GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3. movie poster | ©2023 Marvel Studios / Disney

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Chukwudi Iwuji, Vin Diesel (voice), Bradley Cooper (voice), Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Sean Gunn, Sylvester Stallone, Will Poulter
Writer: James Gunn, based on the comics by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Director: James Gunn
Distributor: Marvel/Disney
Release Date: May 5, 2023

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 is a high-energy, big-emotion capper to the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY trilogy. There is now so much material on the main characters (who have also appeared in other Marvel films and their own Christmas special) that they occupy the whole Marvel logo riff at the start.

While not wholly necessary, it’s helpful to have seen the earlier GUARDIAN films – like this one, written and directed by James Gunn – as well as AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and AVENGERS: ENDGAME, to understand why everybody’s where they are at the start of VOL. 3.

Earth-born, space-raised Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), is still drinking way too much after the loss of his beloved Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Gamora was killed, but then came back as an earlier version of herself who’d never met Peter, and now doesn’t want to know him.

The rest of the team – strong but obtuse warrior Drax (Dave Bautista), Gamora’s cranky bionic sister Nebula (Karen Gillan), empath Mantis (Pom Klementieff), biologically enhanced raccoon Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and treelike being Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) – are hanging around with Peter on their ship in a spaceport town, waiting for the captain to get himself together.

Then Rocket is gravely wounded, and healing him requires a quest. We delve deeply into Rocket’s background, and finally see how and why he went from being an innocent regular baby raccoon to the talking, weapon-wielding cynic he is today.

There’s a lot to like in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3. Rocket’s story is very affecting (and bracingly pro-animal), and everybody else gets moments of growth and revelation. Gunn knows and loves these characters, and makes sure they all get grace notes.

We also get a a well-played adversary in Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary, who thinks he’s just improving the universe. This does prompt a bit of meta questioning – what does it say that Marvel currently has two Black Big Bads and no Black Big Goods outside of Wakanda? Since Earthly race issues are not relevant (except metaphorically) in intergalactic circles, this could simply be a case of the best actor for the role, but it’s at least worth mentioning.

A more direct issue is the plot. While there is a strong throughline in Rocket’s back story, which is interspersed throughout, the rest of the movie feels more episodic than arced. The individual sequences have urgency, and tons of action, but there is less a sense of one thing naturally leading into another than of linked set pieces.

We also are left with a variety of unanswered queries, like why a particular character doesn’t know something it seems like he should, or why Rocket is quite as unique as he is, to say nothing of why he has that New York/New Jersey accent (he definitely didn’t get it from the High Evolutionary).

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 is enjoyable, has true affection for its people, and ends as it should. How much the individual viewer appreciates this is liable to be proportionate to the emotional investment they bring to this franchise.

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