THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Moving on is never easy and I think I learned that the hard way with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
PLOT
The three-quel follows the infamous super team who have returned to protect the cosmos after the majority of its members were blipped for 5 years. The current team includes: the former celestial Peter Quill/Star Lord, his empathic half sister Mantis, Drax the Destroyer, the half cybernetic Nebula, the ravager Kraglin, the genetically engineered raccoon Rocket, the Flora Colossus Groot, and the psionic space dog Cosmo who all live in Knowhere. The assassin Gamora is no longer part of the team when she was sacrificed by Thanos in exchange for the Soul Stone. When a younger version came from the past and went against the Mad Titan, she would go her own way and get adopted by the United Ravagers, led by Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone). One day, the guardians would be attacked by Adam Warlock, a new Sovereign warrior created by High Priestess Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), who sent him to destroy the team for Rocket’s thievery. Warlock is able to wound Rocket, but retreats when Nebula returns the favor. The team is unable to quickly heal the raccoon with a med-pack due to the fact there’s a kill switch embedded in him by his creator The High Evolutionary, a mad scientist who founded the research company OrgoCorp as a front for genetic experimentation. He has also gone as far as to create entrie societies that include the Sovereign. Realizing that OrgoCorp’s headquarters, the Orgoscope, will have an override code for the kill switch, the guardians quickly head there with the hope to save their friend, while Kraglin & Cosmo watch over Knowhere. As Rocket is in a coma, he reminisces his past before he met Groot and founded the guardians: During his youth as an experiment, High Evolutionary designed him with the intent to enhance & anthropomorphize animal life forms as part of his newer society Counter Earth. Rocket’s first group of friends were other animals that were test subjects like him: an otter named Lylla (Linda Cardellini), a walrus named Teefs (Asim Chaudhry) and a rabbit named Floor (Mikaela Hoover). Despite the raccoon helped perfect the Animen creations, High Evolutionary was jealous of him surpassing his intelligence that he vowed to harvest his brain for further research and kill his friends. Rocket tried to break them out before that could happen but just when he free Lylla, their creator shoots her down, certain he would try to escape overnight. Heartbroken of losing a friend, Rocket would retaliate by mauling his face. Sadly, as he shot his way out, Floor and Teefs die in the crossfire. In the story’s present, the guardians reunite with Gamora who helps them break into the Orgoscope to retrieve Rocket’s file that’ll likely have his override code. They are able to escape the headquarters despite getting detected. When looking over the file, the group sees a glimpse of Rocket’s experimentation, but find the pass key for the override to be removed. Luckily, they find the one who has it downloaded in his memory named Theel (Nico Santos), a personal recorder to the High Evolutionary. This leads to the decision to go to Counter Earth to take it from him. There, Quill & Groot personally meet Rocket’s creator who has no remorse for the past. As Nebula waits outside the Arête Laboratories Complex, Drax chooses to follow when instructed to watch the ship and protect Rocket. He also tricks Mantis to go with him. This leaves Gamora alone to protect their friend. She succeeds when a Hellspawn War Pig (Judy Greer) tries to take him from her. The minion would be killed by Adam, who he and Ayesha were able to track down thanks to Gamora inadvertently giving away their coordinates. Adam chooses to kill the War Pig to ensure getting credit of retrieving Rocket, for the sake of protecting his race. As High Evolutionary confesses his disillusionment with the Animen society that has evolved to be imperfect, he chooses to leave via his laboratory while destroying his own planet. The destruction would kill all Animen, as well as Ayesha despite Adam trying to reach her. Star Lord & Groot are able to escape Arête with Theel, killing him the process while taking his code. They do get picked up by Gamora, but Nebula, Drax & Mantis find themselves stuck on Arête as they were hoping to save their teammates. Quill doesn’t realize this until after using the code to disable Rocket’s kill switch and finally save him. Once he realizes High Evolutionary has them captured and placed in cells near genetically modified children, a new rescue plan is in motion. As Quill, Gamora, Rocket & Groot reach Arête, Adam tries again to capture the raccoon, but the leader incapacitates him by self destructing one of his spare ships. He would also call Kraglin to pilot Knowhere to attack Arête, as a distraction to rescue the rest of the team. With the help of Cosmo, they wipe out a majority of Hellspawn. Drax, Nebula, & Mantis are able to break free when the latter is able to use her powers to control three abilisks. When they reunite with the other half, all follow Rocket’s lead to wipe out what remains of High