Guardians of The Galaxy 3 Review: SPOILER ALERT

Before going any further into this review, please be warned that this article may contain certain spoilers.  

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was easily one of the best Marvel movies that I’ve seen in a while. Lately, the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) films haven’t been sure hits – and even have produced a few misses. Movies such as “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, “Thor: Love and Thunder”, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Eternals” all had their moments, but haven’t had the consistent, all-around excellent storytelling and action, and characters that connected to the fans, of prior Marvel movies. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is a return to form for Marvel – packed with drama, emotion, action, and funny moments over its approximate 2.5-hour run time. Although great movies as well, what makes this movie different from the past two Guardians of the Galaxy adventures is that there were no cameos from other Marvel characters or overused running gags, focusing on a more serious objective – saving the Guardian’s Rocket Racoon. 

The movie introduces the High Evolutionary (played by Chukwudi Iwuji) as the main villain and original creator of Rocket Raccoon. Rocket Racoon is injured early on in this film by Adam Warlock (more on him below) and the main objective is for the rest of the Guardians to team up and find (well, steal) information from the High Evolutionary that can help save Rocket’s life.  Through flashbacks in Rocket’s mind, the audience learns that the High Evolutionary has been conducting brutal experiments on lifeforms around the galaxy (including raccoons from Earth, like Rocket) in an attempt to make the “perfect being”.  Rocket ended up being one of the High Evolutionary’s successful “projects” – and even helped the High Evolutionary correct certain mistakes in his experiments.  This, however, made the High Evolutionary extremely jealous, and also believes that the key to perfecting his experiments could be found in Rocket’s brain.  Rocket escapes the High Evolutionary’s prison and eventually becomes the Rocket Racoon that Marvel fans know today.   

The rest of the Guardians go on an adventure to find data that can help revive Rocket – ending up on the High Evolutionary’s planet, Counter-Earth.  This ends up being a thrilling rollercoaster ride filled with emotion as the audience begins to understand that this may be the end of the Guardians as we’ve known them. Director James Gunn once again effectively drives the story, and the emotions of the audience, by using a wide range of rock music during scenes.  

Gunn (who has since left Marvel for a lead role in (re)creating the DC Universe of films and tv shows) once again does a great job with the casting of new characters in this latest Guardian movie.  Chukwudi Iwuji was amazing as the High Evolutionary – a true maniac of a villain. Gunn’s introduction of Will Poulter as Adam Warlock (a very important character in Marvel Comics, playing a large part in the Infinity Saga comic books and as also one of the strongest characters in Marvel Comics as well) works well. Although some fans were worried about Poulter’s ability to pull off such an important character, Poulter’s performance was excellent as the childlike Adam Warlock who was removed a little bit too early from his cocoon.  Chris Pratt, Dave Batista, Karen Gillan, and the rest of the actors playing the Guardians all put forth strong performances as well.

I don’t want to get into any additional specifics about this latest Guardian movie, but there were a few moments near the end of the movie (involving rescuing thousands of aliens and animals from an exploding starship and two characters involved in re-enacting Michaelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” fresco painting) that were over the top and unnecessary.  But these moments overall didn’t ruin my experience watching the film.  

I would rate this movie a 9/10. This movie is a must-watch for Marvel and non-Marvel fans and I will watch it again when it is released for streaming and DVD//Bluray.

If you want to learn more about the characters I discussed above, feel free to visit the Marvel Database online at www.marvel.fandom.com.