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Friday, April 28, 2023

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 review: Chris Pratt stars in Marvel's strangest film yet

 While Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 is the trilogy's most "unruly and excessive" installment, Nicholas Barber describes it as "sweetly touching."



Shortly after the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 in 2017, someone made a big deal about the tasteless jokes made by the film's writer-director, James Gunn, on Twitter years before. Gunn was then fired by Disney, the company behind Marvel Studios' superhero films, but he was eventually rehired after the cast and fans of Guardians of the Galaxy stood by him. We'll never know how the negotiations went, but it seems likely that one of Gunn's conditions for returning to work was that he be free to do whatever he wanted. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has the massive budget of a typical Marvel blockbuster but the sensibility of the low-budget cult horror comedies that inspired it.


Of course, the franchise was always on the outskirts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film's heroes are a motley crew of mercenaries led by Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), a manchild obsessed with soft rock anthems; Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a tough-talking raccoon; Gamora (Zoe Saldaa), a grumpy, green-skinned assassin; Nebula (Karen Gillan), a gr By any standard, they're an endearingly odd bunch. However, they are the least strange aspect of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.


It all begins with the Guardians living in the hollowed-out skull of a massive god. Then they are attacked by a golden superman (Will Poulter), who is a merciless killer as well as a bumbling oaf. When Rocket is seriously injured in the attack, they go in search of his medical records, and the film becomes a heist caper set aboard a pink, lumpy meat space station. (The uniforms of the security guards appear to be made of bread rolls.) But Rocket is also being pursued by the insane High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), an interstellar Doctor Moreau whose animal-robot hybrids are eerily similar to Andy's creepy toys from Toy Story. The bleak and disturbing scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy may distress younger viewers.

Still, perhaps the studio should have restrained him a little more. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is two and a half hours long, but it feels twice as long because it is so chaotic and convoluted. It's like switching between a whole Star Trek TV series and a whole Star Wars TV series while watching it. There are always some interesting aliens to look at, but you might not understand or care what's going on.

Given the name of their team, the Guardians of the Galaxy could have done a little more galaxy-guarding. There is always a point in their films when they get their act together and do something heroic, but in the meantime they do a lot of drifting around the universe and bickering. Their adventures are rarely time-sensitive. Half of Guardians Vol 2 was spent recounting Star-origins Lord's in minute detail, and half of Guardians Vol 3 is a series of flashbacks explaining how Rocket went from raccoon to gun-toting tech wizard. In the present, the team's mission - attempting to resurrect their furry friend - appears oddly insignificant for a space opera that spans so many light years.
Despite his remarkable ability to switch between characters, Gunn is clearly uninterested in tonal consistency or clear, compelling storytelling. He keeps inserting sitcom banter into the loud battles, even though it saps the tension. Few of the settings feel like real places due to the cartoonish, computer-generated visuals. And, while the death of one of the team members is considered tragic, the extinction of all intelligent life on a planet is forgotten as soon as it occurs.


The film's saving grace is that Gunn is allowed to express his emotions in addition to unleashing his gonzo imagination. Again, a little restraint could have worked in his favor: most viewers could have guessed his main theme even if he hadn't used the word "friend" in every other line of dialogue. However, in the final scenes, Gunn's genuine affection for his characters, as well as their affection for one another, becomes contagious. The actors deserve a lot of credit.
They all sell the relationships more convincingly in this installment than in the previous two Guardians installments. This is the most rambunctious and extravagant of the trilogy, but it is as sweetly touching as any film with so many slimy, tentacled monsters could be.


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