I fully anticipate that was the last time I’ll enjoy myself at a Marvel theatrical screening. I don’t know that for sure—I found a handful of Phase Four / Five movies somewhere between enjoyable and great (Spider-Man: Far From Home)—but there’s been something off-kilter post-Avengers: Endgame (2019) that the third and (if God is real) final Guardians of the Galaxy movie wistfully avoids. They won’t be this fun ever again.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is probably the final triumph of Marvel Studios. And that’s because it feels like it’s actually made by someone. There is vision and ambition behind the third film in the trilogy, a personal sincerity that these superhero movies have lost.
I was 11 when Iron Man came out in 2008—the perfect age for that special film to be something for me—and 17 at the time of the first Guardians (2014). I’ve seen the majority of the entire 34-film run in theaters. My own cinephilia was, in part, kickstarted by the Guardians of the Galaxy. As a critic, I don’t think I’ve written about a filmmaker more than James Gunn. These movies, at some point or another, meant something to me. I was never a super-fan, eager and ready to volunteer in Kevin Feige’s steed at our eventual Hunger Games reaping, but I grew up with these in the background and found my first favorite filmmaker through Guardians. And, like many viewers, either I or the MCU have changed. Perhaps we both have.
The post-Endgame years have been dreadful with scant exceptions. The manufactured recipe has grown stale, tropes tired, and any semblance of creativity has been set aside for the trappings of a marketing boardroom meeting. The visual effects have also failed to meet previous standards thanks to a mix of shitty working conditions, rushed sets, a misunderstanding about effective VFX workflows, and handing the keys off to creatives without notable VFX experience. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the MCU’s immediate predecessor to Vol. 3, might have been the worst-looking film in the studio’s entire 34 film collection. The backgrounds were about as lifeless and textureless as unrealized concept art or AI-generated sci-fi-themed lock screens. To follow that trainwreck up with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the aesthetically endowed final film by the MCU’s most recognizable individual artistic voice, might be the biggest condemnation of the studio’s top-down production management so far.
Following the time-shenanigans of Avengers: Endgame and the bonding adventures of The Guardians of the Galaxy: The Holiday Special (2022), the ensemble, now without Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), is camped out on the planet Knowhere, where they seem to be the leaders of some sort of multicultural, Midwestern alien society. Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) have become even closer through their shared ignorance, and Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) can’t stop drinking, though that doesn’t return to the story in any meaningful way. Groot (Vin Diesel) finds himself sidelined as little more than a weapon, and Nebula (Karen Gillan), in the first film where she has something meaningful to work with, has merited the group’s full trust and carries a mantle of responsibility.
The intergalactic urban peace is disrupted by Adam Warlock, played by Will Poulter in one of Marvel’s most interesting casting decisions. Warlock, hired by “the space Doctor Moreau” High Evolutionary (played by Chukwudi Iwuji, from Gunn’s Peacemaker), wants to return Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper with mo-cap by Sean Gunn) to his twisted creator with a god complex. This doesn’t go over well with the Guardians, who are willing to sacrifice everything for one another if the stakes demand. As the big bad, the High Evolutionary is my favorite since Thanos. There’s a real pervertedness to Iwuji’s performance that sells the character as a creator and destroyer of entire worlds in the quest of creating a perfect civilization. For those who have been following Gunn’s career, it comes as no surprise the dystopian civilizations look a lot like Reagan’s America: pristine on the surface and insidious beneath.
The premise alone calls back to when these caper flicks weren’t always about saving the world. Despite their name and the occasional world-saving, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are primarily about small conflicts and only incidentally about universal salvation. The third movie leans hardest into this reciprocal relationship: the world feels like it’s ending because their world, the stability of the Guardians’ family, has been threatened. The conflict is driven not by a loudmouth world destroyer but by a dick who wants to hurt their friend (and has). That’s not to say there isn’t world-saving—there is—but only that because these conflicts are incidental and flow naturally from the more dramatic and affectual conflict (saving Rocket), the apocalyptic clothing of the third act actually carries some real weight. Gunn smuggles some galaxy-saving in, but only with careful disguises, signaling that in his world, superheroes and loyal friends aren’t all that different.
This comes through in the action choreography as well, something that has been dead and buried in the MCU for a while now. Gunn’s direction guides the choreography through the movement of emotion rather than the movement of bodies. In one scene in particular, probably the best ensemble action scene in any comic book adaptation, our heroes exchange blows on one shared target, each time match cutting to the next blow (with a clear look at the face of the heroes), with an effective emotional development occurring at the scene’s final blow. The action scene delivers more than just well-executed action: it’s a vehicle for the development of the team’s dynamics.
If you’re anything like this viewer, you too may be startled to realize the studio can still make movies with authentic visual effects and cinematographic design. The alien worlds have a tangible, semi-practical and Troma-esque grossness to them—aided perfectly through competent and well-planned CGI. Gunn’s alien universe, vastly more imaginative than the visually counterfeit Quantum realm from the third entry in the Ant-Man trilogy, uses hairy and sticky locations when the story calls for it. The impact that a well-chosen and professionally realized location can have on the final outcome of a film is simply amazing compared to the haphazard choices of just picking a set because a scene technically needs to be fixed in a location of some sort for it to make any sense. The fabricated and artistic distortions of “Counter-Earth” satirize not only our home but also the unimaginative slate of designs from the majority of Marvel’s Fourth and Fifth phases.
Love Gunn’s films as much as I may, they are full of the male gaze. That hasn’t changed too significantly here, though there is a little development. The soundtrack, as far as I can tell, only features a single entirely female vocal track, which is actually an improvement from the earlier volumes. Mantis appears concerned about consent (in regard to her powers) for the first time, and Drax develops beyond The Destroyer’s traditionally masculine power flexes in interesting but perhaps messy ways. There is also less lusting after the lead women and that counts for something. Nonetheless, I can’t help but feel bad for Gunn if the voices of women are completely absent from his regular playlists, because he’s missing out on some damn good music.
If I’m wrong about this being the last good one, no harm no foul. But I’d put my money on it: this will be the last legitimately excellent movie from the current Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the least, it’s the last one that I will ever go into expecting it to meet a certain standard of quality.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
2023
dir. James Gunn
150 min.
Opens Friday, 5/5 in theaters everywhere (though, as always, the Hassle recommends the Capitol or your local independently-owned multiplex)