Evolutionary’s troops, hoping to free all of the experiments. They are first able to free the children before Rocket is able to find caged animals. They free the remaining creatures after they encounter High Evolutionary and beat him down. They leave him for dead after Gamora fatally stabs him. Everyone is able to hop onto Knowhere while Cosmo uses telekinesis to hold both stations together momentarily. Groot even goes out of his way saving Adam, believing he deserves a second chance. Quill almost passed through in time before he drops his Zune. Just when he gets it back, Cosmo loses control of the tunnel connection. This would lead to him trying to repel himself to Knowhere, but he doesn’t get close enough. Thankfully, Adam saves him in time before losing his breath in space. With the mission being officially deemed a success, Gamora decides to return to the Ravagers. After Quill says goodbye to her, he becomes inspired to return to Earth and reunite with his grandfather Jason (Gregg Henry). Mantis would also announce to go on a journey of self discovery with the abilisks. With Nebula & Drax agreeing to raise the rescued children on Knowhere, Rocket would be appointed as the new leader of the Guardians. Quill would give him his Zune before leaving. The film would end in a mid credit scene showing the raccoon lead a new line up of the team. Apart from Groot, the new team includes: Kraglin, Cosmo, Adam, his pet F’saki named Blurp (Dee Bradley Baker) and one of the rescued children named Phyla (Kai Zen).
THOUGHTS
It was a shocker for every comic book fan when hearing Writer/Director James Gunn would conclude his tenure with Marvel Studios to become DC Studios' new co-president. But at the same time, it wasn't too much of a surprise due to the critical success he provided for The Suicide Squad and the series spin-off Peacemaker. Knowing all of this, we knew he couldn't leave Marvel yet until wrapping up the trilogy we never thought we needed. Lucky for us, Gunn was able to conclude the arc on a high note. The whole time, it was an incredible experience once again. You already know the visual effects are going to look great when looking at the landscape of scape or seeing the likes of Rocket & Groot come to life. The real treat was seeing a vast improvement on makeup and costume design. I was already in awe seeing the heroes wear matching costumes for the second half of the movie, but I was almost speechless on how the Animen citizens were more life like than anticipated. With that being said, you know it helps represent how the environment can tell the story. This also benefits insane action sequences you're gonna expect in these kind of movies. The best example is definitely going to be the corridor fight between the guardians and the remaining Hellspawn, shot in what looked like one glorious take. These past films have been known to connect with us due to its unexpected themes. Here, it tells us a dark past doesn't equal a dark future and just because so much bad has happened, doesn't mean we have to stop trying to be happy. Thanks to a set of old and new beloved characters, the message becomes more clear at every possible second. We always knew Rocket was a character with a lot to tell, which surprises me when seeing his origin unfold just before we get to say goodbye. Respect will always be given for Bradley Cooper providng his voice to give him heart, but the same must be said for Sean Gunn who also delighted us as the fun loving Kraglin who figures out how to use his heart, providing motion capture to give the raccoon a soul. Rocket has always been seen as single minded because the mental trauma matched the physical pain in his past. He was almost distant towards his companions because he was always afraid of his tragic history repeating itself. Seeing the series of flashbacks unfold and witness such loss, you finally understand where he's been coming from. He always denied being a raccoon in the first place because he didn't want to be reminded of himself. But when he found the cage full of them, it was the time he chose to accept himself. He has grown to be a great leader because he refused to stop until the danger is vanquished. He could've left the lab but the more he avoided it, the more mental pain he'd be digesting. So when he said he was done running, there is relief for him as he confronts his demon for the first time. Since this arc started with Star Lord, we knew it had to end with him as well. Chris Pratt still has us rooting for him because he's got his own set of trauma that he's coping with. Losing his parents was already tough as is and due to being blipped, he never really had the time to accept Gamora is not the same. All of that grief made him more determined to save Rocket because he wasn't gonna bare any more loss. He avoided checking on his grandpa for so long because he knew it still would've been harder for him to say goodbye. But as time went on, even he accepted that death is part of life and the memories you make with your loved ones while they're still around is enough. It was hard for him to let go of Gamora, but at least he remembers what they had. Who knows how much time he'll have left with his grandpa, but at least he'll have enough to appreciate him. No one