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‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Review: Raccoon Tears and a Final Mixtape

This dour, visually off-putting two-and-a-half-hour A.S.P.C.A. nightmare of a film may only be for completionist fans.

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By Maya Phillips

Animal lovers, comic book fans and unofficial adjudicators of narrative continuity, action and style in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Lend me your ears. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is not the movie for you.

Perhaps this dour, visually off-putting two-and-a-half-hour A.S.P.C.A. nightmare of a film is only for completionist fans like myself, arriving at the theater armed with overpriced popcorn and the hope that the director James Gunn’s latest could replicate the romp and anti-gravity gambol of the first .

For those who need help getting their multiversal timeline untangled, “Guardians” is the second film of the so far ecstatically bad Phase Five of the M.C.U., after the, to quote my colleague, “thoroughly uninspired” “ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. ” We last caught our whole team of lovable riffraff together in “ Avengers: Infinity War ,” when Thanos (Josh Brolin) threw his adopted daughter and galaxy guardian, Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), into an abyss to get one of the Infinity Stones, which he used to snap away half of the universe. (There were some dancing Groots and a cute holiday special about abducting Kevin Bacon, but — sorry, Kev — they were irrelevant.)

Now the Guardians are settling in at Knowhere, a community in the severed head of a celestial that serves as their home base. With Gamora gone, Peter (Chris Pratt), a.k.a. Star-Lord, is still grieving, unaware of the fact that somehow Gamora — or, rather, a variant — is alive, sans her memories of him and the Guardians. When, a few minutes into the film, Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) becomes victim to a deadly attack, the team is reunited with a hostile, partially amnesiac Gamora, who is reluctantly dragged into their plot to save him.

While Rocket is in critical condition, Peter and company do some risky snooping through Rocket’s traumatic back story to figure out how to save his life and stop the man pursuing him, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). A powerful god-figure, the High Evolutionary has genetically altered Rocket, other animals and even children to create a perfect race to inhabit his imagined utopia. (Yes, that’s another Nazi-coded villain for your Bingo card.)

So much of “Guardians 3” seems to erupt from left field, most prominently the main story, which is driven by Rocket, even though the Guardians have mostly played second-string to Star-Lord, the plot-driving hero. The shift makes sense given the role this film plays as the end of the trilogy, resulting in a Guardians team with a different starting lineup and an unclear position in the context of the rest of the M.C.U. But the shift also feels belabored and emotionally manipulative; scenes upon scenes of shot, blown up, tortured and incinerated C.G.I. animals with big, emotive eyes are as merciless as clips of injured animals set to a Sarah McLachlan song .

It seems “Guardians” needs this much gratuitous trauma bait to establish its stakes and prove that the bad guy is, in fact, bad. Which is unfortunate because Iwuji, who offered a much more nuanced performance in Gunn’s edgy-fun DC Extended Universe series, “Peacemaker,” is left with just a thin silhouette of an antagonist to work with here. (Will Poulter and Elizabeth Debicki also appear as idiotic secondary antagonists, for no real reason.)

Something like Thanos Lite or a knockoff Dr. Frankenstein, the High Evolutionary represents one of the central problems the franchise is facing in a post-“ Endgame ” M.C.U.: characters and circumstances that pale in comparison to Thanos and his cataclysmic, conclusive multi-arc-spanning plotline. Because at least the extent of Thanos’s power and the roots of his villain philosophy were clear. “There is no god — that’s why I stepped in,” the High Evolutionary says at one point. This tiny germ of a motivation does nothing but indicate all the questions that the film could have answered about this character to make him more interesting. Surely an atheist with a narcissistic personality and obsessive-compulsive disorder has some deeper psychology to unpack. Ah well.

Though this “Guardians” is certainly less fun than the others, there are still glints of joy in the more mundane and ancillary quibbles among the found family of misfits. Dave Bautista gives another priceless performance as Drax, and Bautista’s signature chemistry works with Pom Klementieff as Mantis. Groot (Vin Diesel) has leveled up in the bang-bang-shoot-em-up category, as has Nebula (Karen Gillan). Though the film makes no attempt to explain the logic behind Gamora’s magical reappearance (“I’m not some infinity stone scientist!” Peter exclaims after trying to puzzle things out), it does at least give Saldaña the opportunity to reinvent her character, which she manages beautifully. The same for Rocket, who gives an Oscar-worthy performance — via Cooper’s great voice acting, of course, but also via the animation, which makes his faces, postures and movements look so unbelievably believable.

Gunn makes the curious, bold choice to chase an unpleasant aesthetic that’s part Cronenberg, part “ Osmosis Jones. ” A series of scenes take place in a ship fashioned like viscera and innards, with fleshy globules and architectural dendrites, often in nude tones. Squishy sound effects add an unwelcome layer of grossness.

Even when the movie switches back to the more lambent palette of nebulae and the luminous shine of the stars, Gunn’s direction doesn’t serve the full tableau. His camera is too voyeuristic, spinning enthusiastically on every axis during group fight scenes rather than giving us a steady look at the choreography.

At least this “Guardians,” like the previous ones, stays on beat with a fantastic soundtrack of Spacehog, Beastie Boys and Earth Wind & Fire. But pumping soundtrack aside, after a breakout hit and the sequel, “ Everything Would Have Been Fine if Your Dad the Space God Played Catch With You: The Movie, ” this final piece of the trilogy makes one thing apparent: “Guardians” was just a one-hit wonder.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Rated PG-13 for some swearing and a zoo of horrors. Running time: 2 hour 30 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this article misidentified the actress who plays a secondary antagonist along with Will Poulter. It is Elizabeth Debicki, not Maria Bakalova.

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Maya Phillips is a critic at large. She is the author of “NERD: Adventures in Fandom From This Universe to the Multiverse” and the poetry collection “Erou.” More about Maya Phillips

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'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' sends off its heroes with a mawkish mixtape

Glen Weldon

L to R: Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Drax (Dave Bautista), Quill (Chris Pratt) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) go for a walk in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Marvel Studios hide caption

L to R: Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Drax (Dave Bautista), Quill (Chris Pratt) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) go for a walk in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

What, in your mind, is the Marvel Cinematic Universe still missing?

We're neck-deep into Phase 5 now, after all; we've had dozens of movies and streaming series and one-off specials. And while critics can and do bemoan the surface similarities these disparate properties tend to share, the strength of the MCU remains how much variation it manages to offer up in tone, scope, stakes and subject matter. Looking for street-level angst ? Cosmic sweep ? Paranoid thrillers ? Mystic mumbo-jumbo ? Sitcom satires ? Gods and monsters ? Coming-of-age dramas ? Subatomic shenanigans ? Afro-futurist utopias ? Whatever the hell Eternals was supposed to be ? The MCU has something for you.

But maybe, after all these years, you find that your own very particular Marvel itch remains somehow unscratched. So I say this to a vanishingly small subset of you: If you've ever found yourself walking out of an Marvel movie and said to yourself, "I liked it. It was fine. But I don't know. I can't help thinking it could have used...just you know a lot more vivisection," then rest assured your tastes have finally been catered to, you sicko freak.

The gang's all here, sort of

But first: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is pitched as a sendoff to the rag-tag gang of misfits first introduced in James Gunn's 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy , who've since cropped up in several corners of the MCU. As a team, they've always leaned more into mercenary violence and bro-ish banter than anything so hopelessly quaint as heroism, though they do tend to wind up saving the day, despite themselves. They've added some new faces to their roster, one of which is technically an old face. (Zoe Saldana here plays an alternate-timeline version of her character Gamora, whom we met back in the first film; long story.)

There's dim but headstrong Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), dim but strong-strong Drax (Dave Bautista), gruff Nebula (Karen Gillan), empathic Mantis (Pom Klementieff), laconic space-Ent Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) and tough but fuzzy raccoon Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper).

Also along for the ride: Kraglin (Sean Gunn) a space-pirate struggling with performance issues, Cosmo (Maria Bakalova) a telekinetic space-dog, and a brand new antagonist, Will Poulter's Adam Warlock, a genetically-engineered super-being with the mind of a petulant child in the body of an Instagram fitness influencer.

They're all up against a powerful being known as The High Evolutionary, played with gratifyingly over-the-top, scenery-devouring brio by Chukwudi Iwuji.

The High Evolutionary's nefarious plan? To engineer a perfect species to live in a perfect society of his creation. Which, alas, is where All! That! Vivisection! TM comes in.

Doing Moreau with less

Look, if you're trying to come up with a villain for audiences to dutifully, even reflexively hiss, eugenicists are a pretty good place to start; I get that. And if said eugenicist should also happen to go about their evil business by conducting unholy cybernetic experimentations on cute fuzzy animals like Rocket (in flashbacks) and innocent, adorable, wet-eyed toddlers (in the present day)? Sure. Fair enough. Bad guys do bad things, after all. It's in the job description.

The problem at the core of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 isn't the mere depiction of said animal experimentation, which created not only Rocket but a cadre of twee furry cyborg pals we get to (briefly) meet. It's the fact that writer/director James Gunn approaches those scenes without trusting his audience to naturally recoil at the idea of animal cruelty.

There is violent imagery, yes. But what makes those scenes profoundly unpleasant to sit through is not their violence itself, but Gunn's mawkish, maudlin, manipulative approach to it. Using every cinematic tool at his disposal, he so feverishly attempts to crank up the horror of those scenes that he only succeeds in exposing their cynical, plot-driven artifice. And by juxtaposing them with moments in which the experiments' animal subjects spout platitudes about the joy of friendship and their dreams of escape, Gunn's unbearable, ham-handed execution aims for pathos but achieves only bathos, its laughably inept evil twin.

Baby Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), one of the film's subtle, understated appeals to emotion. Marvel Studios hide caption

Baby Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), one of the film's subtle, understated appeals to emotion.

You can only tug on the audience's heartstrings for so long before they start to snap off in your hands. To watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is to watch a filmmaker under the wildly mistaken belief that the best way to get you to absorb what he's saying is by screaming it directly into your ear.

There's more to the film than Rocket's trauma narrative (in those flashbacks, Sean Gunn attempts to personify a younger Rocket by pitching Bradley Cooper's dese-and-dose Brooklyn accent up an octave or two, so we the audience get to experience some trauma ourselves).

Game, cassette and match

The central metaphor of Gunn's Guardians films has been the mixtape. Peter Quill's beloved, long-lost mother made him one filled with classic rock jams that supplied the soundtrack to his life (and to the first Guardians film).

Nowadays, Peter's updated his old cassette with a playlist that provides this third film with a more eclectic collection of needle drops (Beastie Boys, The The, The Replacements, Florence + the Machine).

And like any mixtape/playlist, Guardians Vol. 3 includes some real gems. At one point the team visits a space station that's entirely organic, and the production designers go to town creating doorways like heart valves and airlocks like open wounds. There's an extended slow-motion fight in a corridor featuring digital camerawork that swoops around the characters as they trade punches and kicks and laser blasts in a physics-defying manner. It's visually stunning if viscerally inert, like an extended videogame cutscene.

But some of the other songs in this cinematic mix don't hit as hard as they could. Poulter's Adam Warlock feels shoehorned into the overstuffed proceedings, and while Klementieff's Mantis gets more to do than she ever has, both the character and actor still feel underused.

The Guardians, as a team, have never adopted the usual superhero admonitions against the taking of lives. Even so, a scene in which one of our heroes casually instructs another one of our heroes to "Kill them all," still can't help but rankle.

Barbs and insults get well and truly traded — a Gunn hallmark — and most of them land. Mostly, though, a weirdly somber mood pervades the film. Maybe it's that the scenes of animal abuse linger longer, and cast a deeper pall, than the filmmaker has accounted for. If Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a mixtape, it's the one that your ex sends you after you break up with him, full of syrupy, sentimental tunes meant to reignite any last lingering sparks of feeling you may have once shared. It's "Seasons in the Sun" followed by "Alone Again (Naturally)" followed by "Everybody Hurts" followed by "The Christmas Shoes," and it serves only to remind you how right you were to dump the sappy chump when you did.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the best Marvel movie in years

The last of James Gunn’s Marvel movies doesn’t get caught up in the multiverse.

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Saying that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the best Marvel movie since Avengers: Endgame feels like a loaded statement. Maybe one that should come with multiple asterisks.

Since Endgame , Marvel’s slate has included some uncharacteristically middling movies like Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness . Spider-Man: No Way Home is fantastic but it’s considered a Sony and Marvel collaboration. The studio has also released some extreme stinkers into the wild, like Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania . It’s all led to the feeling that Marvel is in a relative rut .

When I say that Guardians Vol. 3 is the best Marvel film since Endgame , however, I mean it as a genuine compliment: The movie is great and not just the best house on a bad block.

Director James Gunn’s final Guardians chapter rips and roars with the confidence and emotions that nine years and multiple movies featuring this band of space underdogs bring. It achieves all this by, thankfully, ignoring Marvel’s grand design.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 is about picking up the pieces and the evil of eugenics

The third Guardians movie, the first since 2017’s Vol 2. , begins with rebuilding. That’s the only option when half the universe’s living beings were zapped away in 2018’s Infinity War only to come back, five years having passed, in 2019’s Endgame . Marvel’s various movies and Disney+ shows have tackled “the snap” and “the snapback” in their own ways, showing us glimpses of how people in the MCU dealt with the blip. Clint Barton found an apprentice; Wanda Maximoff got way too deep into demonic paraphernalia; Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson became bros, and Wilson became Captain America.

The Guardians, who briefly appeared in the surprisingly dismal Thor: Love and Thunder , have started to build a headquarters on Knowhere — introduced in the first movie, Knowhere is the massive, cosmic skull of the celestial being that was mined for organic matter and then became a seedy intergalactic outpost. With Thanos defeated and trillions of beings snapped back and forth between existence, Nebula (Karen Gillan), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Drax (Dave Bautista) have created a home for anyone that needs one.

It’s a full-circle moment for the Guardians, who began this trilogy as individuals, homeless and alone. In each other, this cybernetic assassin, talking tree, raccoon with genius intellect, insectoid empath, and extremely literal destroyer have found a family. And together, they’ve taken it upon themselves to give fellow space weirdos a place for comfort and relief, the way this makeshift family has done for themselves.

The two names noticeably absent in this rebuild project are Peter Quill a.k.a. Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Star-Lord is physically with the Guardians on Knowhere, but emotionally, he’s in a wasteland. He grieves over Gamora, the one who died in Infinity War and the currently alive time-displaced one who came back in Endgame. This new Gamora isn’t the one he loved, and she’s nowhere to be found. Quill drinks to numb the pain.

Star-Lord’s drinking and depression isn’t the main villain of the story though. The big bad is the entity known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a powerful mad scientist who dabbles in cosmic eugenics. The High E genetically tinkers with all kinds of beings — walruses, otters, orphan children — and possesses a grand vision of creating a perfect utopia. Each time these utopias fail, the High Evolutionary starts over, killing all his creations. He sees this as a kind of mercy for his imperfect creations.

It turns out that Rocket and the High Evolutionary have a connection, and for some nefarious reason, the High E now wants Rocket back. The bounty hunt on Rocket also introduces a superpowered himbo named Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) into the fray.

And as these pieces begin to lock into place, the third movie unfurls as part Rocket origin story and part heist. The Guardians are off to save their furry friend.

