Guardians of the Galaxy 3 says goodbye to the old MCU

It’s hard to overstate how much James Gunn has meant to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His Guardians of the Galaxy movies are among the few MCU movies that feel truly scripted, with a unique aesthetic and sensibility of their own. Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther films are their one and only counterpart: both mini-franchises were allowed to claim different corners of the MCU, and both filmmakers were forced to make those corners as visually distinct as possible.

In three movies (and a holiday special), Gunn has capitalized on his increasing clout and goodwill to take his Guardians to stranger, brighter, and more colorful places. He’s moved from generic cosmic threats to Oedipal monsters, taking his beloved superheroes into thornier emotional territory, where they’re just as likely to fight over hurt feelings as punch supervillains.

And now he says goodbye.

Gunn’s trilogy cap Guardians of the Universe Full. 3 begins on a maudlin tone, with Rocket (Bradley Cooper) mumbling the lyrics to the acoustic version of Radiohead’s “Creep” as it plays on the Zune he borrowed from expat Earthling Peter Quill (Chris Pratt). Meanwhile, cinematographer Harry Braham takes the audience on a flashy camera tour of the new status quo. The Guardians have moved in Know herethe city in the skull of a dead Celestial, first seen in 2014 Guardians of the Universe. They’ve gone legit, with an office, a neon sign and everything. But they don’t feel that legit.

Rocket seems a little depressed. Quill is Certainly depressed, regularly getting himself drunk because he can’t get over the fact that Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) isn’t the same Gamora he fell in love with, after the time travel of Avengers: endgame. This new Gamora is missing, by the way – as a version of the character plucked from 2014, she hasn’t lived through the events of the previous Guardians films and has no connection to the team. (The confusing nature of this exchange is the subject of a pretty good extended gag midway through the movie.)

Gamora’s sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) is angry, but that’s pretty normal for her. That leaves Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Groot (Vin Diesel) to contain the fortress. Unfortunately, no one really takes those three seriously.

The plot arrives violently in the form of Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), a very powerful, extremely petulant being who crashes onto Knowhere to kidnap Rocket, eventually mortally wounding him. The Guardians launch an emergency mission to rescue their friend, only to realize how little they know about him.

structural, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 switches back and forth between the Guardians’ mission to rescue Rocket and flashbacks to Rocket’s origins, where viewers learn he was created by the film’s antagonist, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a mad scientist trying to perfect society through cruel eugenics experiments.

Rocket’s origin story is the most gripping part of it Guardians of the Universe Full. 3. It’s an Island of Misfit Toys-esque fable slowly replacing Gunn’s irreverent sci-fi. In a reversal of his usual formula, where sincere, broken characters quietly hide in the roar and noise, Full 3. loads his emotional core forward and lets the jokes come later. Gunn’s script needs viewers to first understand the Guardians’ pain so they can embrace the question of whether, if these characters are lucky, they can finally heal. It suits a movie that is both an end and a farewell for Gunn. He doesn’t hold back.

This is a movie that features a planet-sized laboratory made of flesh and held together by bones, where data is stored in capsules covered in pus, and a private security force led by Nathan Fillion wearing hideous Power Rangers-esque body armor that looks like hard muscles. It’s a movie where a Russian cosmonaut golden retriever has telekinesis and a family of humanoid vampire bats serve the heroes blue soda in an otherwise picturesque Norman Rockwell-ass house. In other words, it’s a movie full of genuine imagination, with real and strange sets and costumes and make-up, with crude visual humor and more than a little horror.

Gunn somehow indulges himself here – the film’s third act drags, some jokes are just characters screaming instead of speaking, and the script tries so hard to resonate with the audience emotionally that you can feel moments when the film holds on to tears the way a comedian might hold on to applause. Full. 3 however, connects more than it lacks, bolstered by a blockbuster environment (and an MCU) that wears its heart on its sleeve so rarely that resisting this kind of emotional appeal requires real effort.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a Marvel movie with an unusual conviction, where every character is given equal weight, whether it’s the climactic battle against the villain or the eternal goofball Drax who quietly explains that someone has hurt their feelings. Studio PR efforts often sell James Gunn’s superhero films in the widest possible way, focusing on the quippy, off-kilter and rude elements. It’s easy to forget that the experience of watching them is very different.

Image: Marvel Studios

Despite their well-trodden narrative base within a found family of misfits, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies succeed because Gunn and his cast are so committed to getting into the details of this family found. Each successive film has pushed each character into trickier territory, where no one responds well to vulnerability, and everyone’s first impulse is to push everyone else away – until they realize no one understands them better than their own teammates. Gunn’s Guardians are, all things considered, a collection of memorably sad characters, collectively running away from their individual traumas while poorly projecting how Over It they are.

Full. 3 is a wonderful showcase for how developed these characters have become. Bradley Cooper’s vocal performance as Rocket remains an undersung MCU triumph, an irritable mix of impatience and deep sadness. Chris Pratt still hasn’t found a blockbuster role that suits both him and Peter Quill, a little stray boy who knows on some level that he finally needs to grow up but is never sure how to go about it. Pom Klementieff fits into the group dynamic so well as Mantis, it seems like she was always there. And Karen Gillan’s fury as Nebula has gradations of subtlety that shine through layers of prosthetics and paint. Even Drax, historically the series’ most one-note character, unnamed Groot, has an emotional beat that reminds viewers just how much Dave Bautista has grown as a performer over the course of his three returns to what was once his first major film role. .

James Gunn isn’t just leaving his Guardians, he’s leaving Marvel – in the past year he’s taken on a new role as co-head of DC Films, overseeing the rebuilding of another comic book movie, where he’ll be writing and himself directing a new Superman movie. His career arc was a bit like his Guardians’ careers – an odd man out in the no-budget world brutal Troma horror movies is now entrusted with an entire multi-billion dollar cinematic universe.

Image: Marvel Studios

But none of his upcoming DC projects will resemble the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, a series of movies about obscure characters that Gunn was able to reimagine as his own strange, spiky creation. This gang of misfits really doesn’t fit in unless they’re in the grossest parts of the universe, barely holding things together, wondering aloud if they know what love is and if they’ve got it together. They’re loud and annoying, yes, but they’re undeniably serious.

Marvel owes a lot to James Gunn, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a great farewell – one that shows just how vibrant and strange the MCU can be, but only if it’s also painfully personal. The end of the trilogy and Gunn’s departure leave an icky void, one that Marvel’s current offerings can’t seem to fill or want to fill. Gunn specializes in surprising audiences by inviting them to interact with the unexpected, from a gross, meaty planet to a group of bounty hunters left behind to a traumatized raccoon. The current MCU rarely finds the kind of connections that define the Guardians series. It only expects you to bring your own.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 opens in wide theatrical release on May 5.