says it enough, but it's been growing to me lately that Nebula has been the one character from this trilogy to have the best arc in the MCU. We were intimidated of her originally due to being the relentless apprentice of Thanos. But as time went on, we saw she was fighting to survive just like Gamora was. And with the time she spent with Rocket and the Avengers during the Blip era, she was able to regain the humanity she never thought she would have. Once she gained that, it made her a selfless hero of her own right. She's still cold towards others because it's what she knows, but it's now a relief she has good intentions with it. It's heartwarming she now intends to raise he children at Knowhere to give them the happiness she never had before. We always enjoyed Pom Klementieff as Mantis because when not curious, she's smart enough to know when to be a helping hand. She's the only one who speaks from the honest heart because she is lucky enough to not have any personal baggage compared to the others. Her naivety has shown to her to be the one calm enough to say how she feels. She defends Drax whenever because she knows he means well and is the only one to tell Quill to reach out to his grandpa because she doesn't want him to regret missing out on saying goodbye. She doesn't regret helping the guardians, but she had to leave she felt that she needed to be her own person for once. Wherever she goes, I'm sure it'll be a journey worth taking. It's still crazy to this day that Drax was originally written as a destructive figure, yet Dave Bautista gave an unexpected 180 by making him the literal one who doesn't seem to overthink things compared to the others. Since he makes a lot of mistakes, you can tell he was never meant to be a warrior like Nebula. She wasn't wrong saying he was meant to be a parent because the loss made him a warrior. So even after he avenged his loss, he didn't really change deep down. He accepted it won't undo what happened and is still happy with his own memories. The patience he had with the other children showed how natural he was as a parent. It put me in relief he chose to dance at the end with the citizens of Knowhere because nothing has to stay the same. Knowing that he'll stay there with Nebula shows he'll have the second chance of parenthood we never thought he'd get. That is all just as satisfying as seeing her smile for the first time. Not much can be said about Groot, but that doesn't mean he is not interesting. Still with a few set of words, Vin Diesel is able to remind us how caring of a figure he will always be to his friends. The bigger he gets in size, the same will be said with whatever makes his heart. It was fitting to hear him say "I love you guys" because it reflects we get to understand him for the first time. I don't know if this will stick if there is a next time we see him again but until then, this was quite the exception. Like Quill, I was pretty happy Gamora was coming back into our lives, but was still shook that this was not the same one we appreciated the first time around. Zoe Saldana shows the side of her we never thought we'd see, the one who was nonstop aggressive for survival's sake as Nebula always showed. She's colder towards the team because she never got the chance to betray Thanos like she did before. This version took advantage of the circumstances and went from there. She's more comfortable with Stakar's Ravagers because they make it comfortable to be aggressive individuals and be in the thick of it all. She still chose to help the guardians until the end because she was able to understand how much of a family they are, the family she was gaining from the ravagers. I respect that she and Quill didn't start over because you can't force history to repeat itself, and that includes love. Looking back, I am actually impressed that none of these core characters were killed off because we don't need to die to conclude your story. I had a very tearful smile upon hearing 'Dog Days Are Over' in the end because it reflected their journey that the good days were reaching an end. Since all are still alive, it is a 'never say never' scenario for them to return and I will be waiting. Since Cosmo first appeared as part of the Collector's original collection, I didn't push the thought of her being part of the group until appearing in the Holiday Special. Ever since than, Maria Bakalova has been a welcome addition from the voice alone. She was a delight for being the most innocent of the bunch, but puts her powers to damn good use. If you call her a bad dog, you're a sinner. When Adam Warlock was first teased in the end of Vol. 2, we knew he would mean business. This would only make it a bigger surprise when seeing what he brought something else to the table. Since he's a newborn, Will Poulter shows him to be a bit childish and still trying to figure out his own purpose. He was designed to protect his race, but the more he failed, the more he realized he can save more than who he intends. The sudden loss of his mother Ayesha gave him an unclear path, so when Groot saved him, he saw he can still make good use of himself and he does so when saving Quill. In one glance, you can say he's too strong to be part of a team, but he'll need it to learn more on