How will the team save Rocket in this infinite universe? Well, without giving too much away, in a galaxy where everyone is so insignificant, nothing is more powerful than family. It isn’t always perfect, and sometimes it hurts, but whether it’s the one you’re born into or the one you find, family is the only thing saving us in this cold, enormous expanse.

Thank god this isn’t the multiverse

As saccharine and as corny as that all sounds, it’s worth noting that Guardians Vol. 3 is a Marvel movie. Marvel’s films and the comic books they’re based on aren’t actually all that abstract, at least at their best. Marvel’s characters were created to tell stories about friendship and goodness, and teach children how to be better to one another. Gunn hasn’t shied away from that since the first Guardians movie in 2014, and now, the new movie is still tracing out these characters and the bonds they share some nine years later.

This is not only Gunn’s last Guardians movie, it’s his last for Marvel. He’s been named co-chairman and CEO of Warner Bros, which will see him become the DCU version of Marvel’s Kevin Feige. It’s not too hard to see why DC wanted to give him the reins; his Guardians franchise has been incredibly popular.

That popularity has given Gunn more freedom than other directors in the Marvel system. You can see that leeway in the way he plays with visuals.

In this film, we get genetically modified, freakishly adorable otters and walruses, a villain whose grafted skin is stretched sheerly thin over his robotic modifications, aliens chomping on skewered rodent street food, and a fleshy pink planet that’s purposely sphincter-like. The movie’s aesthetics often veer into incredibly gross and gooey, a deliberate choice each time. There’s a thoughtfulness to the physics, weight, and scale of every scene. The fight sequences, bright and bold, are choreographed with that same philosophy.

There’s no mistaking Guardians for any other Marvel franchise.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania , which came out earlier this year, and Guardians Vol. 3 essentially take place in the same setting: a weird alien world that doesn’t look like Earth. Still, they look drastically different (derogatory). Quantumania ’s visuals had no defining qualities; they were aggressively generic. And based on the way it was shot, I’m not even sure if any of the film’s actors were ever in the same room at the same time. If Quantumania looked half as good as Guardians , it wouldn’t have been as awful as it was.

More importantly, though, Gunn’s freedom also affords Guardians Vol. 3 the benefit of not being bound to the MCU multiverse.

The multiverse , as established in MCU projects like Spider-Man: No Way Home , Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness , Quantumania , and the Loki Disney+ series, is a concept derived from quantum physics in which there are infinite parallel worlds that contain parallel versions of ourselves. For the MCU, that means infinite versions of our superheroes and supervillains.

Now, imagine the burden of spelling that idea out every time.

Marvel itself isn’t even consistent with the multiverse rules. They seem to change from project to project — for instance, in No Way Home , Spider-Man is played by multiple actors; in Multiverse of Madness , all of the Doctors Strange are played by Benedict Cumberbatch. The studio has to deal with an off-screen controversy too: Jonathan Majors , who was arrested for domestic abuse in March, is playing multiple versions of the villain Kang.

The MCU’s timeline itself is also extremely confusing.

Loki establishes that there’s an entire agency that culls parallel timelines, and at the end of the series, Loki himself plays a part in its demise, which results in all these alternate universes sprouting up from nowhere. What’s unclear is how those events happened within the context of Multiverse of Madness , which establishes this multiple universe theory as something that Wanda Maximoff and Doctor Strange seem to have some knowledge about (despite no interactions with Loki). Nor do we know when the events of both those projects figure into Quantumania ’s timeline. The multiverse is supposed to connect this next batch of Marvel movies as a throughline, but Marvel hasn’t done a good job spelling out how.

Aside from the time-displaced Gamora, which the entire movie waves off as fluke time-travel, Guardians Vol. 3 has no interest in the multiverse. It’s much better off for it.

Instead of getting deep into the (variable) scientific weeds, the Guardians are allowed to live in this world with one another. That often results in these sardonic, literal, naive, and brash characters bouncing off each other to comedic effect. But in this installment, Gunn pushes his cast into more somber territory, toying with the idea that if found families help us all to grow and heal, what happens when you grow enough to be on your own? What if you’re brave enough to find your own adventure? And what does that goodbye feel like?

It turns out that answering those questions makes for a pretty fantastic Marvel movie.

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• Movie Review

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a gorgeous spectacle that confuses schmaltz for sentimentality

James gunn’s third guardians movie is packed with stunning set pieces, but its saccharine attempts at sentimentality and a by-the-numbers plot keep it from ever reaching lift-off..

By Charles Pulliam-Moore , a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.

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The appeal of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films has always been their ability to feel truly set apart and distinct from the rest of Marvel’s multigenre cinematic universe, all while sticking to the studio’s house style just enough for crossovers to make sense. The first Guardians humorously opened up the MCU on a cosmic scale , and the second solidified its ragtag team of space outcasts as both a family and an important part of Marvel’s plans for the end of Phase 3 . Though Phase 5 is just ramping up , almost everything about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is crafted to be a celebratory farewell to the movie’s characters and the recent era of Marvel’s films they helped define.

Narratively, that’s a fantastic place for the third film in a series to be working from, and Vol. 3 feels like Gunn is working hard to show you just how much these movies have meant to him as a director. But for all of its stunning set pieces, imaginative production design, and a fascinating villain, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 gets bogged down by a morass of cringey jokes and a schmaltz so cloyingly “sweet,” it’s almost insulting.

Set some time after the Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special , Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 tells the action-packed, flashback-filled story of how Rocket Raccoon’s (Bradley Cooper) life being gravely endangered gives the rest of the Guardians a reason to come together and really start working on some of the emotional issues that’ve been haunting them since Endgame . With Thanos gone and the universe mostly restored, things have been going relatively well on Knowhere, the severed Celestial head out of which Rocket, Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Groot (Vin Diesel), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Kraglin (Sean Gunn), and Cosmo the Spacedog (Maria Bakalova) operate as the newest incarnation of the Guardians. 

Despite having become an angry drunk since we last saw him, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is still very much a part of the team as Vol. 3 opens on him mourning the death of the Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) he knew and loved before Thanos murdered her in Infinity War — a loss that hit all the Guardians heavily. But unlike Quill, who spends quite a bit of Vol. 3 lashing out with an unpleasant surliness that makes him difficult to sympathize with, pretty much everyone else on the team has made their peace with the fact that while their Gamora might be gone, there’s a different Gamora from the past (see: Endgame ) running around the galaxy now for them to love from a healthy distance.

Figuring out how to pick up narrative threads post- Endgame without feeling excessively stuck in the past is a challenge many of Marvel’s recent movies have struggled with, and Vol. 3 is no exception. There was no way for Vol. 3 to avoid addressing the Gamora paradox problem, and it’s actually a concept that’s always felt intriguing enough to warrant deeper exploration. But rather than unpacking that bit of existential time weirdness and all the ideas about grief baked into it, Guardians of the Galaxy focuses the bulk of its energy on revealing the secret, tragic backstory that led to Rocket’s creation and also conveniently frames him as the latest example of Marvel framing (animal) people as MacGuffins.

The specific reason the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) — an alien geneticist obsessed with engineering perfection into living beings — wants Rocket is far more interesting than the Scarlet Witch’s rationale for hunting down America Chavez in Multiverse of Madness and more unhinged than Namor’s plan to kill Riri Williams in Wakanda Forever. But whereas those films both tried to give their living MacGuffins active roles to play in the present, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 tries to tug on your heartstrings with a series of flashbacks to Rocket’s gruesome childhood of being experimented on alongside other sentient, talking animals like Lylla (Linda Cardellini), an otter with cybernetic arms, Floor the Rabbit (Mikaela Hoover), and Teefs the Walrus (Asim Chaudhry).

As it’s jumping between the past and the present, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 often feels like a film that’s overstuffed with ideas, both good and bad, and doing everything in its power to make them all work in too short a time, even though the movie clocks in at over two hours.

The Guardians’ battles with the High Evolutionary’s Sovereign underlings, High Priestess Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), and her prematurely hatched failson Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) make for some of the movie’s most dazzling fight sequences and do a very solid job of presenting them as a team of cosmic superheroes. But the more time Vol. 3 spends in the past focused on young Rocket — an uncannily cute CGI procyonid Cooper voices like a man doing gruff, stilted baby talk — the more it feels like Gunn doesn’t exactly trust you to have emotional responses to things without being spoon-fed concentrated schmaltz beforehand.

What Gunn does seemingly (and rightfully) have faith in is his own ability to dream up brilliantly twisted, fanciful locations and production designer Beth Mickle’s ability to bring them to life in absolutely stunning detail. As tired as many of Vol. 3 ’s gags and emotional beats are, almost every single one of its transitions to a new locale is a delightful showcase of what all Marvel Studios is capable of, visually speaking, when it’s firing on all cylinders to realize the vision of a filmmaker whose ideas it trusts. It’s also clear that the film’s cast has faith in Gunn, and he in them, and the result is a set of performances that — Pratt aside — work surprisingly well when the movie’s script isn’t getting in the way by making them say unfunny things. Unfortunately, though, that tends to be the case more often than not.

The degree to which you’re going to enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will largely depend upon how personally invested you’ve become in these characters over the years. Because the movie really is meant to be a send-off rather than an adventure that will make you fall in love with the Guardians for the first time. To that end, Guardians of the Galaxy does manage to send its eponymous heroes off in a way that feels thematically “right” for a trilogy that’s always been about misfits finding themselves with the help of their found families and marching to the beat of their own weird drums.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 also stars Sylvester Stallone, Daniela Melchior, Nathan Fillion, Nico Santos, and Dee Bradley Baker. The movie hits theaters on May 5th.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Review

Rocket science..

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 opens in theaters on May 5, 2023

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 offers a rare thing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: a satisfying ending to a trilogy. While the Guardians series will probably continue on in some fashion, writer-director James Gunn ties up this iteration of the team with the same humor and heart as the first two, but this time adds in unexpected darkness in the form of Rocket’s genuinely disturbing origin story. It’s what makes this somewhat busy but mostly lovable threequel such an emotionally rich comic book movie.

A lot has happened with the Guardians since Vol. 2 was released in 2017; the original Gamora died, a past version of Gamora survived, and Peter Quill and Mantis learned that they’re brother and sister. Yet Gunn deftly turns that tangled ball of MCU lore threads into a devilishly fun yarn. This film has all the silly dialogue and gags you’d expect but there’s a far more dramatic tone to it, which is a welcome change after the second movie had the characters breathlessly laughing at their own jokes.

It turns out there was a good reason Rocket never shared much about his past. He was created by a power-mad super-scientist known as the High Evolutionary and was subjected to horrific abuse, and it’s in a series of harrowing flashbacks that we come to a whole new understanding of Rocket, and the ever-excellent Bradley Cooper peels back the layers of this gruff raccoon with a tender performance. The method used to show us the flashbacks isn’t the most original, especially if you watched The Book of Boba Fett last year, plus it takes Rocket out of the action for far too long. Still, it cannot be overstated how a cybernetically enhanced raccoon is the emotional lynchpin of this movie–and it works!

The High Evolutionary is played with a maniacal intensity by Chukwudi Iwuji, who delivers his perverted philosophy on perfection with an ice-cold brutality. He’s easy to hate because he’s essentially animal cruelty personified. While his motivation and worldview are certainly something new to the MCU, his high-tech purple armor and blue-energy powers have him looking a tad too much like Kang the Conqueror, another power-mad bad guy we just saw in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The High Evolutionary is an especially effective villain during the flashbacks because we learn about his misguided search for perfection and watch him inflict his twisted science on Rocket, but he feels far less threatening in the present, largely because the stakes never reach a truly dangerous level.

Who's your favorite Guardian?

One major aspect where Guardians 3 sets itself apart from Quantumania is the visual effects, which are vivid and spectacular, from the fleshy and slimy organic space station to the horrific cyborg-animal henchmen. Everything feels crunchy and gross and real, especially during the jaw-dropping all-in-one-take hallway fight for the ages. On the flip side, the rendering of young Rocket and his animal friends are top notch–a perfect blend of cartoonishness and realism, with more big sad eyes than one can handle.

The High Evolutionary’s unique brand of evil offers juicy themes of control and expectation that complement the Guardians’ stories well, particularly that of Peter Quill and Gamora. Quill pines for the old Gamora who fell in love with him, but the Gamora in front of him wants nothing to do with him. There’s a hard lesson to be learned about trying to make someone the person you want them to be as opposed to who they really are, regardless of what came before. This version of Gamora is far closer to the ruthless assassin raised by Thanos than the heroic warrior who originally joined the Guardians, and it was an unexpected joy watching Zoe Saldana act with such rage and brutality, not to mention a scathing impatience towards Quill. For his part, Chris Pratt takes that abuse with his typical schmucky earnestness.

The rest of the Guardians put up a strong showing, and scenes where the entire group gets to play off one another are the best Volume 3 has to offer. We’ve watched them grow into a family over the years and it’s a treat to bask in their chemistry one more time. Karen Gillan’s Nebula is the standout among the group, as she takes a more prominent role and has a new robot arm capable of doing all sorts of cool stuff. Though naturally, there are a few quibbles to be had. Drax and Mantis each get their moment to shine, but by this point their oblivious idiocy has long since been overmined for laughs. Groot is, as always, there to say his three favorite words and kick ass, and with his formidable new physique he does just that, yet considering that this is a movie about Rocket’s past, it’s disappointing we didn’t learn anything about the beginnings of their friendship.

Then there’s Adam Warlock, who is by far the biggest surprise in that he plays a shockingly small role. With the way he was teased at the end of the last Guardians movie, one might think he would be the main big bad, but the High Evolutionary is very much the central antagonist and Warlock is pretty much just his lackey. That’s kind of a letdown because in the comics Warlock is a wise and powerful cosmic being who played a key role in the saga of the Infinity Stones, but with that story already concluded in the MCU, it seems there just wasn’t much left for Warlock to do. Unfortunately, he feels like he’s only in this film out of obligation, and it’s sad to say Volume 3 wouldn’t have been much different if he were cut out. Also, it’s a big departure from the comics that this Warlock is effectively a child in the body of Superman, kind of like Marvel’s version of Shazam. And while Will Poulter does absolutely nail that idea and earn some laughs, it’s hard not to feel disappointed that we lost out on a unique cosmic character and in exchange we got yet another space idiot.

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With a large central cast and many supporting players, along with an always-escalating sense of peril, the plot tends to have one too many things going on at any given moment, but the core focused around Rocket’s trauma is rock solid and acts as an emotional anchor to keep it on track. Ultimately, Guardians 3 finishes the story that began in 2014 and delivers well-earned answers and closure for this family of misfits. There’s a sophistication to Gunn’s storytelling that’s completely singular to the Guardians movies, where humor, heart, and song intertwine. That’s on full display throughout the film and it’s a delight to enjoy one last time before he puts on a red cape and flies over to DC Studios.

The Guardians of the Galaxy deliver their swan song in Vol. 3 and it’s a rockin’ good time. Through Rocket’s tragic origin story we’re given a new appreciation for this whole family of lovable malcontents. And even though the plot has a bit too much going on, some of the humor feels stale, and Adam Warlock was woefully underused, the cast’s incredible chemistry and James Gunn’s soulful style remain unlike anything else in the MCU, and this movie sends them out on an emotional and action-packed high note.

