Hogan Reviews

Finally found two and a half hours to sit in front of the TV and catch up with the latest MCU film offering as we round out the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy with “Vol. 3”. While it’s almost TV-episode-like structure of flashing back to one character’s backstory at various points made it feel odd for a big budget movie, I did enjoy my time with the film, it has a good emotional heart at its story’s core and does end this side of the MCU well. Let’s take a look!

While other characters do feature prominently (obviously!) this film is directly centred on Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper), as the person who tortured him and modified him all those years ago finds out he’s alive and wants him back. This man is the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) and boy oh boy he’s not a villain with layers who you can at least see how he got to where he is, oh no. He’s a straight up narcissist who tortures and kills creatures and fully sentient life in the hope of creating a “perfect species” that can inhabit his utopia. He originally sends newly hatched Sovereign member Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) to take him back and while he is eventually repelled by the other Guardians he manages to injure Rocket, leading to his teammates discovering that any attempt to heal him will actually kill him thanks to how he was “made”, causing them to go searching for the High Evolutionary. This takes up the majority of the film but during this we flashback to Rocket’s time in the Evolutionary’s cages with his fellow test subjects Lylla, Teefs and Floor (Linda Cardellini, Asim Chaudhry and Mikaela Hoover, respectively) who were all extremely loveable, which is why the villain of the piece having them killed with zero remorse was so hard to see.

The High Evolutionary isn’t a nice man. Just for the record.

Rocket was spared because he had high intelligence and the Evolutionary wanted to know what made him so special but Rocket escaped (though not before tearing his nemesis’ face to shreds). It really added strong emotional depth to the character, as well as more reason to hate our lead antagonist. As for the rest of the Guardians? Well, Peter “Star Lord” Quill (Chris Pratt) is still trying to get over losing the love of his life in Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and even worse a version of her from an alternate timeline is walking around and isn’t into him; Nebula (Karen Gillan) is now a full fledged member of the team, showing no signs of her previous merciless ways; and Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) are all… well, exactly the same as they’ve always been. Oh and former ravager Kraglin is now hanging around, presumably because he’s played by writer/director James Gunn’s brother Sean Gunn because it sure isn’t because he’s a well-crafted or acted character. Cosmo (voiced by Maria Bakalova) the former Soviet spacedog that developed psionic powers and now lives in Knowhere with the rest of the Guardians has a much bigger role than the cameos she’s had in the past and is a good laugh.

Adam Warlock appears, just in time to have no interaction with Thanos at all. Comic lovers come into this film with an open mind!

As mentioned Adam Warlock injures Rocket and so the rest of the Guardians go on a hunt for a way to help him that takes them to a weird organic space station and then to the Evolutionary’s Earth-like utopia. They manage to break into the space station due to the Ravagers, still led by Sylvester Stallone’s Stakar Ogord and of course Gamora is the one who has to personally take them in. As per usual there are some great dialogue exchanges, plenty of well-landed humour and just that little sprinkle of added character depth as Quill battles with his want to be back with Gamora even though this Gamora isn’t the same one, while Drax, Mantis and Nebula spend the runtime snapping at each other before realising good things about the other and getting along. Adam Warlock, unlike his super-serious comic equivalent is played purely for laughs here as due to only being recently born he acts like a child throughout the film, doing what his evil “mother” wants to do unquestionably but soon liking a loveable creature he finds, that sort of thing. I’d be annoyed (as I do kind of like Warlock from the comics) but Will Poulterdoes it so well and the writing is so good that I actually really enjoyed the character. I also have to mention that with James Gunn making it clear this was the last Guardians movie he clearly wrote several scenes where it looked like someone was going to die only for them to live quite comfortably that it kind of killed the momentum of the finale where I’d just grown accustomed to assuming characters will survive and that it was another intentional gag.

The film has some fun action sequences and plenty of colourful (both literal and in the other sense) characters in the background, but I will say I wasn’t as invested in it as I was the first two films, whether that’s because with no Thanos-level endgame or connecting story it doesn’t feel as important or just that the plot this time round wasn’t as engaging I can’t tell you. The way the High Evolutionary gets defeated was kind of a flat choice as well, but I’ll get to that in the spoilers…

Overall Thoughts:

Everyone walking on the weird organic space station with multi-coloured spacesuits on. … Yeah sorry, not much funny to say here, really…

While not as engaging or fresh as the first two films Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 still had a villain you really want to see get taken down (even though his actual defeat fell a bit flat), some emotional stakes and the usual James Gunn combination of dazzling CG environments, fun action and great dialogue, so it was still a fun way to spend an evening.

So in the end Star Lord and Groot confront the High Evolutionary and manage to shoot their way out of his ship with the code to stop the literal killswitch within Rocket and despite actually dying momentarily Rocket is saved. At the same time Drax, Mantis and Nebula sneak on board to save their friends (not knowing they’d already escaped) and meet a new group of young girls who are the Evolutionary’s next “perfect” race. This leads to a final showdown with the Guardians (and eventually the Knowhere head, that they can apparently be controlled like a ship now) and the High Evolutionary, though sadly he stops being a clever and conniving villain to tackle and succumbs to his obsession over Rocket and just lets everything get destroyed while he shouts crazily in anger, which is a downer.

One final seemingly obligatory “walking towards the camera looking cool” shot.

The Guardians meet back up and manage to save the new race of people (and fend off Adam Warlock, who recently lost his “mother” in the battle) but go back in order to save the animals as well, and its here where Rocket gets thrown around a bit by the High Evolutionary and then just turns on his gravity boots and shoots him, then each of the Guardians gets a turn punching him or shooting him before he’s left squirming on the floor and then they all leave. While somewhat satisfying I would’ve preferred a more exciting final battle. Everyone (and every thing) gets off of the ship but Peter doesn’t make it for one final death fakeout before he’s saved by Adam Warlock, who has turned over a new leaf. We then get a happy ending for everyone: Quill goes back to Earth and reunites with his grandad from the first film (who somehow immediately recognises him); Mantis goes off to have a journey to find herself; Drax and Nebula stay on Knowhere to raise the surviving new super-race of young girls; and Rocket and Groot lead a new version of the Guardians which includes Adam Warlock and Cosmo. The final post-credits scene tells us “Star Lord will return”, which I guess means Chris Pratt has no issue getting more Disney cash but the rest are up in the air…