Was there a more troubled MCU production than the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie? Originally intended to be part of “Phase Four,” the movie was put on hold when writer/director James Gunn was fired by Disney following complaints from conservatives online about Tweets Gunn made in poor taste but had long since deleted (and possibly apologized for, I do not recall) when he was hired by Marvel. The script was finished and could have presumably been made with a different director, but the cast, most notably Drax actor Dave Bautista, complained loudly that Gunn needed to be brought back. In the meantime, Warner Brothers hired Gunn to write and direct The Suicide Squad, as well as a follow-up TV mini-series/spinoff about John Cena’s Peacemaker, and by then, Marvel rehired Gunn to finish his trilogy. Gunn returned to Marvel to make the Guardians’ Disney+ holiday special and finally direct his script for Vol. 3. And then just before Vol. 3 came out, Warner hired Gunn to be the creative head for DC Films, and his slate of TV and movie projects for them looks mighty ambitious to say the least.
But hey, I got one last Gunn-directed Guardians movie before he and much of the original cast leaves the franchise.
The Guardians, based out of the head of a dead Celestial known as Knowhere, are essentially moving on with their respective lives, but it doesn’t look like it’s going well for Star-Lord Peter Quill (Chris Pratt). His former love Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) died during the Infinity Stones mess, but she did come back as a less friendly, past version of herself, leading Quill to spend many a night passing out drunk. But then something comes along that snaps Quill out of his funk: cosmic powerhouse Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) comes in our of nowhere and attacks Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper). While the other Guardians do successfully drive Warlock off, Rocket is critically injured, and a failsafe device around his heart will kill him if he is given any sort of medical care, but he’ll die anyway without some care. The Guardians have at best two days to get Rocket fixed or he will die. As Quill considers Rocket his best friend (or second best if Drax is in earshot), he will move heaven and earth to get Rocket the care he needs.
It seems Rocket was part of series of medical experiments by a mysterious mad scientist called the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). The High Evolutionary was trying to create “perfect” beings based off advanced, rapid and guided evolution for his own perfect society. He’s actually produced many and is considered to be something of a god. Rocket was one of many such experiments, and while he bonded with a few other from his batch, he also was something of an outlier: he could actually work things out for himself as a talented inventor and scientist in his own right. None of the Evolutionary’s other creations ever got that far, and he wants Rocket’s brain back to find out why. With time running out, Peter and the other Guardians, including Drax, the overly optimistic Mantis (Pom Klementieff), the highly irritable Nebula (Karen Gillan), and of course Rocket’s best buddy and adopted son Groot the alien tree (voice of Vin Diesel) to find a way to help Rocket. And if that timelost Gamora has to come along for the ride, well, that might make for more problems.
Now, the original Guardians is probably among the best movies in the MCU, so let’s just say Vol. 3 was never going to be as good as that one. The good news here is, while there are some issues with the movie as a whole, even Gunn’s more forgettable films (like Vol. 2) are still quite entertaining. Gunn knows these characters, and each of the main Guardians, save perhaps Groot, gets some kind of character arc in this movie. This is Rocket’s confronting a past he never wanted to talk about, Nebula’s finding a way to maybe be less hostile, Drax’s ongoing need to learn to be responsible, Gamora’s hostility to being compared to the other her especially by Quill, Mantis’s desire to find a place for herself, and Peter’s learning to deal with loss. True, some of these characters, most notably Mantis and Peter, are given a bit more than others, but this is about the Guardians doing what they do best and actually protecting the galaxy from threats the Avengers and the like never even hear about.
As for the movie itself, there’s some of the usual Marvel excess in the final half hour or so, but Gunn does know how to implement popular music as needed into his work, he can bring real heart, and his idiosyncratic sense of humor is as intact as ever. When the Guardians first met, they were a bunch of disorganized brawlers who won more by luck than anything else. This time around, they’re organized, and inbetween some really juvenile commentary and wisecracks, they actually are a well-organized team that knows what they’re doing when they need to. And in the end, Gunn gives each member of the team a satisfying ending for their respective narrative arcs. This team may never be onscreen together again (Bautista and Saldaña have both said they don’t intended to come back even as both are grateful for their roles), but that doesn’t mean they can’t go out with a bang. Pity whoever tries to do something with any of these characters now that Gunn has moved on to the Distinguished Competition.
Grade: B
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