Guardians of the Galaxy 3 Proves the Antidote to Marvel’s Recent Woes is a Sense of Finality (and Found Family)
Marvel Studios has been in a rough patch for the past couple of years. Ever since the 11-year cumulative crossover event that was Avengers: Endgame in 2019, they have gone through an identity crisis. How do you follow up the film that served as a conclusion for 23 films and 11 years of stories within your universe? Where do you go next? Unfortunately, their answer has been scattershot. It has been a mix of introducing new characters (Shang Chi, The Eternals), poor quality follow-ups to hit films in the franchise (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Thor: Love and Thunder), prequels based on already dead characters (Black Widow), and a lot of attempts to establish a multiverse (Loki, Doctor Strange 2, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania). Many of these films have been poorly received by audiences and critics alike, citing aimlessness, lack of the grander picture they associate with the MCU, and a general lack of quality control that the MCU has typically delivered at least a baseline of in the past.
Enter James Gunn (or re-enter, I suppose). Fresh off of being fired from this project by Disney for edgy jokes he had made in the past only to be promptly re-hired, Gunn approached this film with no restraints and a significant amount of creative freedom, going in knowing this was the final installment for this core group of lovable misfits that were his Guardians of the Galaxy. This sense of finality and freedom from unnecessary, bloated tie-ins to the larger universe immediately differentiates it from the other recent entries. He brings a sense of personality and style to a franchise that has been begging for it. This film has real stakes, not from some world-ending device that needs to be stopped but from the characters’ pasts that need confronting. Things in the MCU have never been more personal within the story or for the writer/director. It is not only a battle for survival but for salvation against their personal demons.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 begins by showing the group struggling to pick up the pieces after the events of Avengers: Endgame. They have purchased the spaceport Knowhere from the collector, turning it into a base of operations for the team and the collection of misfits they have encountered along the way. Most of them, anyway. Notably absent is Gamora. After Thanos killed the original Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War, an alternate universe Gamora ended up in this timeline. However, this version had not experienced the five years of adventures with our Guardians. Instead, without a family or a home, she has been left to wonder about the universe with the pirate mercenary outfit, the Ravagers. A lesser filmmaker may have tried to minimize this incongruity to re-established the status quo of the previous two films, but Gunn revels in it. He refines it into the thesis of his film (and his whole trilogy): your choices and the love of the people around you define you, not any arbitrary labels.
Meanwhile, Peter Quill is still despondent: he lost the love of his life only for her to come back but with no memory of him or their time together. He has fallen into alcoholism to numb his pain while the rest of the crew is attempting to establish a permanent home. Similarly, Rocket is still feeling aimless. He sees the bit of happiness most of the rest of the crew has carved out for themselves, but he still feels empty. He is haunted by his sense of worthlessness and trauma from the events in his past that, unbeknown to him, are rocketing toward him at this very moment. Enter Adam Warlock, a genetically engineered super-weapon of the Sovereign (remember them from Vol. 2?) being employed to retrieve Rocket by the man that created him: a mad scientist with eugenic ambitions named the High Evolutionary.
The fight that follows takes the Guardians by surprise and immediately establishes the mortal stakes of this film. Rocket is mortally injured, and while the rest of the team survives, they get their shit rocked. This action scene immediately establishes that this is the finale for this trilogy, and Gunn and Co. ensure that from minute one, you know no one is safe. They then have to embark on an adventure to gather the necessary resources to save Rocket, requiring them to team up with the one person in the universe who can help them: Gamora. They then spend the rest of the film heisting and exploring their way through the twisted worlds and creations of the High Evolutionary on a journey that requires all of them to come to terms with their past tragedies and the ways they complement (and are toxic for) each other.
