DAVID ADAMS watches the third and final of the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ trilogy…
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (AU-M/UK-12A/US-PG-13)
In a word: Conclusive
The Guardians of the Galaxy team, this time facing off with the High Evolutionary.
The Guardians of the Galaxy team are back in a solo film (having appeared in several films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the last one) and while it’s still filled with the weird and wonderful, this film is a little darker than what we’ve previously seen from the Guardians.
“Told through a series of flashbacks, Rocket’s origin story is not for the faint-hearted and gives the film a more tragic, darker atmosphere than previous Guardians films. “
The old team are whiling away their days running a bar on Knowhere – the giant skull that serves as a planet and their headquarters – when the film opens with Peter Quill or Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) drinking himself into oblivion as he struggles to come to terms with the fact that the love of his life, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), no longer remembers him (it’s complicated, but she lost her memory when she was killed in the effort to defeat her father Thanos in a previous film).
The action, directed again by James Gunn who has been at the helm of all three Guardian films, peps up when Rocket, the wise-cracking raccoon turned co-pilot voiced by Bradley Cooper, is kidnapped by a Sovereign (read genetically engineered) super-soldier (Will Poulter) who’s working for a genetics manipulating corporate chief called the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). The High Evolutionary is obsessed with trying to create a perfect world and needs Rocket to complete that work.
We’re immediately plunged into Rocket’s tragic backstory as the team set out to rescue their friend and as one might expect, along the way, are introduced to plenty of strange new worlds and their denizens.
Told through a series of flashbacks, Rocket’s origin story is not for the faint-hearted and gives the film a more tragic, darker atmosphere than previous Guardians films. While there’s some new faces – like Cosmo the Russian space dog (voiced by Maria Bakalova), it’s still largely the same team with Gamora, though now a mercenary known as a ‘Ravager’, joining them for this quest.
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The CGI is stellar as we’ve come to expect, the performances are on song and the narrative that drives the film forward is action-packed with room nonetheless for plenty of humour and light-hearted banter (thanks Drax (Dave Bautista) in particular). But the traumas they’ve been through have left their scars and there’s also a pervasive sense of the end of era throughout the film as the entire Marvel franchise resets after the conclusion of the popular Avengers films. There’s more to come but whatever shape it takes, it will be different from what’s been.
As usual, don’t forget to watch the credits for a couple of extra, in this case mildly disappointing, scenes.
