Posted by Space family risk their lives to save a racoon.
Turns out the John Wick review was a false start to get this blog going again. Let’s try again, shall we? Truth being said I don’t know what to do with this blog. Should I scrap it? Should I continue? Should I use the domain to host saucy videos? I really don’t know. Perhaps I should do something to gauge what the audience is feeling? If you want me to quit, comment barking like a dog, if you want saucy videos comment meowing like a cat, and if you want me to carry on as normal – like nothings ever happened, then do nothing at all… nothing. Can’t see how this voting method can go wrong to be honest.
Anyway – on to real matters. Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest feature – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3! I have to say, gone are the days where I prebook MCU movie tickets to watch them on the day they come out. I’m losing interest, and fairly quickly. During my hiatus since watching Thor: Love and Thunder, I’ve watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Whilst neither was particularly bad, I was left a bit underwhelmed.
Black Panther was a good action flick, but with Chadwick Boseman’s passing I enjoyed the dramatic elements of the movie more – the parts dealing with loss and recovery. The action sequences just seemed distracting more than anything.
Then there was Ant-Man and the Wasp. I was looking forward to this one and was left disappointed. What made the first two Ant-Man movies so enjoyable was missing here. A local story about a petty thief and his friends. Where were the friends? The humour? I honestly think it was towards the end of the movie where I had my first laugh!
So, it left me feeling less excited for GotG Vol.3. I have to say, it didn’t start so well, it’s all doom and gloom and the first 20-30 mins I feared even the Guardians have lost their touch. It just felt grim and perhaps it’s just me but the music felt a bit forced during this opening too.
But along came the second act and wow the movie really picks up from here. I’m probably going to go into spoiler territory so read on at the risk of having your entire lives ruined.
I’ll start with the characters. It’s no surprise this movie is Rocket Racoon’s story. And it’s an emotional one at that. There’s a lot of animal cruelty shown in the movie – I mean, it’s all CGI but even then it makes for difficult viewing, but in a good way. That makes no sense at all but I’m running with it. What I mean is it raises awareness for animal cruelty – which is a good thing.
This isn’t Peter Quill’s movie and that’s fine, but I do wonder – what happened to his Star-Lord persona? He doesn’t use the helmet or anything – yet he had it in Avengers Endgame when the Guardians were last seen in a good movie. Did I miss something? Anyway, it isn’t his movie and I’m cool with that. However, I feel the end sequence where he sacrifices himself with a fake death scene is a bit misplaced. It unnecessarily puts him at the centre when the movie doesn’t really need to do that. Either way, that was pretty horrendous seeing his face swell up like a balloon and all.
Drax and Mantis continue their Christmas Special trend of being the heart of the Guardians. Drax was genuinely funny this time – I just found Dave Bautista trying too hard in Vol.2 and it didn’t come off as well back then. Gamora was great too here. Zoe Saldana does a terrific job of acting differently as this alternate version of Gamora. If you remember, the original Gamora died and this version of Gamora is one that had never met or fallen in love with Quill before. Do I need to go into character history? Surely you know all this to be watching this movie and then reading this review, right? Nebula probably shows the most growth since the first Guardians movie – I found it sweet when she shed a tear on hearing Rocket’s voice once he pulls through to survive. Groot takes a backseat – I can’t remember him doing much in this movie, which is a shame given his close connection to Rocket.
In terms of new characters, Warlock was wasted. It really felt like he was shoehorned in due to a post-credit scene from the last Guardians movie. I’m not a big comic book reader, but I hear Warlock in the comics is this super strong and wise being. However, here he’s portrayed as a man-child. Not what I think many people would have wanted from him. Not that I care – I’m not that passionate about the comic material and how it differs from the movies. Within reason of course.
I wasn’t a fan of the Villian. I left the cinema really disliking him, but then it hit me… that was the point! He wasn’t supposed to be a character you can sympathise with, he was supposed to be disliked, and so it turns out that he was a good villain after all. I have to say, the scene where they show his face being peeled off at the end was very horrific (although it’s kinda funny Quill mentioning “face off” a lot during the course of this movie and leading up to this moment). This movie is certainly not for kids – I mean I had nightmares about the face off scene! And speaking about not for kids… We have our first MCU F-bomb! And it was so well done, it felt completely natural, in character and made me laugh.
The last act continues being mostly great. That hallway scene showing all the Guardians in action was just so fun to watch. Although the scene where they’re fighting millions of bad guys was a bit too “Marvel” for me. Can’t they just have a movie without the heroes having to fight an army of bad guys? As I rush to finish this review, I should point out the ending of this movie felt a bit rushed too. For example, Mantis leaving the Guardians seemed to come out of nowhere – no pun intended.
I have to say I’m very surprised no one died in this movie, and even more surprised they’re going to do a Star-Lord movie without James Gunn. This feels a little bit like the end of the MCU to me. They’ve lost their magic recently and the Guardians were the last characters of the MCU that we really cared about and now they’ve disbanded (or rather the original crew). Not to mention one of Marvel’s best directors leaving to go lead the DCU – how much must Disney regret sacking James Gunn all those years ago?
But for now, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 is the first Marvel movie in a while I genuinely look forward to watching again.
I’m going to attempt to sign off with some wise words. Mainly it’s for me to hear but may as well share with the world – so my therapist says. Like the Guardians, families can appear dysfunctional – but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt in the last year, when the going gets tough – families stand together and find strength. Your family may be close friends, it may be a small unit, it may be so large that there’s more arguments than you’d like, but family gets us through the difficult moments in life. Even if your brother happens to be a raccoon.
Verdict
A truly fun return to form for a MCU movie. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 starts off slow but goes on to be so much fun. Can the MCU build on this success, or is this their last hurrah before accepting mediocracy?