This film is a massive testament to James Gunn’s strength as a screenwriter. There are so many moving parts here: a dozen major characters and their interconnected relationships, the plot of the film, multiple planets to explore, Rocket’s backstory with the High Evolutionary, dangling plot threads to pay off from the previous two GOTG films, and the additional baggage from Infinity War of Gamora’s complex relationship with the rest of the team. Yet he juggles it effortlessly. Every character gets a clear arc, and each character’s beat hit perfectly. Even the damn talking dog gets an arc! Gunn gets to explore the interdependence of these characters better than ever, how their found family strengthens them, and perhaps even enables some of their worst qualities. None of the writing is cliche, nor does Gunn take the easy way out. Instead, he takes every opportunity to add a layer of complexity to the characters and the group dynamics. It is reminiscent of how Rian Johnson describes Vince Gilligan’s philosophy of writing Breaking Bad, where the choice he would always make is “whatever would be hardest for the character to face.”
Every performer here utilizes the incredible script to deliver their best performance in the franchise. Bradley Cooper obviously gets a great chance to shine with his heartbreaking voice-acting performance as Rocket, but he is far from the only one. Chris Pratt is unusually great here, too, capturing how this character has grown beyond his childish pop cultural references and womanizing to someone who wants to be a genuine hero, even though he is overcome by grief over Gamora. Zaldana captures the uncertainty and nuance of interacting with people who know a different version of you, even if much of her performance is limited by re-treading the same reluctant hero ground as the first Guardians of the Galaxy. But the real standouts are Dave Bautista, Karen Gillum, and Pom Klementieff. Bautista delivers the same incredible sense of physicality and humor but also a stark emotionality as Drax, while Gillum’s Nebula has experienced so much growth from the vengeful daughter of Thanos to being a leader and a mother figure for their whole colony on Knowhere. Klementieff, as Mantis, gets her moment to shine here as well. The character’s immense emotional intelligence makes her particularly insightful in pointing out the flaws in other characters, landing some of the film’s most poignant and hilarious moments.
Likewise, Gunn’s direction is stylish and infused with a personality sorely lacking in most of the MCU. Gunn utilizes his signature rock music soundtracks and extensive slow motion to bring consistent energy and mood to the film. He uses several extended long-takes to excellent effect, particularly one in the opening following Rocket around Knowhere to establish the town and his relationship with it, and a glorious long-take fight sequence when the Guardians are all finally reunited and have to face off against the monstrous creations of the High Evolutionary. However, Gunn also knows the exact moment to strip away the style, employing simple closeups to heartbreaking effect and miraculously never letting the inherent humor of the franchise undercut the much more dramatic and dark story here. It is a difficult tonal balance (one that Marvel struggles to pull off even in less dark films), but the tightrope walk is executed flawlessly.
The film is visually glowing with color and texture. You can tell how much care the crew put into this to bring every setting to life, relying on practical sets, costumes, and prosthetics to create a living, breathing world that it supplements with its incredible visual effects (also shout out to my friend Jacob specifically for his hard work on the production of this film). It gives a physicality to every location and interaction, resulting in both an immersive experience and a heightening of the tension resulting from the impact and physical nature of the violence. This may be a Disney property, but it is shockingly violent at times. Through the experiments of the High Evolutionary, Gunn gets to dip his toe into some gnarly body horror. Speaking of the High Evolutionary, Gunn (along with some help from the unhinged, raging performance of Chukwudi Iwiju) delights in setting up utterly hatable villains, both major and minor. Gunn then gets to delight in the violence of their comeuppance, with some of the most satisfying and cathartically violent beat-downs in the entire Marvel franchise.
It has been a long time since the MCU released a film that felt this singular. While I am not a particular devotee of auteur theory (films are inherently a collaborative process), this film shows the power of individual vision. Gone are the made-by-committee, safe-as-possible storytelling choices that hinder other Marvel properties. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is, like its gang of lovable misfits, unafraid to be strange, unlikable, violent, and sincerely heartfelt. This is a James Gunn film, first and foremost, and its success comes from its razor-sharp script, earnest performances, and personality-driven direction. The creative freedom afforded him by his unfortunate firing and then re-hiring is the best thing that could have happened to this project because it meant that this goodbye to the Guardians could be personal, intimate, and free from the multiversal interconnections plaguing the MCU. It feels like one final ride, and it is all the better for it. In fact, it delivers the best film that Marvel Studios has ever made. I love the Guardians of the Galaxy, and I could not be happier with this send-off.