More Reviews by Joshua Yehl

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 review – James Gunn’s fun and energetic threequel

Chris Pratt has fully grown into a hunky action-lead, but Dave Bautista’s beefy Drax is the scene stealer as he flexes his comedy chops

M arvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise has now been going for almost a decade, long enough for its star Chris Pratt to have fully grown into his hunky action-lead image and leave behind the puppyish comedy turn from TV’s Parks and Recreation that got him hired in the first place. With Pratt’s lovable hero Quill addicted to 70s/80s hits on his vintage Walkman, the franchise has also gone on long enough to reportedly trigger a massive global sales upturn in audio cassettes, although it’s an iPod we see in this film. And it’s been with us long enough for writer-director James Gunn to experience a complete cancelling-uncancelling cycle , fired and then forgiven for offensive tweets.

Now Guardians of the Galaxy has reached the threequel stage: overlong, yes, and finally reaching for an importance and emotional closure (perhaps inspired by Gunn’s own corporate redemption) that it doesn’t quite encompass, while leaving the GOTG brand open for a next-gen reboot. But it’s still spectacular, spirited and often funny. We find the Guardians in a state of emotional disarray, with Quill pining for Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who was killed in Avengers: Infinity War but now exists as a time-travelled alt-self split from Quill and the group; she has no memory of their previous relationship and is now working with the Ravagers, led by Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone).

A mysterious golden figure, Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) swoops in and unsuccessfully attempts to kidnap Rocket (Bradley Cooper), leaving him seriously injured and on life-support. Quill and the Guardians are astonished to discover that their raccoon pal actually has a vitally important data chip implanted into him, with a “kill switch” preventing remedial surgery. Rocket is actually a piece of IP, a bioform invented by the sinister High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) who had once been using him as part of his plan to develop a new post-earthling master race on Counter-Earth, or maybe a new planet entirely. Rocket turns out to be a genius whose vision the HE needs, working with his high priestess, Ayesha, in which role Elizabeth Debicki is very funny but very underused.

Now the whole group, including Groot (Vin Diesel), Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), must journey to confront the High Evolutionary, for no initial reason other than to save Rocket’s life – but it soon becomes clear, inevitably, that what is at stake is the future of that galaxy that they’re there to guard. The scene stealer turns out to be the good-natured, beefy Drax, with Bautista showing us his comedy chops; it’s his character, apparently so violent and unsentimental, who heartwarmingly turns out to be a favourite with little kids – an idea going back to Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai.

The narrative importance of this (apparently) final movie episode is signalled partly by its hefty length – 20 minutes longer than Vol 2 and 28 minutes longer than Vol 1 – but the sense of an ending is, perhaps inevitably, undermined by the suspicion that the movie’s constituent characters are each simply going to be reshuffled into the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some stage in the future. Well, Gunn always brought energy and fun to his Guardians, and it’ll be sad to see them go.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 First Reviews: A Satisfying Finale for Gunn and the Gang

Critics say the presumably final outing for the guardians packs an emotional punch, enhanced by dazzling visuals and wild set pieces, even if its villains don't quite hit the mark..

TAGGED AS: First Reviews , marvel cinematic universe , movies

Here’s what critics are saying about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 :

Does it live up to expectations?

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has everything you would expect from James Gunn and Marvel Studios. –  Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 achieves what it sets out to do, which is provide a stirring and audience-pleasing finale. –  Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 offers a rare thing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: a satisfying ending to a trilogy. –  Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies

I didn’t expect to feel so sad while watching this movie. –  Mike Ryan, Uproxx

How does it compare to the first two Guardians movies?

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the weirdest, grimmest, most emotional entry in Gunn’s MCU franchise, but it’s also the strongest. –  Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

This edition largely succeeds like the other ones, thanks to the chemistry of the main ensemble. – Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

Like its two predecessors, the film is refreshing in the context of its own cinematic universe. –  Greg Nussen, Slant Magazine

Given how almost the entirety of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 feels like a superficial, snarky, and sarcastic deviation, Vol. 3 will evoke similar frustrations. –  Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com

(Photo by ©Marvel/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

Where does it fit in the MCU?

Leave it to James Gunn to rescue Marvel from its self-inflicted woes with the best MCU film since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame . –  David Gonzalez, The Cinematic Reel

It’s the best MCU film in years, and a reminder of how much fun and moving the Marvel Cinematic Universe can actually be. –  Ross Bonaime, Collider

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 feels ripped out of an older phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe… a return to form. –  Sheraz Farooqi, Cinema Debate

A blockbuster that is perfectly suited to its time, and offers a much-needed win for the MCU. – Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

The impact of Rocket’s emotional arc is one of the most powerful we’ve seen in the entire MCU. – Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com

James Gunn’s soulful style remain unlike anything else in the MCU. – Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies

In a funny way, it makes sense that Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 is more grounded than the other Phase Four movies. – William Bibbiani, The Wrap

How are the visuals?

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has some of the most stunning visuals of any Marvel Studios film. –  Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

So bizarrely trippy at times it’s as if Gunn is aiming to create a midnight cult classic rather than a blockbuster superhero film. – Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

Gunn ushers us into uncharted new realms of wackadoo production design and outlandish costumes, reminding us that he’s never been shy about letting his stylistic freak flag fly. –  Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

This insane adventure looks so good… Gunn and his team deliver a real sense of place to his various environments. –  Kate Erbland, IndieWire

A breath of fresh air following multiple MCU productions full of muted tones. – Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com

One major aspect where Guardians 3 sets itself apart from Quantumania is the visual effects, which are vivid and spectacular. – Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies

Gunn’s preferred aesthetic is stomach-churning. –  Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

What about the action?

The action sequences are also stunners, especially an epic climactic battle accompanied by the propulsive Beastie Boys classic “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.” – Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

The action sequences feel experimental but never showy, as Gunn aimed to showcase these characters in new and compelling ways. – Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com

Unlike many contemporary action films… [it] allows audiences to take in the fight choreography in all its glory. –  Caitlin Chappell, CBR.com

There is a hallway fight scene that will no doubt wow audiences. – Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

Is it funny?

Often funny… The scene stealer turns out to be the good-natured, beefy Drax, with Bautista showing us his comedy chops. –  Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

I’m still chuckling at the ridiculous exchange among the Guardians over which buttons to press on their spacesuits to properly communicate with each other. – Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

The misfit team’s constant punchlines and I’m-just-busting-your-chops dynamic have grown exhausting. – Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

Is it also kind of dark?

Vol. 3 is perhaps also the darkest Marvel Studios has gone… There are some moments that are not for the faint of heart. –  Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

The darkest contained MCU entry, Gunn’s examination of exploration, PTSD, and family bonds is fully engaging and tear-inducing. – David Gonzalez, The Cinematic Reel

At times, Vol. 3 can be unsettling… Abounds in intense depictions of animal torture. – Greg Nussen, Slant Magazine

This will be a difficult watch for some viewers. – Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

This is a movie that will probably traumatize some kids and maybe a few adults. – William Bibbiani, The Wrap

How is the soundtrack?

The soundtrack is once again top-notch. –  Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

Gunn, who might be the master of the needle drop for his perfect soundtracks, is at the top of his game here… His use of songs from Radiohead, Earth Wind & Fire, Rainbow, and The Beastie Boys creates a beautiful goodbye anthem. –  Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics

Songs like The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?” and Faith No More’s “We Care a Lot” feel more like an opportunity for Gunn to showcase his own musical taste than elevating a sequence. – Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com

What about the villain?

One of the MCU’s most memorable and twisted villains. – Caitlin Chappell, CBR.com

Chukwudi Iwuji is great as the High Evolutionary… His outbursts are terrifying, and Iwuji wonderfully captures the ferocity and anger of a man who is committed to his beliefs. –  Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

It is refreshing to face off with a Marvel villain whose existence doesn’t threaten literally every other being in the MCU. – Kate Erbland, IndieWire

Iwuji is also perhaps the strongest of the Guardians movie villains, turning in a multifaceted performance as the High Evolutionary. – Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

The High Evolutionary is an especially effective villain during the flashbacks… but he feels far less threatening in the present. – Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies

The High Evolutionary’s machinations, despite an intense, shout-to-the-sky performance of the old school from Iwuji, are all extremely melodramatic and Iowa-flat. – Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

Iwuji bellows in a performance of Al Pacino-level over-the-top-itude. –  Peter Debruge, Variety

The High Evolutionary’s inclusion is as forgettable as a majority of other Marvel villains. – Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com

How is the introduction of Adam Warlock?

Poulter is extremely funny as the character. – Kate Erbland, IndieWire

Poulter does a good job with the material he is given, but it isn’t much, unfortunately. –  Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

He ultimately fails to make a lasting impression. – Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

He never quite meshes with the rest of the narrative in a practical way. – Ross Bonaime, Collider

His scenes regularly grind the narrative momentum to a halt, and we can’t help but wish his entire plot was excised. – Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com

Unfortunately, he feels like he’s only in this film out of obligation, and it’s sad to say Volume 3 wouldn’t have been much different if he were cut out. – Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies

Is the movie too long?

It’s wildly self-indulgent. – Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

At a jam-packed, planet-hopping 150 minutes, it also feels less like a conventional moviegoing experience than the endorphin rush that comes from waiting years for the next season of your favorite TV series, then binge-watching all the new episodes in a single sitting. – Peter Debruge, Variety

This one is too damn long — but I’ll confess you likely won’t notice the bloated runtime simply because Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 almost never slows down. –  Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

Is there too much going on?

Gunn has to juggle a lot with this finale, but once again, he shows he’s a master at knowing exactly how to work with a large ensemble. – Ross Bonaime, Collider

The story is a bit messy, though. Gunn has a lot of story he wants to tell and he tells every bit of it. – Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics

There are simply too many characters here, and while they all get their own mini-arcs, most of them feel hollow. – Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

How does it leave us feeling about the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

The success of Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 proves that it’s still possible for Marvel movies to hit and hit hard after more than 30 films. –  William Bibbiani, The Wrap

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a reminder that with the right cast, crew, and story, superheroes can still deliver. –  Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

When I think of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and the MCU, I think of Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III , “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” – David Gonzalez, The Cinematic Reel

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 opens in theaters everywhere on May 5, 2023.

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Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 review: James Gunn's trilogy ends with a big, brash blaze of glory

For his final outing with marvel's intergalactic misfits, gunn delivers a thrilling if sometimes overstuffed capper.

A lot has happened in the world of Guardians of the Galaxy since the last time they had their own movie. Within the Marvel Cinematic Universe , they’ve battled Thanos, lost one of their own, watched half of their number blip out of existence for five years, and ended up buying the headquarters of Knowhere in the Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special . Back in the real world, Guardians writer, director, and mastermind James Gunn was fired by Marvel, then rehired, then busy with two separate DC projects for Warner Bros., all while his cast went off and did many other projects of their own. And that’s just the abbreviated version.

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Now, after all that and then some, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is finally here, and it carries with it the weight not just of the six years it took to get it made, but of a certain sense of finality in a fictional universe that’s seriously lacking in endings lately. Longtime MCU viewers know by now that nothing in that world ever really ends. Characters die sometimes, villains are defeated, and storylines wrap up, but they’re all cogs in a larger machine, threads in an ever-growing tapestry designed to link to the next thing. Yet here’s Gunn and his cast, doing their best to create some kind of satisfying conclusion to a story they started nearly a decade ago, back when a lot of people thought a movie co-starring a talking raccoon and a sentient tree had no chance at the box office.

The gravity of that intention, of Gunn’s effort to conclude his story with his original team of actors, is laced through even the most irreverent moments in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 , a film that, like its predecessors, has no shortage of irreverence. It’s a juxtaposition that gives the film a different tone than its predecessors, making it the darkest in the series so far, but there’s also something else you’ll notice right away, something arguably more important. In a franchise full of earnestness and unrestrained energy, this feels like a cast and a crew who are ready to throw everything they have at us one last time. It’s not just a film, it’s a blaze of glory, and that sense of daring is both the best thing about Vol. 3 and, occasionally, the worst.

Picking up in the wake of the Holiday Special that hit Disney+ last year, Vol. 3 finds the Guardians at a crossroads. They’re all trying their best to build a new community on Knowhere, but the team’s not holding together like it used to, in part because Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) can’t stop drinking himself into a stupor over the loss of Gamora (Zoe Saldana). But the team members have to set their other concerns aside when two things happen almost simultaneously: A new superpowered being named Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) quite literally blows up their enclave, and one of their own is mortally wounded. Racing against time to save their friend, the Guardians must journey to parts unknown, face a tyrannical mad scientist known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), and stare down their own potential ending in more ways than one.

In a bare bones narrative scaffolding way, the film is basically laid out like a series of quests to retrieve certain objects and information that can solve the team’s problems, but Gunn is too canny to let those old rhythms overshadow what he’s really after with this installment. The urgent, adrenaline pumping way that the film sets up its stakes in the opening minutes ensures that the Guardians faithful are hooked right away, and therefore the searching around for solutions isn’t just something for the team to do. It’s a backdrop upon which they can each explore certain emotional depths. Rocket (Bradley Cooper ) carries the brunt of this exploration with a number of flashbacks to his creation, and the darkness he left behind, but he’s not alone. Peter must contend with the emotional damage he’s been avoiding for years, Drax (Dave Bautista) must face the idea of losing his family for a second time, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) must explore the idea of independence for herself, Nebula (Karen Gillan) must learn to look past her own anger, and so on. It’s heavy stuff, which imbues this installment with a greater sense of potential emotional devastation than even the daddy issues-laden Vol. 2 , and that’s before Gunn digs even deeper into the life-or-death choices upon which his plot hangs.

But that heaviness is buoyed by the sense that, first and foremost, it’s just good to see everyone back in top form again. Gunn directs with the same sense of action-comedy bravado that made him a blockbuster filmmaker in the first place, sprinkling entertaining needle drops and fun camera angles through the film with impish delight. His cast, led this time by standout work from Bautista and Klementieff, feels like they’ve just been hanging out together for six years, waiting for the day the cameras will roll. It’s all comfortable and familiar and even joyful, which makes it easier to pull off the film’s delicate balance of many, many elements.

Which isn’t to say that balance is always just right. Even by Guardians movie standards, Vol. 3 feels overstuffed with setpieces and creatures and big new environments designed to show the scale of the cosmic world the characters inhabit. Even within individual scenes, as the Guardians are trying to juggle the High Evolutionary, Adam Warlock, a bunch of nameless monster creations and their own insecurities and hang-ups, the film feels like too much at times, like Gunn couldn’t help but keep throwing every idea into the mix as though it’s his last chance. At its best, this exuberant sense that the film is bursting at the seams works in its favor, giving it the explosive shine of something that just can’t help being this big, this bold. At its worst, it makes us gasp for intellectual breath, wishing the narrative would refocus.

But these moments are ultimately few and far between, and the overall impression of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is one of a refusal to leave anything unsaid, to abandon any opportunity to offer just one more narrative trick or clever visual. If the first film was about finding a purpose, and the second film about finding a family, then the third is about finding a legacy, and deciding what to leave behind. In true Guardians fashion, Gunn and his intrepid crew decide their legacy is to go down swinging to the very end, and that will always be both intensely entertaining and unforgettably endearing.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on May 5.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is, depressingly, the best Marvel movie since Endgame

Trilogy-ender breathes life into a wilting marvel cinematic universe.