how to do good. With that in mind, I do hope to see more of him in the future. If Gunn gets anything right with his villains, it is making them pure evil and there is no argument when claiming he topped himself with the High Evolutionary. Chukwudi Iwuji nails it in making him the paradox of progress. He is one fixated with having things to his liking. He wants to be the smartest being alive and is close to it when being capable of creating societies and razing them with ease. The problem is that he has a bigger ego than the living planet. He got so obsessed with Rocket's intelligence because he couldn't stand making something smarter than him. Thus being completely cold towards him. When he taunted Rocket's tears, I know I was not the only one who thought "Fuck this motherfucker". So there is no sympathy when Rocket fucks him up, nor when the rest of the guardians take their own shots at him. I have seen a deleted scene in which he is imprisoned at Knowhere still alive. I don't consider it to be canon because I don't think it satisfies anyone if he's still alive. I am fine with Rocket leaving him for dead rather than giving his own death blow or keeping him alive because it won't change what happened. If there is a threat worse than him, I don't doubt the possibility of the original guardians reuniting to stop whatever comes next. Having said all of that, it shows that Rocket will continue being a great leader to the new team. The love I have for this film will never lessen, but it doesn’t excuse some issues I picked up on when re-watching. For example, why exactly has it taken so long for the Sovereign to find the guardians in the first place? There was at least a four year time gap they had before the Blip, so that’s where it gets hard to believe Adam got released from the cocoon too early. If they’re trying to imply he was blipped as well, there’s no problem just saying so. I am happy Kraglin figures out how to use his heart to better use the arrow as a weapon, but how come Quill never gave him that advice? It’s the same thing Yondu (Michael Rooker) told him, so I don’t see why not. That's more surprising when choosing to practice in public, putting civilians at risk because he was lucky Nebula was immune to the accidental strike. It's pretty cool that Stakar has the sorcerer Krugar as part of his crew, which leads to me asking why doesn’t he just teleport them into the Orgoscope. Had they done that, Groot would’ve not had to crash into the facility. That even leads to me asking Gamora should’ve just went straight to contacting Stakar to ensure a portal from Krugar if she really didn’t want to go to Counter Earth. On top of that, I can’t believe she wasn’t suspicious of hearing Ayesha’s voice on the other hand. Based on how aggressive the Ravagers can be, I’d totally be suspicious off of hearing someone say ‘Salutations’. And she should know it's not a great trap for High Evolutionary to expect them to come to Counter Earth because it has to rely on Quill bumping into Theel and remembering he did. On top of that, she shouldn't be surprised of High Evolutionary wiping out Counter Earth when Thanos wiped out half of the fucking universe. I admit that I chuckled when Drax tricked Mantis to come with him, but that could’ve been avoided if she used her powers on him. That is more surprising than Drax knowing how to drive a motorcycle on the first try. Even if they’re bound to fight High Evolutionary until he’s done for the count, this would be less conflict to put up with. I even gotta ask, how the hell did Mantis survive landing on her head when being thrown into a cell? Since she needed a med-pack for her arm in the beginning, I’m having a hard time believing how fragile she’s supposed to be. It was even ridiculous for Adam being able to keep Blurp as a pet since he took him from a ravager, but why did Ayesha allow it? It seemed clear she wasn’t interested and I don’t think she would allow it due to the stakes at hand. Also, why would the Hellspawn ignore scanning Groot before letting him in? He may not have a skeleton, but it’s not like you can’t have those kind of beings to contraband. On top of that, why would High Evolutionary allow Rocket to try breaking out? If he wanted his brain so bad, he should’ve separated him from his friends immediately. That's more ridiculous than instantly guessing the Guardians would go to Orgogorp when he can't be sure Rocket would tell them about it. I don’t want to root for the bad guys, especially this asshole, but he’d be saving himself a whole load of trouble from very simple decisions. Lastly, why the hell did Quill forget his helmet, the one thing that can help him breathe in space? I know he was in a rush, but it ain’t a good excuse compared to before. There honestly should have been an alternative for Adam to save him. Ignore this, and you’ll still have deep love for this film as I have. In conclusion, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is another marvelous hit in the superhero genre for being an appropriate send off for beloved characters and a respected filmmaker. If you became a fan of this super team before or after the first film in 2014, I promise you this one does not disappoint.
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