Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" Is a Disappointing Send-Off to More Deserving Heroes

The MCU sends off our favorite team with a dark, overlong festival of crap.

May 7, 2023

The St. Louis Cardinals were a powerhouse entering the 2006 season. The team had made the playoffs six straight years, including a 105-game, pennant-winning 2004 campaign. Equipped with unstoppable slugger Albert Pujols, they seemed destined to repeat their success in 2006 and challenge for another shot at a World Series title.

‍

Unfortunately for St. Louis, their season got marred by injuries. After a 31-16 start, All-Stars Jim Edmonds and David Eckstein missed a combined 81 games: half a season. Closer Jason Isringhausen, who finished the prior season with only four blown saves and a 2.14 ERA, blew ten saves while dealing with a nagging hip injury that eventually shut him down for the year. Pujols, on pace for what would have been his only 50-home run season, missed three weeks in June.

‍

The Cardinals finished the year at 83-78, a poor winning percentage for a contender but enough to claim the NL Central title. By the start of the playoffs, their roster was mostly healthy and complete; the true Cardinals were ready to play.

‍

Play they did. St. Louis shocked the baseball world, defeating the San Diego Padres in the NLDS before dispatching the heavily-favored, 97-win New York Mets in the Championship Series. In the Fall Classic against the Detroit Tigers, the Cardinals entered their three-game stretch at Busch Stadium with the series tied 1-1; they would win the next three games, clinching the World Series in front of their home fans.

‍

In short, it isn’t always our fault when things don’t go as planned. All we can do is make the best of our circumstances; greatness means turning lemons into lemonade. Mediocrity means turning lemons into, well, squished lemons.

‍

James Gunn had few options with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, his last film with Marvel. Gamora’s death in Infinity War lost the tight-knit group its most viable member, placed Nebula into her sister’s role, and forced prioritization of the Mantis-Drax dynamic to replace the interpersonal depth lost when Quill and Gamora got separated. It’s not a recipe for success. As a result, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 tastes foul.

‍

By definition, stories aren’t anything specific and thus don’t have to be anything: the direction we go is the direction we choose, and sometimes parent negatively affects child. The blip was an integral part of Thanos’ arc, but killing Gamora stole the Guardians' soul. Yes, Rocket’s troubled past and emotional resistance added depth. Quill’s damaged youth got contrasted by an emotional openness that pushed the stories forward. Drax’s one-liners contributed occasional comedy, and Groot’s linguistic limitations sparked a chorus of “awww”s in theaters worldwide.

‍

Yet, Gamora was always the true center of the Guardians. She was the most layered, intriguing, and had more substance and humanity than all the others combined, not to mention being most integral to the overarching narrative. Removing her from the team stole much of what made them worth watching, particularly regarding her relationship with Quill.

‍

Many MCU romances have tried to legitimize themselves, but only Quill and Gamora have succeeded. In a rare cinematic occurrence, it actually makes sense for two lovers to feel drawn to one another and find romance within their complicated dynamic. Straightforward, sharp, and uncompromising always finds a fascinating match in open, fun-loving, and wounded. Watching each attach to the other, bringing out the best and mitigating the worst, made sense; they fit.

‍

Now, in Vol. 3, Gamora is the version of herself brought back from the Endgame timeline, and she means 2014 business: cold, ruthless, and unwilling to entertain sentiment. Everything we’ve known of her for nearly a decade of films is gone, creating an aura of pointlessness. In many ways, it would’ve been better if she had stayed dead.

‍

Alas, fan service shall always trump narrative integrity. Thus, Gamora is back and lesser than ever, which leaves us with the MCU's diminishing returns.

‍

We have our thinly-imagined villain, the necessity of whose plan is never clear and whose God complex necessitates overacting to compensate for the lack of thematic imagination. We have our primary hero, whose overexposure forces a slightly muted personality, leaving us with a shell with no motivation except wanting to save his “best friend,” which the movie makes sure we’re aware of by stating it a thousand times. We have a tragic backstory for a beloved character who lies at death’s door to inspire deeper investment in his recovery.

‍

It believes separation maximizes everyone's opportunity to round off their arc and receive a proper farewell, but it’s wrong. The power of a group lies in the collective; we loved the Guardians for who they were together. As Quill said in the first movie: they’re a bunch of “losers,” but hey, if they’re to be losers, they’ll be losers together.

‍

What did they become? Heroes. Victors. Guardians.

‍

Why split them up for their last hoorah, only to reunite for an uninspired action sequence to take down arguably the MCU's lamest villain? So we can learn about Rocket? Great characterization doesn’t need a complete backstory; it succeeds on the strength of general knowledge and the immediacy of circumstances.

‍

Is it to further develop the Drax-Mantis friendship? All we’ve seen since Vol. 2 has felt like emotional abuse. Convincing us these two are sincerely bonded (and Drax is anything but obnoxious) is a tall task this late in the game.

‍

Is it to finally give Nebula a genuine personality and pose her as a viable substitute for Gamora? You can’t take a character so grim and brooding and make her something more substantial in one movie.

‍

The truth (which becomes apparent as the ludicrous 150-minute runtime drags on) is that James Gunn doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why he split up the group or why he’s doing anything he’s doing, and so he’s tacked on an extra half an hour to figure it out.

‍

Sadly, he never does. Although Rocket’s story will drum up the waterworks, the friends he makes as a laboratory experiment don’t feel sincere enough to make their loss deliver an emotional blow. It feels condescending; one friend bounces off the walls, the other is spacy and innocent, and the last is so kind-hearted it feels bland.

‍

In fairness, everything he’s suffered, from the High Evolutionary’s betrayal to the tragic death of his beloved companions, explains all of Rocket’s behaviors. He goes rogue to avoid putting his friends in danger, like when he squared off with the High Evolutionary years before. He resists Quill harder than anyone else because Quill demands the most emotionally. Lila does the same, and she was his most damaging loss.

‍

Unfortunately, that narrative awareness doesn’t serve the movie well past the general respect that it pulled it off. We still need more color and humor: more life, the universe, and everything. We need Drax to toe that line between humorous and insufferable. We need Quill to be cartoonish in his goofiness. We need Mantis to be innocent. We need Groot to... not just be around sometimes. We need the Guardians to, well, guard things.

‍

It’s not entirely Gunn's fault; it’s not his fault the MCU shoehorned his final Guardians flick. We can dissect it from start to finish, but no matter how many flaws we find, it returns to Gamora.

‍

Without her, everything suffers from diminishing returns. Drax’s antics wear thin, Mantis gets little mileage as a fully-realized character, and Groot gets relegated to a background character, but this time with nothing to offer.

‍

The film tries to distract us with new characters, like the infantile Warlock and Soviet canine Cosmos, but we feel what Marvel sacrificed by tossing Gamora off that cliff. With constant forced humor and unconvincing emotional cues, we feel her loss. She is there, but in body only; it’s the foundation of the movie, that what we lose can never return, like Marvel is trying to validate the Guardians’ direction and ultimate conclusion as the film progresses.

‍

Alas, it’s obvious: to make St. Louis lemonade, this movie needs Gamora; the Guardians need Gamora. We need Gamora.

‍

So, time to answer the age-old question:

‍