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Marvel has a direction problem. 

That's not to say it has a directors problem; the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has never hurt for big names behind the camera. But beyond the people at the helm, the biggest problem with Marvel's latest films hasn't been the films themselves: It's the direction they're all headed in. 

After a series of increasingly interconnected releases managed to build a narrative arc that started all the way back in 2008's Iron Man and finished in that single snappy second of Avengers: Endgame  in 2019, the franchise has been mostly unmoored. 

Because the incredible achievement of the MCU has been creating what is essentially a gigantic crossover episode — varied enough that it can attract fans of multiple genres, and big enough that following along feels like a communal experience. 

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However, every conflict eventually needs a resolution, and unfortunately, even Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige couldn't keep the same game going indefinitely. Eventually the bad guy had to go, the hammer had to be handed off, and the long intertwined threads that gave the MCU its allure had to, mostly, wrap themselves up. While that is satisfying, it's not good for the franchise's future, as these stories are much less compelling when it feels like they don't have a reason to exist. 

So when I say Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the best — and first actually good — Marvel entry since Endgame, maybe you can extend me some latitude.

It's one of the earliest MCU properties still putting out movies, and (though James Gunn is not the only director with writing credits) one of only two solely written and directed by the same person. That gave Guardians Vol. 2 a unique voice, even when its contemporaries were relatively strong. 

Now that nearly every other cinematic release reads like a holding pattern until they finally get around to mutants, Guardians Vol. 3 is the first sign in a while that Marvel might actually have some genuine enjoyment left in the tank.

Finale of trilogy a dark departure

As to the plot, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 continues the friends-are-family ethos at the group's centre since the beginning. After the events of Endgame , Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) no longer remembers past love interest Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), and is instead employed as a Ravager — essentially a space pirate — under the guidance of the still confusingly underused Sylvester Stallone. 

Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) bump up against one another in the compelling-enough friendship b-plot that already found its zenith in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. Here, the journey is less about them finding strength in one another, and more about that relationship wilting on the vine.

Quill, meanwhile, is drowning himself in alcohol at the very start of a self-pitying character arc that develops into something more off-putting than humanizing. And taking care of him is Bradley Cooper's Rocket, perhaps the most depressed creature of the bunch.

​Sean Gunn on playing Rocket Raccoon and his big Guardians moment​

That very much not a raccoon (according to him) character is stuck in the past. We find him moping around their space-home Knowhere, listening to an overwrought acoustic recording of Creep , reminiscing about his soon-to-be-revealed animal-testy background while tears stream down his face.

It's all very slow and very sad — that is, until he's blown through about six buildings into a coma that requires the rest of the gang to race across the universe for a cure.

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If that sounds like a departure from the zany but shallow fun of previous Guardians installments (and virtually everything else on the Marvel big screen lately), that's because it is. In Gunn's closing of the trilogy, his writing and direction exhibits a barbed animosity for his characters; the aw-shucks millennial humour that's become the bane of virtually everyone's existence is replaced by a bitter — and surprisingly violent — undercurrent. 

With it, you can pretty much throw all the messages the previous films built up out the window. While that might be the worst fate imaginable for some past fans ("Remember when these movies were fun? James Gunn doesn't," reads Mashable's review ), the mature take kick-starts Marvel out of its rut. The resentment developing between just about everyone on this team does more to serve the characters than any amount of weak comedic jabs or saccharine come-together moments ever did. 

Compelling villain, strong action

For example, Quill's painful attempts to argue Gamora into loving him again result in a series of explosive monologues — refreshingly original to those who found Adam Sandler's attempts to manipulate a trauma victim in 50 First Dates deeply unsettling.

Rocket's coma-flashbacks through his experimental upbringing do a surprisingly good (if sometimes mawkish) job of tying the story together, while cementing Cooper as one of the few genuinely talented live actor turned voice actors out there.

The Guardians' newest villain talks working with James Gunn and Chris Pratt

And our villain, Chukwudi Iwuji's High Evolutionary, pairs an impressive performance with a backstory good enough to actually warrant his existence — unlike Christian Bale's solidly acted but narratively one-note Gorr the God Butcher.

And even still, despite the somewhat dour turn, the comedy is still there. Will Poulter (who cut his teeth in the genre all the way back in his Son of Rambow and School of Comedy days) does well here, though he unfortunately adds even more to Marvel's glut of "too-dumb-to-live" comedic relief characters. 

Ignoring the cloying, doll-eyed cast of animals Rocket is given to draw obvious pathos from, the strength of Vol. 3 is undeniably in its action (the trilogy-ender has some of the most impressive fight scenes yet), multiple climactic moments and grown-up, but-not-too-grown-up tone.  

For the first time in a long time, it's a Marvel movie made to tell a story, instead of dragging a story along as an excuse for bright colours and explosions. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is twice the excitement with half the fat, which may not be all that appetizing to those just here for the dessert.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jackson Weaver is a senior writer for CBC Entertainment News. You can reach him at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter at @jacksonwweaver

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, guardians of the galaxy.

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You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but there was once a time when I had quite a bit of expertise in the Marvel Universe. I came as close to tearing up while reading a comic book as I’ll ever do when the Scarlet Witch finally married The Vision­—as eloquent an argument for marriage equality as genre fiction has ever essayed, by the way. I did, I must admit, check out well before the entity called The Guardians of the Galaxy turned up in said universe. I bring this up because there are some MU characters in the movie "Guardians of the Galaxy" that I did recognize—super-evil demigod Thanos, Drax The Destroyer, and one or two others I guess—but I ultimately found that it was that particular continuity, the need to tie this movie’s adventures into something larger, that made the movie lag a bit.

In many respects, “Guardians,” directed and co-written by indie wit James Gunn , and starring buffed-up former schlub Chris Pratt and Really Big Sci-Fi Blockbuster vet Zoe Saldana (here dyed green as opposed to her " Avatar " blue), is a fun and relatively fresh space Western. Think “Firefly” pitched at 15-year-olds, with a lot of overt " Star Wars " nods. And super-“irreverent” dialogue that is, more often than not, genuinely funny. The wisecracking by the characters played by Pratt (a kind of junior Han Solo) and voiced by Bradley Cooper (whose Rocket Raccoon, who is, yes, a genetically altered raccoon) is so incessant viewers of a certain age might wonder whether this movie has been put through the "What’s Up Tiger Lily" dialogue-replacement treatment before release.

Pratt’s self-styled “Starlord” and Rocket are not the strangest of initially inadvertent teammates in this intergalactic posse. Saldana’s Gamora is a stealthy warrior princess who’s been lying low in an evil family before revealing her good intentions; wrestling star Dave Bautista ’s Drax is a vengeance-driven behemoth whose florid language only briefly masks his inability to take anything other than literally; and Rocky’s “muscle,” Groot, is a walking, minimally talking tree. These guys are entertainingly motley, which makes the fact that their mission, to save the universe from a mass-murdering megalomaniac who seeks an item which will grant him unimaginable mass-murdering power (yes, more mass-murdering power than he ever had before), is generic in a way that’s pretty consistent with movies of this sort.

You may have noticed, incidentally, that a lot of film critics tend to get kind of defensive when reviewing movies based on comic books. Like, you probably noticed that up top I tried to claim some comic book-respecting bonafides. I’ve done this thing before when reviewing comic-book movies. Some day, I may have to actually bring out the big guns, like the fact that I used to be palsy with Mike Kaluta, or that I once went to a Halloween party at Berni Wrightson’s house. I don’t do this because I’m afraid of getting death threats from easily irritated comic book fans (which hasn’t happened to me, and thanks). I do it because as someone who got a lot out of comics growing up, and still has a healthy respect for the graphic form, I find comic book movies kind of frustrating, and am bent out of shape by having my frustration chalked up to a lack of understanding of the form.

What does this have to do with “Guardians?” It ties into what I mentioned before. While this movie is pretty lively in a lot of its particulars, the stilted portent with which its villains—the bumpy-jawed Thanos ( Josh Brolin , not that you can tell) and the megalomaniacal Ronan ( Lee Pace )—make themselves felt is pretty tired. The “funny animal” tribute/homages of “Guardians” bump up uncomfortably against the faux-majesty of the bad guys in a way that the actual comic-book form is malleable enough to at least sidestep. I think Gunn knows it, too: one of the movie’s only genuinely subversive jokes sees one of the heroes actually yawning in the pro-forma slow-motion “walk to destiny” shot that heralds the movie’s climax. Which climax is, as is also pro forma, big and loud and filled with indiscriminate destruction and slaughter of sentient beings. But as it takes place on a planet other than the one the audience is on and so doesn’t involve the razing of a recognizable city, it’s a little less troubling than it might have been.

It seems as if I’m listing a lot of not-fun things in what I’ve called a fun movie, but again, I’m just voicing some frustration because, in my puny mind—which can only imagine the extent to which Gunn and his team had to fight for every bit of creative license they were allowed—the not-fun parts seemed entirely avoidable. What will win the day among those not given to overthinking will be the charm of the cast—which also includes Benicio Del Toro in a bit role that allows him to exercise a generous amount of his legendary performing eccentricity, and Michael Rooker in a gruff part that would have gone to Ron Perlman had Guillermo Del Toro directed the movie—the sunniness of its eventual optimism, and the infectiousness of its vintage-Earth-pop soundtrack. A soundtrack the film’s characters appreciate as much as the audience will, which is part of the whole point.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language

122 minutes

Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Star-Lord

Zoe Saldana as Gamora

Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon

Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer

Vin Diesel as Groot

Lee Pace as Ronan The Accuser

Karen Gillan as Nebula

Josh Brolin as Thanos

Laura Haddock as Meredith Quill

Benicio Del Toro as Taneleer Tivan / The Collector

Djimon Hounsou as Korath the Pursuer

John C. Reilly as Rhomann Dey

Michael Rooker as Yondu

Glenn Close as Nova Prime

• Nicole Perlman

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Guardians of the Galaxy

A group of intergalactic criminals must pull together to stop a fanatical warrior with plans to purge the universe. A group of intergalactic criminals must pull together to stop a fanatical warrior with plans to purge the universe. A group of intergalactic criminals must pull together to stop a fanatical warrior with plans to purge the universe.

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• 1.6K User reviews
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• 76 Metascore
• 52 wins & 103 nominations total

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• Yondu Udonta

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• Trivia When Dave Bautista found out he got the role of Drax the Destroyer, he broke down in tears, overjoyed at getting a Marvel comic book role. He prepared for the role with an acting coach.
• Goofs (at around 22 mins) When Quill is captured by the Nova Corp and he is in front of the window being reviewed, on the text on the window to the left they list his alias as "Space Lord" not "Star Lord". This is part of a running gag in the film where no-one can remember Quill's 'codename'.

[Groot grows a cocoon of branches to cover his friends]

Rocket Raccoon : No, Groot! You can't! You'll die! Why are you doing this? Why?

[Groot uses a thin branch to wipe away Rocket's tears]

Groot : We are Groot.

• Crazy credits There is a statement in the closing credits: "No raccoons or tree creatures were harmed during the making of this film."
• Connections Edited into FoundFlix: 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Ending Explained + References/Easter Eggs (2016)
• Soundtracks I'm Not in Love Written by Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman Performed by 10cc Courtesy of Mercury Records Limited Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

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• August 1, 2014 (United States)
• United States
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• Longcross Studios, Chobham Lane, Longcross, Chertsey, Surrey, England, UK (Studio)
• Marvel Studios
• Walt Disney Pictures
• Moving Pictures Company
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $170,000,000 (estimated)
• $333,718,600
• $94,320,883
• Aug 3, 2014
• $773,350,376

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 1 minute
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Surround 7.1

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Guardians of the galaxy, common sense media reviewers.

Marvel sci-fi adventure has laughs and action violence.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Positive underlying message about teamwork, friend

The Guardians are all flawed (they're outlaws for

The film centers around a White male lead. Though

Lots of hand-to-hand combat, fistfights, explosion

Cues and comments that Peter has been with lots of

Occasional strong language includes "s--t," "bulls

Brands seen include Sony and JanSport. Pop culture

The Guardians drink unnamed liquid, alcohol implie

Parents need to know that Guardians of the Galaxy is a Marvel sci-fi action adventure about a group of outlaws led by Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) who band together to defend the universe against a murderous villain. Expect a lot of hand-to-hand combat and a few deaths (or near deaths) that are heartbreaking for…

Positive Messages

Positive underlying message about teamwork, friendship, and helping others -- even if the characters' motivations and actions aren't always 100% pure.

Positive Role Models

The Guardians are all flawed (they're outlaws for a reason), but they ultimately make selfless decisions to protect one another and defend the universe.

Diverse Representations

The film centers around a White male lead. Though people of color play several key roles, nearly all of them are hidden under makeup and VFX, including Zoe Saldana (Black Latina) as Gamora, Dave Bautista (Greek-Filipino American) as Drax, Vin Diesel (multiracial) as Groot, and so on, removing any sense of ethnic diversity. The only visibly non-White character with more than a couple of scenes is Korath, a low-level villain played by Beninese American actor Djimon Hounsou. While Gamora has a positive and substantial role, she's the token woman among a band of male superheroes. Casual sexism is everywhere: The film leans heavily on dead women to provide backstories for male characters, the camera objectifies Gamora (e.g., lingering on her butt as she climbs up stairs), and she and her sister Nebula are pitted against each other. For disability representation, a prisoner in a minor role (portrayed neutrally) sells his prosthetic leg to Peter to fight with -- it's used as a visual gag.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Lots of hand-to-hand combat, fistfights, explosions, and shoot-outs with what look like stun guns that incapacitate but don't kill. But characters do die, and, in a couple of cases, the deaths are heartbreaking ( spoiler alert : one starts off the movie and involves the sad loss of a parent, and the other is only temporary). In a couple of other scenes, it looks like characters have been killed, but they end up OK. Not much gore or blood, but an entire fleet of fighter pilots dies in an explosion, and there's collateral damage as the villain tries to destroy a planet.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Cues and comments that Peter has been with lots of women across the galaxy, as well as references to his past exploits, like a joke about "black light" picking up how filthy his ship is or another about him being referred to as "one who lain with [alien creature]." Sexual tension between Peter and Gamora, who almost kiss more than once. Peter wears just boxer briefs when he's hosed down at a prison. Rocket suggests that because the prisoners find Gamora attractive, she should "trade" favors for what they need to escape.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional strong language includes "s--t," "bulls--t," "damn," "d--k," "a--hole," "bitch," "idiot," "bastard," "crap," "pr--k," "jackass," "wench," "whore," "stupid," "imbecile," and "bats--t crazy." One scene features a prominent/extended middle-finger gesture.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Brands seen include Sony and JanSport. Pop culture references to Footloose , Kevin Bacon, etc. This is also part of a franchise with vast quantities of tie-in merchandise.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The Guardians drink unnamed liquid, alcohol implied -- Peter says to Rocket, "you're drunk." In the post-credits ending, characters drink liquor and a martini.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Guardians of the Galaxy is a Marvel sci-fi action adventure about a group of outlaws led by Peter Quill ( Chris Pratt ) who band together to defend the universe against a murderous villain. Expect a lot of hand-to-hand combat and a few deaths (or near deaths) that are heartbreaking for other characters and viewers alike (one involves a child's loss of a parent). There's also grand-scale action violence with explosions and weapons. Peter has a reputation as a ladies' man and jokes about his past conquests; Peter and Gamora ( Zoe Saldana ) also have a lot of chemistry and almost kiss a couple of times. Language isn't frequent but includes "s--t," "bulls--t," "bitch," "ass," "bastard," and "d--k"; at one point, the Guardians also drink an unidentified liquid that makes them drunk. There's unfortunate, casual sexism throughout the film: Gamora is the token woman among the group, several dead women exist to provide backstories for male characters, the camera objectifies Gamora (e.g., lingering on her butt as she climbs up stairs), and she and her sister are pitted against each other. Still, given that it has a little less edge than Iron Man or The Avengers -- as well as themes of teamwork and friendship -- this adventure may be a good fit for a slightly younger crowd than some other superhero movies. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Kids say (324)

Based on 100 parent reviews

Great movie!!

