GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 celebrates joy, love, and spitting in a god’s eye
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Written and Directed by James Gunn
Starring Chris Pratt, Karen Gillen, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff
Rated PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours, 30 minutes
In theaters May 5
by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring
Quil (Chris Pratt): I look around at us– and you know what I see? Losers. I mean, like, folks who have lost stuff. And we have, man, we have, all of us. Our homes. Our families. Normal lives. And usually life takes more than it gives, but not today. Today it's giving us something. It is giving us a chance.
Drax (Dave Bautista): To do what?
Quill: –To give a shit, for once, and not run away.
–Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
However many years from now, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe is nothing more than nostalgia for the Millennials and Gen Zers who came of age during its dominance, I will look back and think about one character and one performance in particular. And that’s Bradley Cooper’s voice and Sean Gunn’s physical motion capture as the one and only Rocket Racoon. In the comics, Rocket was introduced as an extended tribute to The Beatles, specifically “Rocky Racoon,” and only had ten appearances in the thirty years after his introduction in 1982 by Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen. One of the great things about longform ongoing superhero universes is the way that later creators can rescue previous characters from obscurity, like Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning did for Rocket in 2007 during their Annihilation crossover. From there, the character has had an upward trajectory of prominence, and is now a mainstay in the comics and every other iteration of Marvel.
Since the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie in 2014, Rocket has quietly moved into the heart and soul of the MCU. That movie, as crystalized in the quote above, told a story of a team of people who had all suffered great loss coming together to try and fight something they could barely understand. Like The Avengers, but a little weirder and a little sadder. Rocket has a chip on his shoulder, but reacts with anger whenever he senses he is being belittled. His arc in Vol. 2 has him bonding with Yondu (Michael Rooker) over how they both “push away anyone who's willing to put up with you 'cause just a little bit of love reminds you of how big and empty that hole inside you actually is.” Rocket’s sense of loss also helps him bond with Thor in Infinity War and Endgame, furthering his development as a character.
So it seems fitting to me that Rocket is the central character in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Sent by the Sovereign's High Priestess (Elizabeth Debicki) to retrieve Rocket, the newly born Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) shows up at the Guardians’ home and takes out the whole team before being injured enough to flee. Rocket receives a life-threatening wound, but there’s a device on his body that blocks medical treatment put there by his original creator, The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). And so the team goes off to save their friend, no matter the cost to them. What follows is a fairly straightforward adventure flavored with Gunn’s affinity for violence, dark ideas, and heart.
We also get firsthand glimpses of Rocket’s backstory. How he was genetically and technologically enhanced from an extremely small and adorable regular raccoon into a verbal and still extremely cute raccoon that walks upright. In these flashbacks we learn more about the demented and soulless ego of the High Evolutionary, but we also meet Rocket’s fellow experiments, an otter, Lylla (Linda Cardinelli), Reefs the Walrus (Asim Chaudry), and Floor the Bunny (Mikeala Hoover).
While still far more interesting than most Marvel movies–I have definitely not seen a corporately-grown planet made of meat before–it doesn’t quite soar as high as Vol. 2 in terms of visual ideas. Part of that is that there are less locations overall. Still, there are striking images throughout, showcasing Gunn’s prowess as a visual thinker. There are some delightfully gross things on display in this movie, and while not my favorite aesthetic, I appreciate that Gunn was seemingly given carte blanche to joyfully get weird.
Beyond the found family dynamic, if these movies have a central theme, it’s these losers spitting in the eye of (a) god as payback for existing in a universe that is uncaring at best. Ronan (powered by an Infinity Stone), Ego, and now the High Evolutionary, are all forces that can reshape reality in their own image in the name of making things better (for themselves). None of them are as sympathetic as the most beloved MCU baddies (Killmonger, Loki, even Thanos), because their motivation is purely selfish. Ronan was a religious extremist, Ego was an actual god with ambitions to match, and the High Evolutionary wants to use iterative design on life in the universe to improve things. It almost makes him the scariest because there’s no feeling underneath. He’s like a technology company coming in to “disrupt” something that wasn’t actually all that broken. Uber didn’t fix taxis, it devalued the service in hopes that self-driving cars would make it immune from labor issues, and now it is expensive and still sucks. And still no usable self-driving cars. Netflix, when creating their own content, tried to sidestep residuals, and now there’s a WGA strike because writers can barely afford to work. Don’t even get me started on BuzzFeed News or Vice.
The High Evolutionary does his experiments on “lower” lifeforms because he doesn’t value them, and wants to push things forward ahead of their natural evolution. His treatment of animals is so heinous and disturbing that Rocket carries guilt for even existing. Too often, those with power don’t even try to factor in the workers, families, or people impacted by their whims. And in the spacefaring MCU, that’s where the Guardians show up to stand up for the rest of us. All gods (billionaires) need to be taken down a peg or two, and seeing someone as haughty, pompous, and self-delusional as the High Evolutionary taken down a few pegs is pretty cathartic.
With its continued themes of the first two movies and character deepening, Vol. 3 feels like a true trilogy capper in the way the MCU has never actually allowed to happen before. While it (by necessity) feels like it has to leave the door open on at least some of these characters, this is a fine send off. That’s what I kept coming back to when I was reflecting on this movie. Superheroes are designed to go on forever, and when they do get endings, like Alan Moore and Curt Swan’s elegiac “"Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" Superman story, they aren’t ever meant to be permanent. There is no real happily ever after for Batman.
So why do they keep going? Putting aside corporate and fan demands, why do these characters choose to get out of bed in the morning? Ultimately, for the Guardians, it isn’t about “with great power comes great responsibility.” In a galaxy as big as theirs, they don’t have much power, especially when they keep coming up against godlike beings. But it’s because they love each other and they know what it’s like to lose that love. They have been defined by their loss, but found restorative healing in each other, and want to do their best to minimize that loss for everyone around them. Vol. 3 has some of the darkest moments in the entire MCU, but there is so much joy to be had here too. The love of the people closest to us–family, friends, found family, whatever–is the most important thing in the universe. It is the thing worth living for, and worth fighting for. That’s ultimately what this trilogy of movies is about. As The Boss reminds us over the closing credits:
For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
–”Badlands,” Bruce Springsteen