Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3: James Gunn leaves Marvel with a reminder of what the MCU could be

Guardians Vol. 3 gets back to everything we loved about the MCU leading up to Avengers: Endgame.

Nearly every review of every Marvel Studios film these days becomes at least in part a commentary on the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and the one you’re reading now is no exception (though I will try to stick to the assignment as much as possible). In defense of myself and everyone else tasked with reviewing these movies, it’s not really our fault! The MCU built its empire on connections and callbacks and on those fun little moments of recognition reminding you that all these movies fit together into one giant puzzle with an enormously satisfying payoff just around the corner.

But even as it became one of the most beloved parts of the MCU, Guardians of the Galaxy always felt like it existed in its own private corner of the universe. Sure, some of the characters have deep ties to Thanos, and the Guardians played a key role in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. But their two solo films felt as self-contained as anything Marvel Studios has ever made, both in terms of story and the unique voice and tone that writer/director James Gunn infused into the films.

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Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 keeps that tradition of weirdness, independence and uniqueness that made the first two Guardians movies so beloved. It also takes advantage of all the time we as an audience have spent with these characters to create some genuinely beautiful and emotional moments amid some of the most bizarre, hilarious and spectacular action we have seen in a superhero movie since Avengers: Endgame.

The film centers around the gruff, trash-talking Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), though primarily in flashbacks, as we learn about his origin for the first time while he remains absent from the contemporary action for most of the film. Rocket’s tragic backstory involves a villainous corporate geneticist known as The High Evolutionary, played with venom-spitting ferocity by Chukwudi Iwuji.

“He didn’t want to make things perfect, he just hated things the way they are,” we are told at one point about the High Evolutionary, a description that can’t help but bring to mind any number of real-world “disrupters” who have no plan to make things better, simply the will and power to destroy things as they are now.

Rocket’s story is paralleled with a somewhat wandering but no less thrilling adventure by the other members of the Guardians family, and Gunn does a phenomenal job of making sure every member of his expansive ensemble gets to shine. While every character has their moments, Karen Gillan’s Nebula stands out as a character that has come a long way from her first appearance as a one-note villain to a much more complex and interesting member of the team. Gunn has put in the work on all of his characters, and what we’re left with is a group of damaged, well-intentioned misfits who have trauma bonded and formed a family.

Gunn never stops the action to ham-fistedly point out the family dynamics to us. We see them play out during the normal course of events. We see the friction points, the subjects that rub some people the wrong way, the argument styles that clash. We also see the little moments that show why these people love each other and cling to each other.

Since I’m probably making this sound like an Ingmar Bergman movie up to this point, I need to also let you know that the action in this movie is utterly spectacular. There are about half a dozen big action set pieces that are as good as anything we’ve seen at the movies post-pandemic. There is one scene in particular showing the entire team fighting together in a hallway that I would call a contender for the best superhero action scene ever made. Really.

And this is what you should be thinking and feeling walking out of a superhero movie. They shouldn’t feel normal and average. They should be surprising and emotional and spectacular. They should feel special. For me, as a die-hard fan of the MCU, those feelings have been missing since Endgame and Guardians Vol. 3 is the first time those feelings have returned.

In his farewell to Marvel (he’s now headed to DC where he will re-launch their cinematic universe), James Gunn reminds us just how good these movies can be and how special they should make us feel walking out of the theater. Can the MCU get back to making us feel this way again? Time will tell, but at least now they have a blueprint.