I think it was a realy good movie, what's the story.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY follows adventurer Peter Quill ( Chris Pratt ), who was abducted from Earth as a child in 1988 after his mother died. Fast-forward 26 years into the future: In a galaxy far, far away, Peter is a rogue outlaw who steals a powerful orb he plans to sell. After getting arrested, he reluctantly teams up with a group of criminals he's briefly imprisoned with -- Rocket, a genetically modified raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper ); Gamora ( Zoe Saldana ), the adopted daughter of the most dangerous being in the universe; tree-like Groot ( Vin Diesel ); and Drax the Destroyer ( Dave Bautista ), who's on a personal mission to avenge his family. The fate of the universe lies in the hands of these not-quite-friends when it's clear that the villainous Ronan ( Lee Pace ) plans to use the orb to destroy an entire planet.

Is It Any Good?

This movie is truly a lot of fun. The Marvel universe includes a wide array of heroes, from playboy billionaire Tony Stark and the arrogant god Thor to serious, duty-bound Steve Rogers and broody scientist Bruce Banner. What's so charming about director James Gunn 's Guardians of the Galaxy is that no one in the group starts out as a hero: They become superheroes by virtue of working together. Pratt's leading-man charm is significant, and there's surprising chemistry between Pratt and Saldana (though Gamora does feel tokenized as the only woman among a male-dominated cast). And Cooper and Diesel sound like they're having the time of their lives playing the supergenius raccoon Rocket and his muscle, Groot, who can only ever say "I am Groot."

Everything from the fantastic soundtrack (populated by Peter's beloved mixtape, a catchy playlist of his mother's favorite songs, like "Hooked on a Feeling," "Spirit in the Sky," and "O-O-H Child") to the wink-wink pop-culture jokes, the thrilling action sequences, and the overall theme makes Guardians of the Galaxy a joy to watch. As in The Avengers , the main actors mesh well, the villain is imposingly played, and the intergalactic stakes couldn't be higher.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the popularity of Marvel adaptations. Why do you think comic books like Guardians of the Galaxy make such well-received movies? Are all movies inspired by comic books created equal? Why do some stand out?

How does Guardians of the Galaxy compare to other superhero stories? Do you prefer hero movies with just one star, or do you think the ensemble styles are better, like The Avengers ?

Do you consider the Guardians role models? Are some of them "worthier" of respect and admiration than others? Why, or why not?

Actors of color play several key roles, but almost all of them are hidden under makeup and visual effects (VFX) to play "alien" characters. Do you still consider this a diverse movie? Or does erasing on-screen ethnicities make representation more shallow?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 1, 2014
• On DVD or streaming : December 9, 2014
• Cast : Chris Pratt , Vin Diesel , Bradley Cooper
• Director : James Gunn
• Inclusion Information : Multiracial actors
• Studio : Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Superheroes , Adventures , Space and Aliens
• Character Strengths : Courage , Teamwork
• Run time : 122 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language
• Last updated : December 10, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

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Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014) Review

Niche marvel classic.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel Studios has been busy making billions of dollars out of their B-line of classic heroes over the last six years and their track record has been consistent enough to qualify as historic. Their latest effort is, at least theoretically, their biggest risk to date. The comic series Guardians Of The Galaxy has been around off and on in various forms since the 60s, but was always more of a niche title amongst the niche of Marvel fans. For the most part, general audiences might not have known much about Iron Man or Thor’s backstories before their blockbusters came along, but at least their names and costumes were iconic enough that everyone recognized them.

These rag-tag collections of space-adventuring outcasts on the other hand aren’t even well known by comic book fans, beyond being dismissed as “that book with the talking raccoon,” which isn’t exactly high praise. Yet, pretty much from the moment the film kicks off, it’s clear this project wasn’t such a big risk after all. The film is a goofy and action packed space adventure that will feel instantly familiar to anyone who grew up amidst a swell of Star Wars knock offs in the 70s and 80s. It’s like watching a sci-fi adventure about a space ship full of various Han Solos and Chewbaccas and just as gloriously entertaining as that sounds.

After a little tragic backstory prologue set on earth in 1988, we’re thrust into a creepy and barren alien landscape. A lone masked space traveler wanders into frame, starts exploring an ominous, and gorgeously designed rotted out alien temple. It’s filled with details that suggest designers spent weeks figuring out its origin and purpose. It seems like we’re about to watch a dark sci-fi epic. Then the masked character pulls out a Walkman and hits play on “Awesome Mix Vol. 1” so that he can groove to “Come And Get Your Love” while looking for an artifact.

That scene pretty much sums up Guardians Of The Galaxy as a whole. It’s a film that flip-flops between being a genuine action sci-fi epic and a campy piss-take on the genre. That masked hero is Peter Quill aka Starlord aka Chris Pratt , an earthling slacker who was abducted as a child after fleeing from his mother’s cancer bed and now lives in the far reaches of the galaxy where he flies around, steals stuff for profit, and beds lovely alien ladies. The item he’s looking for on the planet is a mysterious orb containing one of the Infinity Gems that the dark lord Thanos (Josh Brolin) seeks to bring pain and torment to the universe. Once Starlord has the orb in his hands, he’s suddenly pursued by the warlord Ronan (Lee Pace), Thanos’ not-so-evil daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a talking raccoon named Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Rocket’s single-sentence-speaking-walking-tree-sidekick Groot.

A series of mishaps and fight scenes land Starlord, Gamora, Rocket, and Groot in a prison together where they soon meet up with the hilariously literal minded Drax The Destroyer ( Dave Bautista) . After going through some space jail growing pains, the gang decides to team up to break out of prison and steal back the orb for profit. In the process, this antihero gang of ragamuffins turns into a new team of heroes. They blow stuff up real good, and interact with a variety of eccentric space characters played by eccentric character actors like John C. Reilly, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Rooker, and Glenn Close.

“It’s space fantasy in the Star Wars or Firefly mode, not serious science fiction. It works. It works damn well.”

It might not be a superhero tale, but it sure plays like a Marvel movie. The humor is cranked to eleven, the characters are all delightfully flawed, the action explodes loudly and consistently, the actors are all ideally cast, and most importantly it’s one big giddy sugar rush of entertainment from start to finish. It’s space fantasy in the Star Wars or Firefly mode, not serious science fiction. It works. It works damn well.

The key was bringing in writer/director James Gunn who started at Troma (he even gave Lloyd Kaufman a cameo here!), then moved on to the weirdo cult flicks Slither and Super . Gunn has a very distinct voice. He loves outcasts, he loves to honor genres while gently mocking them, he loves to cast bizarre character actors, and he always finds ways of sneaking a little subversion into pop entertainment. Gunn’s voice fits perfectly into the Marvel movie machine and helps distinguish Guardians Of The Galaxy as a slightly wilder and sillier wing of the Marvel cinematic universe. His cast is wonderful with Chris Pratt adding slacker wit to his sarcastic hero, Saldana nailing her cold-as-ice fighter through layers of green make up, Cooper turning a ludicrous raccoon cartoon into a genuine sci-fi badass, and Diesel repeating his Iron Giant of being a far better actor as a barely articulate vocal performer.

Yet, it’s weirdly WWE star Dave Bautista who steals the movie away as a hilariously numb-skulled muscle man who can’t understand non-literal thinking (ex: “Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.”). Around the edges Gunn’s favorite actor Michael Rooker sleazes his way into a highly memorable villain role, Benicio Del Toro delivers easily one of his strangest performances, and John C. Reilly gets his usual laughs doing his thing. It’s a big movie with a lot of moving parts and despite never having worked on a project close to this scale before, Gunn nimbly juggles a massive cast and mixes tones between dark n’ moving and bright n’ funny with ease.

There’s no denying it, Guardians Of The Galaxy is an absolute blast. It’s nearly impossible to watch the movie without a big stupid grin on you. James Gunn was an unexpected but wise addition to the Marvel family who will hopefully be in their directing and writing rotation for years to come. Yet, it has to be said that the movie has faults and most worryingly, they all come from over-familiarity in the Marvel formula. Seeing snarky heroes go through origin stories is starting to get a little dull as is the studio’s tendency to deliver villains that are little more than one note snarls in masks (hopefully Thanos will curb this trend).

Worst of all, after the movie peaks with an astounding team-building prison-break sequence, it’s just a dry run to yet another climax in which giant objects fall from the sky and destroy an innocent city. Now, none of these things derail the movie in a significant way, it’s just a troubling trend to see Marvel movies getting so familiar. I suppose that was inevitable, but it would be a shame for such an inventive studio to start spinning their wheels now. That said, it’s far too early to start the countdown to a Marvel Studios meltdown. With Guardians Of The Galaxy , they just turned a D-List books filled with also-ran characters into one of the most satisfying blockbusters of the summer. Thankfully, there’s still plenty of Marvel mojo left, let’s just hope they’re wise enough to start changing up their winning formula for the sake of variety.

Final Thoughts

Phil Brown is a film critic, comedy writer, and filmmaker who can be found haunting theaters and video stores throughout Toronto.

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Guardians Of The Galaxy Review

30 Jul 2014

121 minutes

Guardians Of The Galaxy

If you’re old enough to remember watching John-Boy from The Waltons fly a spaceship that looked like a massive pair of breasts on VHS, then there is plenty in Guardians Of The Galaxy for you. And if you’re young enough to accept without scoffing the sight of a talking raccoon wielding a heavy calibre weapon, then you’re in the right quadrant, too. No doubt keenly aware that this movie lacks even a smidgen of the brand awareness of its previous output, Marvel has savvily located its latest megabudget entertainment firmly in the Venn diagram overlap between Modern Innocence and ’80s Irony.

Battle Beyond The Stars , Flight Of The Navigator , Mike Hodges’ Flash Gordon, Back To The Future ( 2 ), Raiders Of The Lost Ark , Total Recall and a certain other space-based saga all donate their DNA, and Guardians isn’t about to apologise for replicating it. It’s proud of its heritage, dammit, right down its 1988-on-Earth prologue, “Awesome Mix” tape-cassette soundtrack, and scoundrel hero Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) describing the film’s spherical MacGuffin as having an “Ark Of The Covenant, Maltese Falcon vibe”.

Writer/director James Gunn ( Slither , Super ), true to his roots, even injects some fluoro-gungy Troma flavour making it all feel like Star Trek from a punked-up parallel reality where Gene Roddenberry was actually Lloyd Kaufman.

A good portion of the film is solid, set-based and (relatively speaking) grounded, avoiding the wispy daylight glow of pure-pixel backdrops. Gunn’s strengths are most evident during the central team-gathering sequence, where Quill, wiseacre raccoon-thing Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), sentient tree Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), green assassin Gamora (Saldana) and vengeful big baldie Drax (former pro-wrestler Dave Bautista) discover their synergistic power during a hugely enjoyable prison break, which somehow involves the removal of a prosthetic leg and its subsequent use as a weapon.

Gunn and co-writer Nicole Perlman keep things breezy and snappy (it’s the Marvel way now: snark over dark), importing the Avengers’ banter-bickering into the self-aware B-sci-fi setting; which, given the Joss Whedon connection, means this is also reminiscent of Firefly/Serenity. And Gunn’s cast appropriately, from reforming Parks And Recreation’s Andy as a buff galactic lothario to having the voice of Face come from the face of a raccoon — while the pair enjoyably vie for the position of this film’s Han Solo. You’ll hear much about how either Groot or Rocket steal it — the bark-and-bite pairing certainly have their moments — but the big surprise is Bautista’s Drax. Cursed with a genetic inability to understand metaphors, the movie’s apparent muscleman actually has many of the film’s wittiest lines. (“Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.”)

The antagonistic contingent, however, is less successful. Lee Pace’s Ronan, Djimon Hounsou’s Korath and Karen Gillan’s Nebula feel barely written, although the one-time Who companion looks fantastic with blue skin and shark eyes and exhibits a tight-focused anti-charisma in a thinly sketched part. And ‘phantom menace’ Thanos (Josh Brolin) is an embarrassment: a lantern-jawed CG ’toon blessedly only given a minute or so of screentime.

As much as Guardians largely thrives through its lovably scuzzy style, it cannot avoid the immense tractor-beam pull of The Big Marvel Studios Final Act. Only a few months ago, reviewing Captain America: The Winter Soldier , Empire exhibited frustration at yet another climax which involved a frantic sky battle, culminating in a giant object crashing to the ground. Well here we have yet another. There is even a replay of Thor: The Dark World ’s CG-drenched Infinity Stone struggle, although now it’s purple swirly stuff rather than red. For all the digital artistry on display, these Marvel final set-pieces are becoming suggestive of a climax-by-committee default mode.

Still, Gunn thankfully pulls the film back onto its own turf once the big fight’s over. And Guardians Of The Galaxy does expand the breadth and diversity of the Marvel Universe; we go beyond superheroes and threats to Earth. It also proves how even a kid raised by Troma in the filmmaking badlands can succeed in Blockbuster City.

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• DVD & Streaming

Guardians of the Galaxy

• Action/Adventure , Comedy , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• August 1, 2014
• Chris Pratt as Peter Quill; Zoe Saldana as Gamora; Dave Bautista as Drax; Lee Pace as Ronan; Michael Rooker as Yondu Udonta; voices of Vin Diesel as Groot; Bradley Cooper as Rocket

Home Release Date

• December 9, 2014

Distributor

• Walt Disney

Movie Review

The galaxy is an odd, odd place.

First, it’s really, really big. Like, way big. It’s so big that in spite of all the stars in it and stuff, it’s almost completely empty. Like that milk carton in your fridge that no one wants to throw out because there’s still a thimbleful of moo juice sloshing around but no one will drink because, really? A thimbleful? Not worth it.

Leave the milk in there too long, of course, and it can get pretty funky—which is what maybe happened with the galaxy, too. Astronomers tell us there are planets made of diamond, planets colored hot pink, planets that suck in light like your Hoover sucks in pet hair. There are big weird things like black holes and quasars, little weird things like neutrinos and weird weird things like dark matter.

Kinda fitting, I suppose, that the galaxy’s self-appointed “guardians” would be a little weird as well, and include a wisecracking raccoon and a sentient tree-thing. Yeah, they are a strange bunch.

