash, my general take, overall, of this franchise, is that the stylistic hodgepodge of it all offends me. I find it to be shoddy world-building with no vision. I realize I’m somewhat in the minority on this.
Alright, Let’s Get This Out of the Way
“Vol. 3” kicks off with the Galaxy gang’s fearless leader, the depressed Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), trying to drink away his sorrows on the planet of Knowhere, regardless of his crew’s unsuccessful attempts to cheer him up.He’s still mourning the loss of Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), who, while no longer dead, has had a rather annoying personality change and is harsh, aloof, and dismissive of Quill.
Like the first two films, the opening involves a ‘70s pop song, but in this case, not a finger-popping classic, but an acoustic version of Radiohead’s “Creep,” which is being listened to by a very depressed looking Rocket (the racoon character voiced, with a heavy Brooklyn accent, by Bradley Cooper). So already the overall tone is depressing.
Soon, Rocket is close to dying, needing to be resuscitated by the Galaxy crew and brought back from near-death. The remainder of the film is a prolonged attempt save Rocket, paired with flashbacks to his origin story.
Here, we find out exactly why Rocket’s never wanted to talk about his past. It’s because it’s all incredibly depressing, like Sid’s creepy mutant, cobbled-together, depressing toys in the first “Toy Story,” except worse, because it’s like Nazi experiments on innocent little animals. These scenes are quite brutal to watch and may depress your kids enough for them to eventually need therapy sessions.
The Bad Guys
So the Guardians are suddenly attacked by a powerful, golden, well-muscled, god-like being with mommy issues, named Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), which is how Rocket is injured. But Warlock’s not the ultimate bad guy.Our heroes learn they can’t heal their fuzzy friend’s wounds because of a kill-switch they discover embedded in his body (the aforementioned Nazi-type animal torture experiments). So Peter and the gang race against the clock to track down an over-ride code before Rocket dies. Much mayhem, adventure, bizarre creatures, garish, bizarre costumes, shouting, and explosions ensue.
The first two films had fairly unremarkable villains, and the third installment is no better. We find out that the golden mamma’s boy Warlock has been sent to do the bidding of a dude named The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji, looking like a purple-clad, African Robocop). The High Evolutionary is more or less yet another mad scientist trying to create a utopian society, like the Nazis, and doing a lot of genocide type things.
The End
Coming in at a hefty 2 hours and 30 minutes, “Guardians 3,” lacks the roguish outsider spunk of its predecessors, although I laughed a couple of times, especially during scenes involving Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff).This over-processed send-off, so clearly focused on going out with a bang that it loses its charm, felt like a marathon slog. This is director James Gunn’s last foray with Marvel. I’m not at all sad about that.
