Once More With Feeling - Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3 Review

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 1 is a special film for me. It was the first movie I put on by myself, watched entirely and liked. I didn't know it was part of the MCU. This was before I knew the MCU. Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3 being James Gunn's last project at Marvel and the last iteration of the current Guardians, promised to be heartfelt and emotional just like Avengers: Endgame and I'm pleased to say as much as Spider-Man: No Way Home was the Endgame of the live-action Spider-man films, Vol. 3 is THE Endgame of the Guardians franchise.

My main criticism for Quantumania was that it didn't have the special quality most MCU trilogy enders had. Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3 made it all about this found family who arguably are the most lovable group of characters in the MCU and it was worth it.

The name's Rocket. Rocket 'RACOON'!

I remember the quotes how are they going to make a talking tree and racoon work. But we know they did make it work. The responses I see online when people think Rocket is going to die just shows how much people love this character. Choosing to focus on Rocket's origin was sure to be emotional and the trailers mostly hinted that Rocket would die but it started to become obvious that it was a misdirect, nevertheless the VFX team and James Gunn made it too emotional with those expressive eyes and good writing/directing. All of Rocket's scenes were emotional but I couldn't control myself when Rocket saw small racoons caged and when he read the details of where he had come from and embraced it right after in the fight against the High Evolutionary.

The High Evolutionary, one of MCU's best villains?

I don't think it would be wrong to say the animal violence is mostly why he is the meanest but the writing and acting was really good. I would say after seeing two dark-skinned actors play villains wearing purple with powers beyond what our heroes can fight, I felt The High Evolutionary better than Kang. No disrespect to Jonathan Majors, I loved his performance in Loki. It's just the writing and execution that makes two very similar characters have such different impacts.

He should've died

I loved the hall-way fight leading upto all the Guardians attacking The High Evolutionary in a coordinated attack to take him down. Quill being one of the last ones to heroically get off The High Evolutionary's exploding ship only to not make it to the floating head of Knowhere and the Guardians' reactions coupled with Groot extending his arms only for it to freeze and break off, the music device floating off Quill's hand made it feel sad but a very beautiful way to say goodbye to the character. It was perfect. I don't mind seeing Quill again but that scene was constructed so well I might've just killed him. The end-credits assures that 'The Legendary Star-Lord will return' not the Guardians so I'm excited to see what exactly they have in mind for Quill.

The team disbanded

It is disappointing that no one died, especially after Gunn promising significant deaths and since the first two Guardians of The Galaxy logo's reflect the color of the character who dies in that particular movie. But I'm happy that they got a happy ending. The team getting disbanded was a good end to the trilogy and I think it's a clever decision as they can use the characters however they like now without bothering about the whole team but it would've been more effective if the decision to disband was more connected to what the Guardians experienced in this movie.

Welcome to The Freakin' Guardians of The Galaxy

The mid-credits scene shows us the new team -Rocket Racoon, Kraglin, Adam Warlock, Cosmo the spacd dog, Groot and Phyla. This lineup looks fun.

Adam was not used very well in this movie but Will Pouter did his best with what he got.

Phyla is the latest to join the 'character introduced in the post credits scene or at the very end of the movie' list. Starfox, Clea, Love, T'Challa Jnr. and now Phyla. While for Love and T'Challa it can be argued that they are part of the story. The others are just new additions we know little to nothing about. I feel Love and Phyla having mysterious powers and being around the same age could lead to them getting on a team together. Only time will tell.

We already discussed about the most important character of this movie - Rocket and Quill too. Let's discuss the others.

Nebula grew through the Avengers films and I wouldn't be lying if I said Endgame made many fall in love with the character. Nebula is now a multiutility cyborg which is so cool. I hope she is not restricted to just taking care of Knowhere.

Groot's new look seems to be not so cool. But he was packed with suprises. The guns he was hiding under his body or the wings, this character can now do anything. And...how can I forget he spoke! Or was he supposed to? It's most likely that we the audience learnt to understand what he is saying just how Gamora had a few moments ago in the same movie. But it was not very clear in the movie. A really good thought, I must say

Mantis has always had a lot of potential. She is a super-powerful character in the comics. MCU's Mantis has some really great moments in this film. But I'm most excited for what she is able to do with the three beasts she has now. It's sad to see her and Drax part ways.

Drax the dad. Drax is another character that is different from the comics. But the ending where Drax agrees to help Nebula take care of the children and is told he was meant to be a dad made it feel right. He is not Drax - The Destroyer, he is Drax - The Dad.

Gamora added so much weight to Thanos' character in Infinity War but it ended up ruining her dynamics with the team. As they try to fit this new Gamora in with the team it's really hard to understand where this character can go next but I can say we have still not seen the galaxy's best assasin which she is supposed to be.

Youndu's replacement Kraglin cannot take the place of his former boss. That being said, the moment he trusts himself and leanrs to control the arrow was a cool one.

Cosmo: The Spacedog is a cute and powerful character but I'm not sure what they can do with her.

I'm really excited to see what becomes of these new characters like Adam Warlock, Kraglin, Phyla and Cosmo.

Conclusion

Overall I'm really satisfied with the kind of closure the core team has got. Even though not a perfect closure, its a good ending to the trilogy and the characters are left in places from where their stories can be picked up in an interesting way. With the recent string of not so good content from the MCU it's really refreshing to see an earlier franchise prove how it WAS and SHOULD be done. Here's looking forward, as always for a better MCU.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.