When Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) kicks off Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol 3 by beating the piss out of different Guardians, the different beat downs of the different bodies evolve to reflect different forms of pain.
First, he distorts Nebula’s (Karen Gillan) body to untold levels. Nothing we haven’t seen before. Then, he reduces Groot’s rejuvenating body to just his head. We’ve seen Groot (voice of Vin Diesel) grow back limbs, so, no concerns there. Seeing him snap poor Mantis’ (Pom Klementieff) forearm like a twig, on the other hand, hits hard. Very hard. However, it’s not just the injury that will make you cringe. What will especially make you cringe is how quickly and brutally a medpack snaps her forearm into its proper position. Like 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 emphasizes on the horror of regeneration.
When Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) spends a portion of the film on life support, the tension isn’t found in whether or not they’ll save his life, per se, but in the hideous means in which they’re keeping him alive. Just seeing him on life support is as exhausting and miserable as witnessing the flashbacks where the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) perform experiments on, as Rocket gets torn apart over and over and turned into some little monster.
The hype around the film’s grotesqueries is a little exaggerated — Tetsuo The Iron Man this is not. Yet, it does feel like an appropriate PG-13 successor to the horrors Disney could provide in our childhood, like the Donkey transformation in the original Pinocchio, or Sid’s toys in Toy Story. It’s the kind of messy edge that will get kids talking on the playground (provided they’re even allowed to see it: no, it doesn’t border on an R rating, but the film is what PG-13 is meant to be).
The High Evolutionary is a great extension of this messy edge. A manipulative father figure, always shouting at his screeching creations. As it turns out, the being who tore Rocket apart over and over again like some little monster is … jealous, of the little monster?
“How did you know?” he shouts at this little monster. Indeed, Rocket, how did you know the exact expository gibberish that would resolve the violence nature in the High Evolutionary’s latest batch of evolved beasts? This question is asked out of admiration for Rocket the object, and jealousy of Rocket the sentient being. The High Evolutionary’s beings are perfect at listening and useless at discovery, and Rocket’s perfect brain will resolve this problem.
This is what makes the High Evolutionary a fulfilling villain. He sees himself fit to condemn Rocket’s weaknesses but absorb Rocket’s strengths as his own, rather than embracing Rocket as the perfectly imperfect whole that he is.
Accepting someone as who they are, not as you want them to be, is not a rare theme, but Guardians 3 brings a special life to it. Not just through its villain, but through the relationships between our heroes. To briefly catch up anyone confused by the time travel shenanigans: the Gamora (Zoe Saldana) that Peter fell in love with in the first two Guardians films, is dead, killed in Infinity War.
The Gamora in this film is from another timeline, having made a new home with the Ravagers. This Gamora doesn’t know Peter, and doesn’t share or understand their romantic history. This subplot brings out a new side of Peter we didn’t see before. Unlike the first film, where he tried wooing Gamora with dimwitted womanizing, he woos her with mopey mourning, looking at her like a lost puppy dog. He’s still emotionally stunted, but his development reflects his developed earnestness. What’s most essential to the drama, though, is that writer/director James Gunn has no interest in false promises. The movie doesn’t end with our Gamora picking up where old Gamora and Peter left off. Not only are they nowhere near that destination, the hard truth is that it’s not even in sight.
The beautiful truth, though, is that they’re fine with that.
This contended acceptance is present all throughout Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Dave Bautista hasn’t concealed his wish that Drax went in a darker direction. Personally, I thought they went a little too far with his goofy side in Guardians 2, despite loving the film. But when Drax goofily impersonates a monkey to comfort enslaved children, it’s hard not to tear up. Because it’s hard not to recall the passion Bautista had for his friend James Gunn, hard not to correlate Drax’s protection of these children with Gunn’s own history as a survivor of child abuse. Sure, this Drax may have, at times, been a little too goofy for my liking, but he’s the Drax we got, and I’m glad he got to go out on such a lovely and personal note for Bautista and Gunn.
Now the film is, of course, an entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Writing this review made me realize that this might be the last time I volunteer to review a Marvel movie. Because, it’s just so exhausting. When writing these, it feels like everything has to justify Marvel, about how Marvel learned from the mistakes of the past movies, how they solved the “villain problem,” or how the violence has stakes now, or how despite being a big blockbuster it has a director’s singular vision — all that stuff. If I want to talk about the movie as its own thing, I almost felt hard-wired to say “Despite taking place in a bigger franchise, it tells its own contained story.” Even when you’re trying to escape talking about Marvel, trying to escape talking about the bigger franchise and just focus on this beautiful movie in front of me, I feel the need to praise Marvel for not focusing on Marvel. It’s a deeply personal annoyance that I’m simply done inflicting upon myself (especially after Ant-Man 3).
Yet, I sure am glad I get to go out on the beautiful note of Drax the Destroyer imitating monkeys to bemused, hurt children. The note of Peter Quill’s still stunted but still growing earnestness. The note of Mantis and Nebula coming to care about each other. The note of that kick-ass oner that kicks off the climax. And the note of going off into the forever and beautiful sky.