It’s equally odd, frankly, that they would even want to be guardians of anything . Peter Quill sure wouldn’t seem to have a lot of hero in him. This one-time earthling was abducted as a kid by a bunch of ruffian scavengers (think pirates with hyper-drive spaceships) and took to the trade like a Kardashian takes to Twitter. Honor? If he had any, he’d sell it for a used Walkman. And this smooth-talking, double-dealing dude is about as normal as this squad gets.

Gamora—adopted daughter of universal bad guy Thanos—is an assassin, taught to kill by her daddy since she was old enough to hold a blade. Rocket, a talking raccoon, is a mammalian mercenary who’ll do anything to keep his (rather luxuriant) pelt in one piece (and keep his massive wooden sidekick, Groot, supplied with the best plant nutrient around). Drax … well, the guy seems honorable enough, but also about as sane as a “Real Housewives” convention.

The only thing these guys were initially looking for was profit—selling a strange, metallic orb for a literally astronomical price. But when they discover that the orb is a weapon of unimaginable power and it falls into some extremely evil hands, they set aside their differences and conflicting agendas and decide to do something good for a change.

After all, what’s the worth of money if there’s no place to spend it?

Positive Elements

As noted, the Guardians of the Galaxy are a motley bunch of misfits. They’ve been hurt by circumstance and fate, and all have probably done some things they regret. But they show us sides of themselves that perhaps even they didn’t know they had, and this story becomes not only one of saving the galaxy, but of personal redemption.

Yes, Gamora is an assassin, but an unwilling one. And when she’s sent after the orb, she sees a way to save literally billions of lives. She aims to keep the orb out of the hands of the movie’s prime baddie, Ronan, and she willingly risks getting killed (several times) in the effort.

Peter saves her one of those times, even though he knows he could be sacrificing his own life in the process. “I found something inside myself [that was] incredibly heroic!” he tells her later. “Not to brag.”

Drax has long sought to kill Ronan (avenging his own family’s deaths), but in the context of the Guardians, he discovers there are things and people still worth fighting for—helping him shift at least some of his revenge-mindedness to a more proactive and positive motivator.

Rocket, arguably the most self-centered of the crew, puts his hide on the line more than once for others, and he deeply laments the passing of a friend.

Conversely, perhaps the most honorable character from start to finish is the simple tree-creature Groot. A strong and loyal companion, he can sometimes seem almost motherly, protecting others in his branches and serving his friends sacrificially. He seems to have none of the selfishness his cohorts do. And even though he knows only three words (“I am Groot”), he completely understands the danger before them—and the reality that only they can prevent a galactic tragedy.

We see non-Guardians behave honorably as well. A policeman vouches for this hard-to-trust crew. Soldiers and pilots risk their lives to protect their planet. We see multiple instances of heroism and derring-do, all meant to further a greater good.

Spiritual Elements

We hear a few glancing references to spirituality. Peter’s cancer-stricken mother gives him a note, telling him, “I’m going to a better place” and “I will always be with you.” Others also profess a belief in an afterlife. Ronan—a galactic terrorist of sorts who clings to the traditions of the “ancients” and lives to “cleanse” planets—tells scads of would-be victims to “rejoice and renounce your paltry gods!”

Sexual Content

Peter is a ladies’ man who sometimes brags about his conquests. He shows the scars from wounds that various females have inflicted upon him when they’ve caught him with someone else. When Gamora tells him that his spaceship is filthy, he says (out of her earshot) that she doesn’t know the half of it, that if someone would shine a black light on the ship’s interior it’d “look like a Jackson Pollock painting.” In the opening action sequence, Peter forgets that an alien woman (wearing a tight top) is still on board.

Peter leers at Gamora (who wears formfitting outfits throughout), particularly at her rear as she walks up some stairs. He tries to dance with and kiss her, too, but she pushes him away and tells him not to try to use his “pelvic magic” on her. Someone else calls Gamora a “whore.”

Violent Content

Guardians of the Galaxy is a violently chaotic movie, sometimes serious, sometimes slapsticky. There are countless casualties, and scads of humans and humanoid aliens are shot, stabbed, skewered, punched, kicked, thrown around, choked, blown up, zapped with futuristic Tasers, immolated, practically frozen in the vacuum of space and nearly drowned in the spinal fluid of giant alien creatures. Ships crash. Buildings are smashed. Critters are punted like footballs and sometimes eaten by larger predators. Folks are threatened with knives, guns and magic arrows.

Gamora is nearly killed in a prison (which is filled with people who’ve lost loved ones because of her or her dad). Yondu skewers about 20 adversaries with a weapon that seems to respond to whistles. Groot impales at least a dozen “paper men” at once, smashing them against walls and other paper men. A computer device gets ripped out of someone’s head. After getting crushed, an alien adversary grotesquely readjusts her obviously broken limbs … and returns to the fight. Groot’s limbs are torn off. (He grows them back again.) He painfully sticks his roots up someone’s nose.

In flashback, we see a terrible weapon apparently obliterate an entire planet. Someone grasps the weapon and dies as a result, while others are nearly killed. (The thing seems to cause people’s insides to burn and skin to flake off like purple ash.)

Crude or Profane Language

Three s-words. Stand-ins for the f-word include “frickin'” and “what the f …?”). We also hear “a–” and “a-holes” (three or four times each), “b–ch” and “b–tard” (once or twice each), “d–n” and “h—” (five or six times each), “p–ck” and “d–k” (once each), and “p—” (once). God’s name is interjected inappropriately a half-dozen times. Someone makes an obscene gesture. Rocket calls a number of people idiots.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Super-serious Drax gets involved in a game of chance with Rocket and consumes a great deal of what appears to be an alcoholic drink. “Now let us put more of this liquid into our bodies!” he bellows.

Other Negative Elements

We see gambling. The Guardians evade the law and sometimes double-cross people. Peter makes a reference to urinating in his pants, and he talks about folks getting sticks “stuffed up their butts.”

There’s a point in Guardians of the Galaxy where Peter queries his new cohorts about what sort of adventure they’re up for. “Something good?” he asks. “Something bad? A bit of both?”

The latter, it would seem. Guardians of the Galaxy is a bit of both.

Marvel movies have always skirted the line between fun (if violent) entertainment and something a bit darker. Families sometimes forgive the bang-and-boom nature of these movies because of their staunchly heroic heroes.

In Guardians of the Galaxy , though, we don’t have an incorruptible Captain America to ground the story in old-fashioned goodness, or a Thor to chastely woo Jane Foster. Even Tony Stark—arguably the most flawed of the Avengers—at least acknowledges that he has flaws. His drinking is clearly shown to get in the way of his superheroing; his arrogance sometimes leads to his near-undoing.

The Guardians, in contrast, are fairly unrepentant. They exude the sort of swagger you’d see from jokesters sent to the high school principal’s office: As much as the principal might secretly like the young rascals, he’s increasingly exasperated with them putting whoopee cushions on Mrs. Siwiliger’s chair. You get the sense here that Peter will forever try to seduce galactic females, that Rocket will forever grumble at his comrades and look to his own selfish needs first, that Drax will never rest until he avenges his family through the shedding of blood.

As such, Guardians feels a little messier than the typical Marvel movie. And because it’s the Guardians’ personality quirks that make them who they are, there’s little chance their comic book caregivers will ever let them get much better. They may be redeemed, but they’re hardly reformed.

But let’s not minimize that redemption while we’re at it—the fact that these very flawed galactic cowboys and raccoons find the wherewithal to look past their own selfish needs and dim desires to save billions of innocent lives. Peter may be rough and randy, but he puts his life on the line for others. Rocket may be a cynical wiseacre, but that doesn’t stop him from being selfless when it counts the most.

Gamora, Peter, Drax, Rocket and Groot could never be called guardians of the whole hero concept, but in the end they do still manage to be heroic.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Screen Rant

Guardians of the galaxy 3 post-credits scenes explained: the mcu's cosmic future revealed.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 includes two end-credits scenes setting the stage for the MCU's cosmic future. We break down what they mean.

Quick Links

Mid-credits scene: the new guardians of the galaxy, post-credits scene: star-lord will return… where.

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3's post-credits scenes introduce a new team of cosmic heroes for future MCU adventures.
• Star-Lord's solo post-credits scene teases that he will return as "The Legendary Star-Lord."
• The new Guardians of the Galaxy team, including characters like Adam Warlock and Phyla, are likely to appear in upcoming MCU films and series.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 's two post-credits scenes set up the future of the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Phase 5, 6 and beyond, leaving room for a new team of Guardians to take over from the original group. When it released in 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 introduced the cosmic side of the MCU, which Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 then further explored. Other MCU movies have delved into space, like Captain Marvel and Avengers: Infinity War , but James Gunn's film series remains a pillar of the MCU's cosmic exploration - as proved with Vol. 3 's credits scenes.

Writer and director Gunn has shepherded the Guardians of the Galaxy through three movies, but with the release of Vol. 3 , he exits the MCU and moves on to lead the DC Universe. Still, the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 post-credits scenes pave the way for what's next in the cosmic side of the franchise, setting up new adventures for upcoming MCU releases in a couple of different ways. Not only is there a new team following the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ending , but Star-Lord is singled out as the only character confirmed to return in the MCU timeline .

Who Dies In Guardians Of The Galaxy 3

In the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 mid-credits scene, Rocket Raccoon is sitting on a dusty planet and asking his companions about their favorite music . He's shown with a group of other characters from the movie, most of them wearing new versions of the suits the Guardians wore during the film.

New character Phyla says her favorite artist is Britney Spears, while Kraglin chooses Garth Brooks and Cosmo says The Carpenters. Adam Warlock picks Adrian Belew, both as a solo act and as part of King Crimson, before asking Rocket about his pick. Rocket then starts playing "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone, the song Star-Lord is listening to in the opening credits scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 .

While the new Guardians of the Galaxy team are chatting, it becomes clear they're on the planet for a job, to protect what appear to be Krylorians - indicating they might be on the aliens' home planet of Krylor - from a group of beasts. While the team are listening to "Come and Get Your Love," the Krylorians scream and flee from the oncoming beasts. Though Kraglin insists he can take them on by himself, Rocket wakes Groot, who might have been mistaken for a boulder in his new large form. Cosmo and the team look to Rocket, who gives the go ahead, and the new team charges forward to attack.

Who’s In The New Guardians of the Galaxy?

As confirmed by the Vol. 3 credits scene, the new Guardians of the Galaxy team includes:

Blurp, the creature Adam Warlock acquires after killing its original Ravager owner, is also shown with the team, though since he is a pet, it's unlikely he's an official member of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

After most of the original Guardians go their separate ways, Star-Lord makes Rocket the new leader of the team . Presumably, he's the one who assembles the new hero roster, sticking with his long-time partner Groot, and officially adding Kraglin and Cosmo, who helped the Guardians rebuild Knowhere then saved them from the High Evolutionary's ship. Adam Warlock starts off as an antagonist to the Guardians, but is redeemed after he's saved by Groot, then joins the team, and brings Blurp along with him. The only character whose addition to the new Guardians of the Galaxy team isn't explained is Phyla.

Who Is Phyla?

Though Rocket only refers to the young powered girl as Phyla, it's likely the character is Phyla-Vell, a superhero from the Marvel Comics. In the comics, Phyla-Vell is the daughter of Mar-Vell , the original Captain Marvel. Phyla-Vell took on the mantle of Captain Marvel in the comics, then became known as Quasar before eventually adopting the title of Martyr. The character also has a relationship Moondragon, the daughter of Drax the Destroyer. In terms of Phyla-Vell's powers, she can fire energy blasts, and has a host of other fighting skills, like flying, super-strength, speed, agility and durability.

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 , Phyla is played by Kai Zen and is originally introduced on the High Evolutionary's ship as a member of the latest race he's engineered in an effort to create the perfect utopia. She's saved from the High Evolutionary by the Guardians and taken to live on Knowhere under the watchful eye of Drax. At some point between the ending of the movie and the credits scene, which takes place an indeterminable amount of time later, Phyla joins the Guardians of the Galaxy team.

She's depicted as having the ability to wield energy blasts, though it's unclear how she got powers and if the other children of her kind have powers as well. Given Phyla doesn't get much screen time in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 , there is plenty not yet known about the adaptation of this character that is set to be revealed in future appearances.

Hopefully, a future installment will also explore the bonds between the team, especially since Phyla, Rocket, and Adam Warlock all share a complicated past that saw them at the whim of the High Evolutionary, which would be viable ground to expand on further. However, where the Guardians will next appear isn't yet clear.

Why Is Groot So Big?

After Groot sacrificed himself at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 , he returned as a sapling and eventually grew into Baby Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , then the more fully grown version seen in the latest film. However, in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 post-credits scene, Groot is much larger than he was even in his original appearance.

That's because this isn't the exact same Groot who debuted in the first movie. Gunn referred to that version as the new Groot's " father ," which explains why they don't look exactly the same, or act the same, since " Swoll Groot " has a " more outgoing personality ." Groot's larger form in the credits scene is a result of him continuing to grow , though it's unclear if this is his final form or if he'll get even bigger.

What’s Next For The New Guardians of the Galaxy?

As of now, there aren't any more confirmed Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but that doesn't mean Marvel Studios won't make a Guardians of the Galaxy 4 movie . Both the Thor and Captain America series have or will continue with fourth installments, and the latter of which will do so with a new character donning the superhero's mantle. With this in mind, a new movie with the new team introduced in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 credits scene is entirely possible .

Beyond that, it's likely the Guardians of the Galaxy will return in Avengers: Kang Dynasty and/or Avengers: Secret Wars . Since both Avengers films feature massive threats to the universe, it's no doubt Earth's Mightiest Heroes will need help from the MCU's cosmic heroes. It's also worth noting that the MCU appears to be exploring space more in its newest installments, and that this could mean further expansion into the cosmos, which would naturally allow the new Guardians more opportunities to appear in Marvel's upcoming series.

Will the New Guardians of the Galaxy Team Get A New Name?

In the Marvel Comics, a team is created as an offshoot from the Guardians of the Galaxy called the Annihilators. Consisting of characters like Cosmo, Silver Surfer, Beta Ray Bill, Quasar and Ronan the Accuser, the team was formed with Marvel's cosmic heavy-hitters as a deterrent against the universe's more formidable space-based villains. Although the new team established in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 credits scene has an almost entirely different roster, they could become the MCU's version of the Annihilators. That said, it remains to be confirmed if the team will get a new name in the MCU.

In the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 post-credits scene, Star-Lord is shown having breakfast with his grandfather , who he reunited with during the ending of the film. Peter is talking about how he's fine mowing a neighbor's lawn, but thinks the woman's 45-year-old son should be doing it instead, as the man is able-bodied. Peter goes on to say it's weird that the man watches him as he mows the lawn, and his grandfather joins in to tell Peter not to get him started. Intrigued, Peter wants to know more, but his grandfather doesn't say anything else.

As they're talking, Star-Lord's grandfather is reading a newspaper, which features an article about Kevin Bacon revealing details of his alien abduction - a reference to The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special . It's a quiet, incredibly normal moment (apart from the newspaper) between grandfather and grandson, showing that Peter is connecting with his remaining relative after spending so much time adventuring through space. After the screen cuts to black, text appears stating, " The Legendary Star-Lord Will Return ."

What Does Star-Lord's New MCU Name Mean?

