After a ten-year partnership with the studio, James Gunn left Marvel for rival DC Studios, where Warner Bros appointed him next to co-chairman and co-CEO Peter Safran. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (in theaters May 5) is thus a sort of swan song, the writer/director’s third and final MCU feature-length feature film about an eccentric team of intergalactic good-doers.
It comes at a dangerous moment for the entertainment giant thanks to a slew of creatives and box office disappointments (most recently, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) who argue that their cultural attractiveness is diminishing. It’s the start of a summer season, but also a final rush with a lot of stuff on top of Gunn’s latest, who is trusted to continue the success of his predecessors and correct his company’s wrongdoings in the process.
Fortunately, the result is a fun, exciting and surprisingly moving goodbye.
Capturing a piece of the absurd magic of the first game guardians of the galaxy (If not the gonzo madness of DC efforts Suicide Squad And peaceful), volume 3 It is a definite conclusion for this period of the series.
As such, it contains as much commotion, jokes, callbacks, and succinctness as 150 minutes of runtime will allow—which isn’t always the same as all that. should Allowed. Still, the filmmaker’s deep and enduring love for these characters is as sincere as it is contagious, and their ability to tie their gruff chemistry with mounds of mushy hearts does much to justify any bloat. A top-notch recovery from the relatively overwhelming volume 2Little missteps aside, it’s a seams-to-the-seam adventure that reminds viewers why this ragtag team remains one of the MCU’s highlights.
[Minor spoilers follow]
volume 3 It opens in Knowhere, the floating downtown of the Guardians, as Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) drinks to quell his grief over Gamora’s (Zoe Saldana) death. Avengers: Infinity War and later replaced in this timeline by Gamora’s previous self, which does not remember her love affair with Peter.
This becomes the least of the gang’s problems as their home is soon shaken by a violent attack from Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), a golden-skinned super-being determined to capture the cocky raccoon Rocket (Bradley Cooper) for his creator/master. , High Evolutionist (Chukwudi Iwuji). The Warlock’s attack doesn’t go according to plan, but mortally wounds Rocket, leaving his comrades shocked and desperate to find a way to save his friends.
The Guardians’ ongoing mission is to direct them to an extreme God-complex sci-fi sci-fi artist who in flashbacks is identified as Rocket’s father, who experiments on organic creatures as a way to create a perfect life. it is a utopian society. Rocket’s background is the narrative and emotional turning point of the story. volume 3, which reveals that Rocket was an experiment going right, so uniquely intellectual and creative that it aroused fierce jealousy and disgust in his architect, an arrogant being who cared only for perfect ideals. As a result, this resulted in betrayal and disaster not only for Rocket, but also for his beloved misfit animal friends who shared the dream of going to heaven one day.
Perfect in the eyes of the imperfect volume 3The story is a slam-bang celebration of the outcasts and the compassionate communities they form. The Guardians are a motley group that share a tight-knit bond and are so well developed at this point that Gunn has an easy time pairing them up and pushing them apart. It’s the sibling-y closeness of the deflated Drax (Dave Bautista) and the serious Mantis (Pom Klementieff), the enmity of Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Drax, or the sullen enmity of Kraglin (Sean Gunn) and Space Dog Cosmo (Maria Bakalova) applies to
Whatever the character configurations of a particular scene, the film makes great use of the natural and sharp-tongued back and forth of its protagonists; stupidity and routinely expressed in ways that never turn into needlessly grumpy.
Gunn brings his Marvel-standard muddy visuals to life with occasional bursts of color, filling the action with squid-like slimy monsters (a guiding obsession) and a handful of secondary characters, including Warlock’s mother, Ayesha (an underutilized, hilarious Elizabeth Debicki). ), Gamora’s new Ravager boss Stakar (a guest star Sylvester Stallone) and Master Karja (Nathan Fillion), a security magnate on an organic space station, hilariously pity Peter for having to put up with a teammate who is a few cards away from him. . full deck.
There are massive set pieces and unnecessary complications that inflate the material, resulting in a massive hallway carnage where everyone is working together. You take the good with the less good when it comes to volume 3And fortunately, there is much more to the former than the latter, as the director goes to his jugular vein with frenzied glee, staging the whole thing as an opera of sentimental bullshit.
From Peter’s smug buffoonery to Drax’s thrilling, simple-minded brutality, to Groot’s (Vin Diesel) one-sentence gaiety, the film doesn’t mix up what works; Other than adding a few swear words and a bit of – breathless! – new dialogue for its repetitive protagonist in terms of speech, its main deviation from the formula accelerates the melodrama.
Dance to your own unique beat (via a soundtrack filled with songs from Radiohead, Heart, The Flaming Lips and Beastie Boys), volume 3 pulls the heartstrings in a different way than most previous Marvel ventures. While not always elegant in this respect, the sheer admiration of its main actors carries the day. He has the mercy to donate a tribute to clan solidarity – and the sacrifices he sometimes demands.
No matter how unique Gunn does, volume 3 must abide by tradition, using post-credits scenes to build an inevitable future. However, what’s refreshing about this wild and woolly romp is that it usually doesn’t feel tied to the larger franchise, avoiding the winks, nods, and references that so many Marvel movies now make to continue the overwhelming power of serialization.
This will mostly go away even after the closing installment. Yet with his three raucous and exhilarating films, Gunn completed a trilogy that stood alone as the only MCU work that bears the unique stamp of his artistic creator.
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