A movie review (GotG 3)
Jun. 17th, 2023 08:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessGuardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 was the first film I went to see in the cinema after three years and change (due to caution because of COVID and vision issues,) and I’m glad. I felt like part of the target audience from the second ‘Creep’ started playing and I saw familiar names appear (plus Will Poulter, which I was expecting, and Nathan Fillion, which I wasn’t.) Overall, it’s entertaining, a touch too long, even if it’s got a lot of characters to serve and pay-offs to deliver. It had to handle what the Avengers movies had done with Gamora and was James Gunn’s goodbye to the MCU before going to DCU (having seen the trailer for The Flash, good luck with that.) Via Rocket’s backstory, it put animal experimentation at its heart, but was also about what friends will do for each other, and so at times it was moving, amusing, and maybe a little too self-aware about looking cool.
So, yeah, the Guardians seem to be based in Knowhere and are grumbling about mopey Peter, who is drinking too much because Gamora is gone, when Adam, the Warlock (gold spray-painted Poulter) turns up for Rocket, half killing him. To treat Rocket without finishing him off, the Guardians realise they need code from the people who experimented upon him and turned him into Rocket, and who want him back for reasons as yet unknown. Chukwudi Iwuji is good as the High Evolutionary, who is behind all this (just checked his imdb page and I haven’t seen anything he’s been in.)
Of course, Nebula asks Gamora for help, Peter is a lovesick puppy, while Gamora, having missed out on the first two movies’ character development, is confused about why they’ll go to such lengths for Rocket – Saldana must have enjoyed getting to play variations on her character. The Guardians’ team dynamic was as important as the exes’, and under stress because of Rocket’s disappearance, so there was lots of sniping, although they’d all help each other eventually. Mantis was charming as Peter’s self-appointed sister, involved in a running onesupmanship with Drax, but when she wiped Drax’s memory of her admitting she thought he was stupid, well, it made me happy with her ultimate decision. I didn’t remember Cosmo from the previous movies, but I liked her far more than I should like a talking dog on paper.
And although it was underplayed, Groot’s devotion to Rocket was there, if you looked. I suppose I was looking because, as we saw the flashbacks to Rocket’s early life after he was tortured into intelligence – with a cute squeaky voice and baby vocabulary – as he made friends with other experimented animals, one of whom, Lylla, was voiced by Linda Cardinelli in intra MCU casting, you just knew these new friends weren’t likely to make it.
There was plenty of fun action, mad plans, some confusing bits, lots of decade-straddling good music, thoroughly enjoyable design – the biostation, the beings on Counter Earth – and all of that in service to the adventures of characters that we care about. Admittedly, some running gags/lines had one airing too many.
There was the sense of this being part of a film series – the history with the Reavers, Peter holding all these memories that Gamora…just didn’t. Yondu made a cameo (so apparently did Howard the Duck, but I missed it, thank goodness,) but it wasn’t too daddy issue-y unless if you wanted to read Rocket and the High Evolutionary’s relationship that way. (And it was its own thing, so it didn’t matter that I haven’t seen a MCU movie since Black Widow.) It worked as the close of a trilogy. I respected the decision not to force Peter and this Gamora back together, even though I shipped Peter/original Gamora. They came to a détente, she learned to do the mad thing for others from this adventure, and reached a point where she could understand Groot again. (I found the line where he spoke in English so that we could feel a part of everything unnecessary, myself.)
It made sense for a lot of them to break off – Peter FINALLY going back to Earth, Mantis going to find herself, Gamora returning to what we saw was her new family, Nebula bossing Knowhere, and, best of all, Drax’s being Dad to hordes of children. As Rocket had been a big part of the film for the audience, and he’d been told in his heaven that it was his story, fine, make him captain of the new iteration of the Guardians. Of course, Groot (I loved all his various looks throughout the film) would be with him. I’d say it’s not worth staying after the mid credits scene for the post-credits one, but apparently Star Lord will be back. I like Pratt’s Peter Quill fine, but I love the weird space setting of GatG more.
So, yeah, the Guardians seem to be based in Knowhere and are grumbling about mopey Peter, who is drinking too much because Gamora is gone, when Adam, the Warlock (gold spray-painted Poulter) turns up for Rocket, half killing him. To treat Rocket without finishing him off, the Guardians realise they need code from the people who experimented upon him and turned him into Rocket, and who want him back for reasons as yet unknown. Chukwudi Iwuji is good as the High Evolutionary, who is behind all this (just checked his imdb page and I haven’t seen anything he’s been in.)
Of course, Nebula asks Gamora for help, Peter is a lovesick puppy, while Gamora, having missed out on the first two movies’ character development, is confused about why they’ll go to such lengths for Rocket – Saldana must have enjoyed getting to play variations on her character. The Guardians’ team dynamic was as important as the exes’, and under stress because of Rocket’s disappearance, so there was lots of sniping, although they’d all help each other eventually. Mantis was charming as Peter’s self-appointed sister, involved in a running onesupmanship with Drax, but when she wiped Drax’s memory of her admitting she thought he was stupid, well, it made me happy with her ultimate decision. I didn’t remember Cosmo from the previous movies, but I liked her far more than I should like a talking dog on paper.
And although it was underplayed, Groot’s devotion to Rocket was there, if you looked. I suppose I was looking because, as we saw the flashbacks to Rocket’s early life after he was tortured into intelligence – with a cute squeaky voice and baby vocabulary – as he made friends with other experimented animals, one of whom, Lylla, was voiced by Linda Cardinelli in intra MCU casting, you just knew these new friends weren’t likely to make it.
There was plenty of fun action, mad plans, some confusing bits, lots of decade-straddling good music, thoroughly enjoyable design – the biostation, the beings on Counter Earth – and all of that in service to the adventures of characters that we care about. Admittedly, some running gags/lines had one airing too many.
There was the sense of this being part of a film series – the history with the Reavers, Peter holding all these memories that Gamora…just didn’t. Yondu made a cameo (so apparently did Howard the Duck, but I missed it, thank goodness,) but it wasn’t too daddy issue-y unless if you wanted to read Rocket and the High Evolutionary’s relationship that way. (And it was its own thing, so it didn’t matter that I haven’t seen a MCU movie since Black Widow.) It worked as the close of a trilogy. I respected the decision not to force Peter and this Gamora back together, even though I shipped Peter/original Gamora. They came to a détente, she learned to do the mad thing for others from this adventure, and reached a point where she could understand Groot again. (I found the line where he spoke in English so that we could feel a part of everything unnecessary, myself.)
It made sense for a lot of them to break off – Peter FINALLY going back to Earth, Mantis going to find herself, Gamora returning to what we saw was her new family, Nebula bossing Knowhere, and, best of all, Drax’s being Dad to hordes of children. As Rocket had been a big part of the film for the audience, and he’d been told in his heaven that it was his story, fine, make him captain of the new iteration of the Guardians. Of course, Groot (I loved all his various looks throughout the film) would be with him. I’d say it’s not worth staying after the mid credits scene for the post-credits one, but apparently Star Lord will be back. I like Pratt’s Peter Quill fine, but I love the weird space setting of GatG more.