The Legendary Star-Lord name comes from the Marvel Comics and is, in fact, the title of a comic series published 2014-2015 consisting of 12 issues. In the series, Star-Lord sets out on his own solo adventures, indicating that what's next for Peter Quill in the MCU is likely to be a spinoff from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Nothing is yet confirmed by Marvel Studios except that Star-Lord will return and, when he does, he'll have a new name.

While James Gunn is now focused on the DCU as co-CEO of DC Studios - and writer-director of the upcoming Superman: Legacy movie - it is worth noting that he has spoken on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 digital release about discussing a Star-Lord spinoff with MCU actor Chris Pratt. Gunn stated both parties were interested in " a story with Star-Lord on Earth trying to adapt to the environment of Earth in the same way that somebody else might try to adapt to the alien environment of outer space. He's a fish out of water in just kind of regular water ." Perhaps most importantly, the Guardians director finished this statement with the line " so I can't wait to see it, " suggesting this is the premise for an impending solo series.

Where Will Chris Pratt Next Appear in the MCU?

In terms of what's next for Chris Pratt's Star-Lord after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 , the most likely next appearance of the hero is in Avengers: Kang Dynasty and/or Avengers: Secret Wars . Like the new Guardians of the Galaxy team, Star-Lord will no doubt be called on to help the Avengers when the time comes to take on Kang considering he's the MCU's next Thanos-level threat.

Beyond the Avengers team-ups, Pratt's Star-Lord could potentially lead his own Disney+ series, a theatrical film set in Phase 6 (or, though it's less likely, Phase 5) or appear in another project - such as one focused on fellow cosmic superhero Nova. That said, Star-Lord's seeming future on Earth could well allow him to appear in a range of MCU series.

Though Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 closes with a promise of a solo appearance, it may make sense to have Quill join forces with another group down the line, especially if it allows for further exploration of the " fish out of water " aspect of his characterization as he attempts to fit in with other Earth heroes. More about Star-Lord's future and the new Guardians of the Galaxy team will no doubt be announced in the months and years to come following the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 .

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

*Availability in US

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The conclusion to the trilogy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, will see the Guardians on one final adventure together as they face off with the powerful Adam Warlock - one of the most significant threats the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ever seen. To protect a friend and their world as they know it, Peter Quill and his allies will band together to save one of their own and the galaxy from certain doom.

Key Release Dates

Deadpool & wolverine, marvel's thunderbolts, the fantastic four (2025), blade (2025), avengers: the kang dynasty, avengers: secret wars.

New Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Teaser Reminds Us How We Got Here

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be the final time we see this iteration of the titular Marvel team.

The latest teaser for next month’s MCU sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 , reminds us how we got here as we all prepare to say our goodbyes to this iteration of the titular team. Released courtesy of Marvel Entertainment , the teaser offers a few glimpses of new footage, including the villainous High Evolutionary and a few more jokes, while evoking memories of some of the most emotional moments in the franchise. Check out the new teaser for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 below.

“It’s time to say goodbye,” reads a caption alongside the new teaser. The Guardians of the Galaxy threequel will pick up with our beloved band of misfits looking a bit different these days. Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him to defend the universe along with protecting one of their own. A mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.

"This is the end for us, the last time people will see this team of Guardians," returning director James Gunn said of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 . "It’s big; it’s so, so big and dark, and different from what people might be expecting it to be."

RELATED: James Gunn Returned for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to Tell Rocket's Story

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Will Land in Theaters in May

With all this in mind, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is likely to be one of the most emotional outings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fans have already begun to wonder who will die in the sequel, with many placing their bets on both Drax and Rocket, while the returning stars have teased just how emotional the experience has been for them.

"It was really emotional. It was really emotional for so many reasons that it would take too long in this interview to even get into,” Chris Pratt, who has played Peter Quill aka Star-Lord since the first Guardians of the Galaxy back in 2014, said of the final outing . “But it just was emotional. It was a lot of gratitude around the fact that James Gunn actually directed it and was able to do that. Just grateful that he even gave me the job to begin with. It felt gratifying, knowing that critics had said that it would likely be the first Marvel movie to bomb. And what was that gonna be like, to be the first Marvel movie to not be successful? To take these characters that no one knew, and now have them be household names, and to be part of that, and to have rides around the world."

Written and directed by James Gunn, who will depart the MCU and take the lead of the newly emerging DCU, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will feature a large ensemble cast that includes Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova, and Sylvester Stallone.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is scheduled to be released on May 5, 2023, as part of Phase Five of the MCU.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

2017, Sci-fi/Adventure, 2h 15m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 's action-packed plot, dazzling visuals, and irreverent humor add up to a sequel that's almost as fun -- if not quite as thrillingly fresh -- as its predecessor. Read critic reviews

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Watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 with a subscription on Disney+, rent on Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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Guardians of the galaxy vol. 2 videos, guardians of the galaxy vol. 2   photos.

Peter Quill and his fellow Guardians are hired by a powerful alien race, the Sovereign, to protect their precious batteries from invaders. When it is discovered that Rocket has stolen the items they were sent to guard, the Sovereign dispatch their armada to search for vengeance. As the Guardians try to escape, the mystery of Peter's parentage is revealed.

Rating: PG-13 (Language|Brief Suggestive Content|Sequences of Sci-Fi Action|Violence)

Genre: Sci-fi, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Comedy

Original Language: English

Director: James Gunn

Producer: Kevin Feige

Writer: James Gunn

Release Date (Theaters): May 5, 2017  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Jul 10, 2017

Box Office (Gross USA): $389.8M

Runtime: 2h 15m

Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

Production Co: Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

View the collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Cast & Crew

Chris Pratt

Peter Quill, Star-Lord

Zoe Saldana

Bradley Cooper

Rocket Voice

Dave Bautista

Baby Groot Voice

Michael Rooker

Karen Gillan

Sylvester Stallone

Stakar Ogord

Pom Klementieff

Kurt Russell

Elizabeth Debicki

Tommy Flanagan

Chris Sullivan

Kraglin, On-Set Rocket

Screenwriter

Kevin Feige

Victoria Alonso

Executive Producer

Louis D'Esposito

Nikolas Korda

Jonathan Schwartz

Henry Braham

Cinematographer

Fred Raskin

Film Editing

Tyler Bates

Original Music

Scott Chambliss

Production Design

Judianna Makovsky

Costume Design

News & Interviews for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

An Oral History of Guardians of the Galaxy by Chris Pratt and James Gunn

Marvel Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer

Marvel’s Casting Director Breaks Down How She Assembled the Avengers and the Biggest Names in the MCU

Critic Reviews for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Audience reviews for guardians of the galaxy vol. 2.

Checking all of the obligatory sequel boxes as it unfurls, a super-sized second helping of Guardians of the Galaxy brings more action, gags, and story to the fray but lacks - albeit slightly - the taut fun abandon that made the first volume gel so well. In this PG-13-rated sci-fi actioner, the Guardians (Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, et al) must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill's true parentage. Of course, expecting Vol. 2 to surpass the out-and-out awesomeness of the original simply asks too much of a follow-up. Guardians of the Galaxy ranks as one of the top comic book movies of all time, on par with Superman and The Dark Knight. Moviegoers are right to assume that the sequel abides by the laws of the Andrea True Connection. In regards to set pieces, comic situations, and screentime spent on each character, it's a case of more, more, more. Not all of it melds together in the fantastic way of the first go-round, however, because more plotpoints equal sprawl. It's not confusing, mind you--just busy and overlong at the expense of the overall joyride. What the movie gets more right than wrong is in furthering the Guardians' development as a family, showing that all familial units experience peaks and valleys. Returning players get fleshed out more, new players get added into the mix, and the dynamic between them all becomes the fulcrum. A huge gamble in that they weren't members of the Avengers or Spider-Man, the first Guardians thrived by spotlighting the largely unknown - yet fully formed - characters and their interaction with one another. Casting played a key role in this, getting everything letter perfect down to Vin Diesel's different inflections for his character's only - though oft repeated - line, "I am Groot." Here, their camaraderie is on fine display again, as is that of the influx of newbies (Kurt Russell, Pom Klementieff, and Sylvester Stallone among them). Everybody's role gets beefed up, which beefs up the overall story. Vol. 2 is only 11 minutes longer than its predecessor, but it feels lengthier because of all of the padding caused by the numerous threads. Though they pull from the comic books as source material to a large degree, James Gunn and Nicole Perlman's script for the first flick has a monumental task in setting up this interstellar world and, yet, brilliantly feels like a amusement park ride as it does exactly that. The second finds Gunn, who returns as director as well, working solo. The heavy lifting of setting up the Guardians is done but, on the other hand, there's heavier lifting yet in following up such par excellence. This is not to say that he fails. In fact, much of Vol. 2 absolutely soars and the movie as-a-whole succeeds for the most part. It just suffers a bit of a Thanksgiving effect. The pants feel a bit tight after such a varied and filing meal that sets you up for another round. To Sum It All Up: Space Jam-Packed

Given that it's been five months since I reviewed a horror movie, until Mayhem a few days ago at least, it also stands to reason that I have been without my beloved Netflix (and Prime) for that same amount of time. I have missed goodness knows how many movies, that have probably now been removed from both sites, I've missed the second season of Stranger Things, among other series and you don't know how much that pissed me right off. Thankfully, however, that has now changed and, at least for the next 2 months, Netflix is now available to me. Finding a movie to watch was not as overwhelming as I would have anticipated, given the fact that there must have been a bunch of movies added in my absence. I settled on this fairly quickly. I knew I wanted something a little lighter for my Netflix "return" and I was fixing to settle on the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Why? I don't really know, the first two sequels of the franchise were bloated and convoluted and kill any real hope I may have had that it would be a fun franchise. I'm still watching it, but jsut because Javier Bardem is in it. Jack Sparrow jumped the shark halfway into the second movie. My decision to watch Pirates was quickly set aside when I saw that this flick was available. I didn't even have to think twice about it. If you've followed my reviews, on Flixster/RottenTomatoes at least, then you'd know that I felt the original Guardians was tremendous. It was fresh, clever and different, at least stylistically speaking, from anything Marvel had ever done at that point. At the time, and this was prior to Civil War coming out, I felt that it was the best film in the MCU. You could make the argument it's also one of the best superhero movies of all time. It's all a moot point, to me at least, since The Dark Knight (in my opinion) is still the best superhero movie I've ever seen. They're all just fighting for the second spot. Granted, I have not seen either Logan (which I own on DVD) or Wonder Woman, so I'll have to watch those to make my assessment. Moving on, and it pains me to say this, but there's no way that this sequel ever comes close to the cleverness, freshness and fun of the original. It's probably the worst first 'sequel' in the MCU since Iron Man 2. That's not to say that this movie is not without its merits, because as the rating suggests, I really enjoyed this movie. But there's no denying that, and maybe this is wrong to assume on my part, that there was some pressure on James Gunn to create a movie that, at the very least, was equal in every way, at least in terms of quality, to the original. I doubt anybody would have expected him to surpass the original, because that would have been an impossible standard to surpass. But matching the original is, in theory, achievable. That goal was not achieved, let me just say that right now. Taken as a whole, this is a very good movie, but when you're down in the trenches, as they say, there's some really glaring pacing issues. We'll get to these pacing issues later. Before we get to that, I want to take some time out to point out how much of a fucking hero Michael Rooker is in this damn movie. Rooker has always been a tremendous character actor and if you disagree then we're just gonna have to throw down. Seriously though, he's always been great, but I don't think he's ever been given the chance to truly play a heroic sort of character. And you might think 'but Yondu is/was a total asshole in the original' and you would be right. But his redemption in the sequel and his relationship with Peter/Star-Lord makes up the emotional core of the film, like Groot was in the first film. You'd think that someone who's spent about 99% of his career playing villains might have a difficult time playing a hero, but Rooker is more than up to the task and he knocks it out. Trust me when I say that his journey toward redemption and realizing the love he had for Star-Lord has the power to make grown men cry. He's the best part about the movie by a country mile and don't doubt that for one second. If there's one thing that can be said about this that can't be said for the original is that it explore character dynamics on a deeper level. It's a more emotionally-driven film than you probably would have ever expected. Peter's desire to meet and have a father is clearly the driven force for the film, for the most part. But you also explore Nebula's relationship with Gamora, her sister, and how Thanos' relentlessness drove a wedge between them when the only thing Nebula wanted was a sister. Rocket's pushing everyone who gets even remotely close to him is also explored through his relationship with Yondu. Drax is the comedic relief and while there's some of his moments that fall flat on their face, which I blame on the writing being a little more forced, I think that Dave Bautista is pretty damn entertaining in the role. His comedic timing and deliver is on point. Mantis is a welcome addition, but they don't really do much with her other than use her for Drax to make fun of, hopefully she's a more prominent player in the sequel. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillian, Bradley Cooper are all very good in their roles, but I felt that the supporting characters took the spotlight here over the leads. And Baby Groot is fucking adorable, but he's clearly there to sell toys, it's as transparent as humanly possible. But, and this is where the problems are gonna start. The film sees Star-Lord, Gamora and Drax being taken to Star-Lord's father's home planet. For, you see, Ego (Star-Lord's father) is a God. And this is when the film just absolutely slows to a crawl. When I say slows to a crawl, I mean that quite literally. While there's a 'B-story', as it were, with Rocket, Yondu and Groot breaking out after most Yondu's Ravager crew (who've been exiled by the larger Ravager community for dealing in child trafficking) betrayed him. Basically Ego, who's traveled all over the cosmos and impregnated a large number of females from other planets and species, in order to find a worthy successor. Star-Lord is the only one who has been able to harness that power. Everyone else, he said, disappointed him. Which should be interpreted as saying that he murdered them. Naturally, he doesn't mention this to Peter. Star-Lord, blinded by the beauty of Ego's planet and the fact that he now has a father in his life, ignores the fact that there's something just off about this planet. Essentially, Ego wants to shape the universe in his image, which is why he planted some pods, or what the fuck ever, in all the planets he went to, so he could proceed to take over the world by injecting it with his influence. To do that, he needs another Celestial, which is where Star-Lord comes in. If this was all there was to it, there would be no problem. But from the moment that Drax, Gamora, and Peter arrive on Ego's planet, there's a large chunk of the film where it feels like nothing happens and some of its attempts at humor fall flat on their faces. Like Drax and Mantis making fun and laughing at Star-Lord for having sexual feelings for Gamora. That scene was cringe-worthy and it felt like they were just desperate for laughs. There was another scene back with Yondu and Rocket where they tell Baby Groot to fetch Yondu's fin and he brings everything back BUT the fin. And, again, while it's a fun scene, it still felt like a forced attempt at humor. I will say that once the reveal that Ego gave Peter's mother the brain cancer that ultimately killed her which, naturally, drives Peter into a rage which causes him to shoot his father (who's immortal until, of course, he isn't). After this moment, the movie, thankfully, kicks into high gear and the last 45 minutes of the movie are pretty great all things considered. I just find that spending so much time on Ego's planet really, quite frankly, doing nothing and just sitting still hurt the movie much more than they probably imagined. I'm surprised no one saw this and went, maybe let's make these sections of the film a little shorter. But they take up so much time of the film and it just feels like a lot of dead air. You could have accomplished the same exact thing in half the time. I don't wanna say it kills the movie, because it doesn't, but it was just the wrong creative choice to stick with this setting while not really accomplishing anything. I get that you can't rush Ego and Peter's time together, given the fact that this was a big deal to Peter, but, I don't know. Let's move on. As I mentioned, the last 45 minutes of the movie are an equal mix of fun, clever and heartbreaking all at the same time. Let's just say that there's an eulogy that Peter gives for a character that's, actually, legitimately a beautifully done. It doesn't feel like a forced moment of sentimentality, given everything that went down, the eulogy shouldn't have been done in any other way than what we got. Going back to the large action scene that climaxes the film, it's actually really damn good. Perhaps not as memorable as, say, the Battle for New York in the original Avengers. But the special effects are great, there's some really cool moments involving Pac-Man, you'll know the one. One of my favorite bits of the entire movie also happens during this scene, where Rocket. who's in a cave of some sort, asks Peter if he has tape while there's a battle going behind him. Peter says no and he proceeds to ask every member of the Guardians. This happens all off-camera but you can hear it from Rocket's position. It's silly, but it works in this universe. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I have to say about this. I think this review pretty much covered it all. On Kurt Russell's performance, I found that he was good, but Ego is another forgettable Marvel villain in a long line of them. The only one they really have that's any interesting, given that he's a major part of his franchise's story, is Loki. He's a recurring character in the Thor movies (and the larger MCU as well) so he's instantly more memorable since, sadly, a lot of MCU movies have this 'villain-of-the-week' type thing, where there's a revolving door of villains and none of them really stick or stand out in any way. Ego, as good as Russell is, is just another one in a long line of them. That's neither here nor there. Summarizing my thoughts, this was a wildly inconsistent entry in the MCU. I'd still say I enjoyed it a lot, but there's no denying that this is a huge step down from the original. I appreciate the more character-driven and emotional approach the movie took, it allowed you a glimpse at these characters from a different angle. That was the best thing this movie did. But the pacing was terrible for the first 90 minutes of the film, the last act was great, it definitely undid some of the damage. But it didn't do enough to truly make this, in my opinion, a great film. It's a very good one and I would recommend it to MCU aficionados, but this is neither the best nor the worst entry in this universe. It's the best at letting Michael Rooker be amazing, that's for sure. And, to me, that's more than reason enough to recommend this film.

