A Review

I'm super late to this one I know, but my friends and I had been wanting to see "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" together for weeks and last night was the first time since it came out that we all could make it. And yeah, it's actually pretty alright.

It's little too long, and I didn't think it was that funny, and the story is overcrowded with way too many characters. (For instance, Will Poulter's character doesn't really affect anything, except for that scene near the end that honestly just feels forced in to justify his inclusion in the movie at all.) But considering the last Marvel movie I watched was "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," which was like having cookie sheets banged together six inches from your face for 2 hours, my bar has been lowered significantly.

I wasn't all that interested in the first several minutes, feeling like after 2 previous movies that I'd already seen most of this before. But as it chugged along it started to connect with me, and by the end, I was quite satisfied with the outcome and mixed emotions I felt. "Vol. 3" has to be the bleakest, grossest, most daring, gruesome, vulgar, and disturbing MCU movie ever. And I mean that as a compliment. James Gunn took the kid gloves off for this one. The inspired set design, costumes, makeup, and props all look part Flash Gordon, part David Cronenberg. Rocket Raccoon's backstory is shocking yet effective and supplies the movie not only with an emotional sternum, but some anti-animal cruelty and child trafficking messages as well. (Not surprising, since Gunn's last movie "The Suicide Squad" had a climactic final fight that doubled as an indictment on the history of U.S. intervention and militarization in Latin America.)

Chukwudi Iwuji spectacularly portrays the movie's villain, a self-absorbed master of both creation and destruction, and one of the most fascinatingly twisted bad guys I've ever seen in one of these movies. I think my new favorite character though has to be the good-natured Mantis, wonderfully played by Pom Klementieff. She brings a genuine sense of nobility to this character, and not any of that phony "I'm the hero therefore I automatically stand for good" righteousness. She's noble not just because she's the hero, but because she is kind, which makes sense as her superpower is quite literally empathy. It's an interesting diversion from the usual unit of measurement for a hero's worth which is how much damage they can do to their opponent in a fight.