I’m a sucker for animals. I donate to animal shelters and rescues, and have had a zoo’s worth of weird pets. At various points of my life, I’ve cohabited with a rabbit, a rat, a cat, a gecko, several parakeets, some Siamese fighting fish, rescued at least 2 wild birds in my childhood, have lived with at least 3 dogs (one of whom is a rescue), no less than 5 turtles, and a grumpy, late hedgehog. You want me to pay attention, shove an animal in my face, is the point.
James Gunn must have been following me around throughout my life, because Guardians Of The Galaxy, Vol. 3 is chock full of animals, anthropomorphic and otherwise, and pulls at the heartstrings in a way that at first seemed natural, but, the more I think of it, feels more like a safe bet. Does that take away from this film, featuring probably my favorite group of the Marvel Studios’ characters? No. But, again, this film feels like an easy, safe bet.
Picking up some undetermined amount of time after Vol. 2, which had a post-credit stinger revealing that Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) had created the overpowered, under-matured Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) to go after the titular Guardians, following their absconding with their batteries, this film opens with Warlock attacking the group in their home base of Knowhere, where they’d settled in quietly. Warlock’s attack leaves Rocket (Sean Gunn/Bradley Cooper) gravely injured, and on the verge of death, but with the rest of the Guardians unable to render aide due to a built-in kill-switch that was installed during one of the many experiments that granted Rocket his sentience and intelligence, at the hands of the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a scientist obsessed with creating a universe of “perfect” organisms, and doesn’t care how many living beings he has to rip apart and rebuild to do so.
As all this is unfolding, the remaining members of the Guardians are dealing with their own growing pains, in particular Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who, being a past version of herself, lacks the emotional connections to her teammates; and Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), who is drinking himself into a stupor since this version of Gamora no longer loves, knows, nor cares for him.
The stakes are a bit lower this time out: no real “We need to save the galaxy, guys!” stakes this time out, which is a bit refreshing. Lately Marvel’s output has been upping the stakes so much that it is becoming harder and harder to actually care about what happens to these characters. But even with that in mind, it’s hard to really feel anything for the High Evolutionary. Iwuji’s performance is a bit over-the-top and scene-chewing, and at times it makes sense, given how insane the High Evolutionary is; but the performance seems to cut against the grain of how cruel this movie can be towards some of the animal characters (keep in mind how I opened this review: I’m a sucker for animals and extremely uncomfortable with animal cruelty and actively do what I can to remedy that).
My main caveat is that the scenes of Rocket’s backstory — which delve into animal experimentation, and vivisection, and some body horror, of all things — cut against the grain of what this mini-franchise had built itself on, and, the more I think of it, played off as slightly manipulative. It’s easy to feel strong emotions when a test subject is a wide-eyed otter or rabbit…but change that animal to a monkfish or some other hideous-looking thing, and see if you can wring the same emotion out of your audience. What’s my point in this? Animal cruelty is an easy way to wring some tears out of your audience. And it’s very effective here…but still, a VERY easy target to hit.
The cast is about perfect as can be, as they’ve always been. Pratt’s performance feels a bit more desperate this time out, which was a bit surprising, since this is ostensibly Rocket’s show. Quill’s actions and reactions to the plot have the sense that he’s trying against everything to keep some semblance of normalcy, some sort of stability, desperate to just maintain what he has; it isn’t hard to imagine that he hasn’t slept for days, except for the times when he drinks himself into unconsciousness. And it works.
The High Evolutionary suffers from that most annoying Marvel Studios trope, but the one that has become so much more pronounced during this current Phase: the villains are evil because they’re the villains, and the plot just occurs because it needs to occur. There’s no real “story” being told here; it’s just continued installments leading to the Next Big Event, and, yes, that can be exciting, but if I can’t care about the stakes of the individuals, it’s not going to add up to anything much larger just because now every character is in the same movie.
Prior to this, the only Marvel film this Phase that generated any amount of emotion was Spider-Man: No Way Home. The more I think of it, the more that film coasted by on nostalgia, and emotions of stories told that had absolutely nothing to do with the story being told at the moment. Here, it seems like the emotions being sold were genuine, but brought about by slightly manipulative means (which, again I must admit fucking worked like gangbusters).
James Gunn created another gonzo story in the weirdest corner of the Marvel Universe, the one that remains my favorite (how much so? Guardians Of The Galaxy is the only franchise of which I own physical copies…along with my steelbook of the first Iron Man). Once again, he has an impressive ear for what to include in his soundtracks (who the fuck thought Florence & the Machine would feature in a major film made by someone who cut his teeth working for the studio that made fucking Poultrygeist?!), and composer John Murphy amends one of the few modern superhero film soundtracks whose main theme I can actually recognize and hum to myself.
This is the last time we’ll see the current incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy together, but hopefully not the last time well see them individually. But if this is the end of the road, it’s been worth the trip.
3.75/5 Nebulas opening the fucking door!
-J.L. Caraballo
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is now playing in theaters everywhere.