Not as fun as the first installment, but still not as bad as I was told. 6.5/10

The fifteen movie in the Marvel cinematic universe, the Guardians travel all over the universe trying to unravel the mystery behind Peter Quill's parentage. That's the plot right there, that's it. So the start of this movie shows us the origins of Quill's parents with a de-aged CGI Kurt Russell, something we've seen before and is becoming more popular. Gotta be honest, this looked very impressive. Twas impressive with Michael Douglas in 'Ant-Man' and its impressive here with Russell. From there we zip straight over to the opening credits which roll whilst the Guardians are fighting a big alien monster. Amidst the chaos Groot plays and jigs to 'Mr Blue Sky' by ELO via Star-Lord's walkman. Its a quirky intro and certainly enjoyable...except for the choice of song, but that's just me. So as I said the basic plot involves Quill finding his father who turns out to be a God-like celestial called Ego (Kurt Russell). Naturally Ego would like to rule the universe with his son at his side, and Quill is curious, but sharply declines after discovering Ego's dark secrets (he killed Quill's mum). Of course whilst all this is going on the other characters have their own little subplots. Gamora is fighting off her sister Nebula once again. Yondu has been hired to capture the Guardians by the Sovereign race because Rocket nicked some precious batteries from them. This causes Yondu internal conflict which results in a mutiny by some of his men. Groot is still slowly growing up, and Drax starts a slow burning romance with Ego's assistant Mantis (Pom Klementieff). Oh and Rocket is still a wise-ass. I think the main thing I noticed with this sequel was the increase in comedy...silly comedy. Its a little bit too obvious that Gunn is trying a little bit too hard with the gags, but anyway. In the first major space battle Quill and Rocket are arguing about who is the better pilot. Rocket remarks that later later on he will put a turd in Quill's bed. But not one of his turds, one of Drax's turds. Drax immediately laughs out loud and proclaims 'I have famously large turds'. Its at this point that I asked myself, are they actually throwing out dialog about poo? Putting poo in each others beds...like school kids would say? By jove they are! I also noted a few other scenes that did make me smile such as Drax ripping on Quill's secret crush on Gamora (unceremoniously revealed by Mantis who can read people's feelings). There is a great little sequence where Groot must find Yondu's head fin so both he and Rocket can escape from his traitorous men. Groot takes about six attempts to find said item as he doesn't really understand and keeps coming back with all manner of things. A tad predictable but nicely done. Quill calling Rocket a trash panda was a good one although the following dialog was a bit laboured. Rocket trying to explain to Groot about which button (the death button that needed to be covered with tape) to press on the bomb to kill Ego etc...OK lets just say that most of the good stuff comes from Rocket when he verbally clashes with the others. As for the main crux of the story which was Peter and his father Ego, meh...it was fine but nothing special in my opinion. In all honesty I don't really think they could of done anything drastically original here and what they did was perfectly fine. But the main problem simply was it was all completely predictable fluff that's been done before. Each step of the way, each beat was wholly formulaic frankly. Peter and Ego get along fine at first as Peter wants to learn more out of curiosity. Ego teaches Peter the basics of his God-like powers. As the subplots all start to come together Ego finally reveals what he's been up to (again its no real surprise) and Peter understands what he and the Guardians must do. Then after a long finale battle with the good guys on the brink of losing, unsurprisingly Peter suddenly conquers his own internal God-like powers and uses them to hold off Ego just long enough for the others to do their bit. That's not to say there is anything wrong with all this per say, it works here, but I can't not mention how utterly corny and conventional it all is. Again in all honesty I also thought the ending was so so very soppy that it almost spoilt the movie. Sure the Guardians have now become a proper family so to speak (ugh! the whole family thing again?) and all the various plots are tied together nicely, but boy do they pile on the schmaltz. I did also found it quite bizarre how the Sovereign are so obsessed with wanting to kill the Guardians because Rocket stole their batteries, Especially as it looks like we'll be seeing more of the same in the next movie from these guys. Its also kinda funny how the makeup for this alien race consists entirely of gold body paint, literally just painting all the actors gold and that's it. Just seems so...made for TV-ish. Odd for such a big blockbuster. Anyway, despite this essentially being more of the same from the first movie, I did enjoy this. I personally found the entire movie to be much tighter with better dialog, better action and a better array of characters. Ego being a surprise decent villain...clearly helped along by casting Russell. Also the combination of Drax and Mantis being a decent surprise double act. Whilst both movies do still feel very cliched and unoriginal, borrowing many elements from many sci-fi movies, for me its the quirky roster of heroes that sells the flick. I can't deny that Rocket is fast becoming a firm favourite of mine. Naturally everything looked slick and shiny, plenty of comicbook nods dotted around, and another retro soundtrack which I didn't really like this time truth be told. I actually thought many of the songs were completely out of place with some of the scenes, but that's just me (dunno what the kids think of these old tunes, do they even know what a walkman is?). Yes I found this movie more enjoyable than the first (which I think was somewhat overhyped). Even though they are clearly trying a bit too hard with the goofy comedy and visual retro love letters to the 80's (although I do appreciate the retro goodness), generally I think Gunn and co have perfected this particular team of space cowboys. What they must not do now is push it too far and spoil it. But I will finish by asking, why am I not seeing a (preferably adult) Howard the Duck reboot yet? Surely I can't be the only one who thinks a Rocket and Howard team up needs to happen?

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Zoe saldaña says she expects marvel’s ‘guardians of the galaxy’ will return: “it’d be a huge loss”.

Nevertheless, Saldaña also said she doesn't see herself returning to play Marvel's Gamora.

By Zoe G Phillips

Zoe G Phillips

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Zoe Saldaña doesn’t think Marvel ‘s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise is gone for good. The actress said this week it would be a “huge loss” for the MCU to say goodbye to its ragtag group of intergalactic heroes.

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Saldaña played Gamora in Marvel’s three Guardians films. Alongside her, Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel) and Rocket the Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) made up the original Guardians. The group, including Gamora, also appeared in several other MCU installments, including Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers Endgame .

“I mean, so far, I think that [Gamora is done] for me, but I don’t think Gamora has gone for good,” Saldaña said this week.

Marvel has not announced plans for another Guardians installment, after writer-director James Gunn ended the third movie with the creation of a new group that included returning members Rocket and Groot and newcomers Kraglin (Sean Gunn), Cosmo (Maria Bakalova) and Adam Warlock (Will Poulter).

“I would be the first one in the first row to sort of celebrate when the Guardians of the Galaxy come back,” Saldaña said, emphasizing that her personal closure over the series had nothing to do with her love for the series.

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Zoe Saldaña Hopes Marvel Finds "A Way To Bring Back" The ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy' Even If She's Done With Gamora

Zoe Saldaña was asked about the future of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy after the trilogy ended and James Gunn became co-head at DC Studios.

Saldaña said she was done playing Gamora but suggested that this shouldn’t be the last time fans see the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

"I mean, so far, I think that she is [gone for good] for me, but I don't think Gamora has gone for good," she said in an upcoming episode of The Discourse podcast .

Saldaña hopes that there’s a future for Gamora and would support the franchise.

“I would think it would be a huge loss for Marvel if they didn't find a way to bring back The Guardians of the Galaxy ," she said. “It's just such a fan-favorite group of misfits, you know? And then at the helm, they had a voice like James Gunn's writing-which is just so marvelous for and very specific for this genre. And it's so great for this genre as well. So, I would be the first one in the first row to sort of celebrate when the Guardians of the Galaxy come back.”

Saldaña played Gamora throughout the MCU since first appearing in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy . The star would go on to reprise the role in 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War , 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 .

Dave Bautista, who portrayed Drax the Destroyer, said he moved on from the Guardians of the Galaxy after the trilogy was completed.

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Zoe Saldana Says Ending GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Would Be A ‘Huge Loss For Marvel’

By Movieguide® Contributor

It looks like Zoe Saldana isn’t ready to say goodbye to the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY just yet. 

While appearing on The Playlist’s “Discourse” podcast, the actress, who played Gamora in the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movies, was asked if she was “done” with the character. 

“I mean, so far, I think that she is [gone for good] for me, but I don’t think Gamora has gone for good,” Saldana explained . 

She continued, “I would think it would be a huge loss for Marvel if they didn’t find a way to bring back the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. It’s just such a fan-favorite group of misfits, you know?”

“And then at the helm, they had a voice like James Gunn’s writing—which is just so marvelous for and very specific for this genre,” Saldana added. “And it’s so great for this genre as well. So, I would be the first one in the first row to sort of celebrate when the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY comeback.”

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 was Saldaña’s last appearance as Gamora. A portion of the Movieguide® review reads :

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 has some of the most moving, gripping, funny, redemptive content in any Marvel movie. There are at least three positive references to God and some allusions to Heaven and its beauty. The movie also promotes compassion, courage, sacrifice, standing up to evil, doing the right thing, repentance, and family. 

Saldana has previously spoken about her decision to step away from the role of Gamora, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “I don’t think this is the end for the Guardians. It is the end for me, for Gamora.”

She added that she had initially only planned to appear in 2014’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. 

In addition to her role in the Marvel universe, Saldaña is also part of the STAR TREK franchise as Uhura. The actress shared her hopes for a fourth STAR TREK movie, saying , “I still have hope [it will happen].”

“I had a wonderful experience through and through and through the three times that I was a part of that team,” she continued. “I know that they’re always trying to sort of aim to wrangle everybody together, but I also know that Paramount is working on a new sort of fresh take on STAR TREK, which I think is such a wonderful franchise that should live for a very long time, whether or not us as the original remake cast can come back. I don’t know, but I certainly hope so.”

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1 hr 59 min

Dune: Part Two Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

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Call Me By Your Mouse Emperor Christopher Walken and Harkonnen hardasses Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Austin Butler (Elvis) are ready to turn the page on House Atreides as Part 2 of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune adaptation gets underway. Can vengeful Timothee Chalamet worm his way into the heart of cynical Zendaya, and convince the indigenous people of Arrakis to follow their messiah into an interplanetary war? And why does Josh Brolin always seem to have his hand on a weapon of mass destruction?  Find Out when you Listen Now to this epic podcast! 

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‘The Absence of Eden’ a border drama that’s compelling and only slightly political

Zoe saldaña and garrett hedlund star in a story absorbing enough that the viewer is left wanting more..

Immigrant Esmee (Zoe Saldaña) vows to look after a child (Sophie Hammons) separated from her parents in “The Absence of Eden.”

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In one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in any movie so far this year, “The Absence of Eden” star Zoe Saldaña, playing an undocumented immigrant named Esmee, is alone in a seedy motel room, trapped in an ongoing nightmare. Esmee clenches her fists as her face contorts in anguish, and she lets out a primal scream — but the scream is silent, as even an overt display of suffering could get her into more trouble.

That sequence, and Saldaña’s performance as a whole, is a reminder that while Sandaña is of course best known for blockbuster franchises including the “Avatar” movies, “Star Trek” and “Guardians of the Galaxy,” she is a gifted and versatile character/lead actress, as evidenced by her work in films such as “The Terminal,” “Premium” and “Out of the Furnace.”

In this taut and gripping drama from director/co-writer Marco Perego (Zoe’s real-life husband), Saldaña delivers arguably her most impactful performance yet in a film that mirrors today’s headlines but eschews overt political commentary in favor of an unsparing, realistic and sometimes tragic story about humanity, and in some cases, the lack thereof.

Saldaña’s Esmee is working as a dancer in a Mexican bar when an incident occurs that will surely land her in jail for a long time, even though she was acting in self-defense. Esmee has no choice but to take the cash she has been saving up and use it to enlist the services of a coyote who will transport a group of men, women and children across the border in the dead of night. After a young girl is separated from her mother, Esmee vows to take care of the girl — but then Esmee is also separated from the girl and forced to work as a cleaning woman in the aforementioned motel, where her real duties involve moving drugs for the cartel. If she refuses, she’ll never see the girl again.

In a separate storyline that doesn’t cross paths with Esmee’s plight until late in the film, the perfectly cast Garrett Hedlund plays Shipp, a rookie ICE agent who is paired with a cynical veteran named Dobbins (the always excellent Chris Coy). When Shipp embarks on a romance with a schoolteacher named Yadira (Adria Arjona, doing powerful work) and Dobbins meets her, the exchange goes like this:

“So Yadira, where you from?”

“I’m from here.”

“What here, here? Like born here?”

With New Mexico standing in for both sides of the border, “The Absence of Eden” is saturated with dark colors and captures a murky and complicated and problematic world. We learn both Esmee and Shipp come from dark backgrounds, and now both have found themselves in untenable situations that most likely won’t be resolved without arrests and/or harsh violence.

Director Perego and co-writer Rick Rapoza pack a lot of story into a 97-minute film; my chief complaint is that it plays almost more like an extended pilot for a limited series with the potential for greatness than a fully realized feature film. Esmee and Shipp have each reached a certain level of closure, but we’d sure like to check in on their respective lives in the weeks and months and years to follow.