A 6/10 for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3’

Posted on by under Fiction

The third Guardians of the Galaxy film fits neatly into the post-Endgame tradition of mediocre Marvel products. A 6/10 is not a bad movie in my rating system (that’s fives and below), but it is decidedly meh. It’s fairly surprising that the IMDb average — usually a reliable metric of quality — currently stands at 8/10. That’s what I would give the original Guardians (perhaps even higher), the best Marvel film there is. Guardians 2 was about a 7, a good, solid movie (though it always irked me that Peter and Gamora switched positions, abruptly, on whether Peter should get to know his father, just to manufacture some cheap tension). Many viewers have praised the third installment, but I was not impressed — despite its lovable characters, good humor, and some genuinely emotional moments, something just felt off.

The first thing I noticed was that a couple characters had lost their edge. Nebula seemed far less hostile and brooding than normal. Rocket was of course a child (in flashbacks) for most of the film, so he wasn’t sarcastic, nasty, or argumentative either, but didn’t return to form in his adult scenes. I tried to let this slide, as the Guardians have become friends over time and in finding such a family have been able to let go of some bitterness. It makes some sense, they’ve grown. Still, part of what made the characters memorable and interesting was that they had dark sides, would bicker to the point of dysfunction, and so on. The happy family vibe takes some protagonists out of (original) character and is a bit dull. Thank goodness alternate-timeline Gamora was there to add back in some selfishness, conflict, spice.

It should be noted also that Groot felt somewhat absent. Sure, he was there, got his line in, but left no real impression in the way that Drax, Peter, Rocket, and others did. You’ll never forget Baby Groot dancing in Guardians 2, nor Groot sacrificing himself with a “We are Groot” at the end of the original film. Here he’s in the background, forgettable, forgotten. Was there even an emotional scene between him and Rocket, who’s on his deathbed? Aren’t they best friends and the OG pair?

To me, everything in this movie feels unnatural or forced. What would actually make sense is ignored in favor of achieving certain goals, whether plot or style goals (this mistake often turns sequels into ridiculous caricatures of original ideas). Consider, for instance:

  • Why are Peter’s mask and rocket boots erased from this tale? So he can be saved in space at the end?
  • Why are we jamming as many pop songs as humanly possible into this thing, even when it ruins emotional, dark moments? Because that’s what a GOTG movie must have, like a factory quota must be met? I kept thinking to myself that I was witnessing a formerly fresh, exciting world gone pure parody — Hey, earlier outings had tunes, jokes, bizarre creatures, let’s multiply all that by ten thousand, trust me, it’ll be ten thousand times better.
  • Why does Peter go home, Mantis go find herself, and Nebula want to lead a new society, all coming nearly out of nowhere at the end? Because the Guardians need to break up, it’s the last movie?
  • Why do we go to the goo planet? To not find what we need, so we can go to the next location, the Arthur planet. Gotta get the code, then the man who took the code. It’s a bit Mandalorian / Rise of Skywalker side questy, only not nearly as protracted. It’s as if we’re going to these places just to fill runtime or to simply see weird GOTG designs one by one like a parade or zoo. The meandering video game quest just isn’t compelling storytelling to me. There’s a way to take characters on adventures through many different worlds that feels natural (think of the original Star Wars or Lord of the Rings trilogies), where you’re not going from spot to spot because each one is a dead end or has a tiny clue that leads to the next destination. Real life involves such things at times, and it’s not as if all this should be off-limits for entertainment, but it often does feel contrived — forced and unnatural, the audience being jerked around and dragged along for two and a half hours, childish writing, location porn.
  • Why does Warlock feel so shoehorned into this film? He shows up briefly in the beginning, gets to do a little something at the end, and is mostly pointless and forgotten about in the middle, the majority of the story. He has so little purpose it almost feels like inserting him was a mere obligation after the tease at the end of Guardians 2, rather than an excited, thoughtful addition to the lore.
  • And of course you have the Bad Guy who’s a complete empty suit. A cackling, cartoonish Disney villain without any depth or room for us to sympathize — the things that made Thanos, Killmonger, and so on good antagonists. Here what’s forced is simply a bad guy in general. It’s part of the old, tired formula. How can you have a superhero movie without a baddie? I think this prescription, this dull necessity, leads to a lack of effort. The goodies have to have someone to fight, that’s all that really matters — why bother fleshing out a villain? The box is checked, move on.

And so forth. There is more that makes little sense (why is the final scene the Guardians charging off to kill wildlife when the climax of the film saw them valiantly saving wildlife?), but one gets the idea.

As a final, unrelated gripe, as creative as this world has been in many ways, this particular production felt like a strange mix of too-familiar IPs to me — a Power Rangers villain, Arthur, The Rats of NIMH, Willy Wonka, the monsters from Maze Runner, and GOTG / Marvel all put in a box and shaken as hard as you can.

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