Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the highly satisfying end game of James Gunn’s well-regarded Marvel franchise. 

The snarky humor and the needle drops are there. So is the action, mostly of the mind-blowing kind, the delightful set pieces and the striking visual palette with a master’s eye for detail. 

And so, of course, are the characters: Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) leads them into the fray one last time. Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), and even a new version of Gamora (Zoe Saldana). They are all there. Except one.

This time the mission is not just to save earth, but even more importantly, to save Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper). One for all, all for one. We know the drill.

This time around the Guardians have a formidable opponent in The High Evolutionary, who is played impressively by British actor Chukwudi Iwuji. 

Some minor quibbles: the story is pretty generic, the movie feels (at about 150 minutes) a bit long in the tooth, and not all the special effects look great, even though on the whole they look much better than the effects in the recent Quantumania.

For the most part, however, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 sees Gunn firing on all cylinders. Which automatically means it’s the best comic book movie in a while.

So is Vol. 3 the movie that will put superhero movies back on top? I’m not quite sure. I think it will open big, based on the reputation of the first two movies, but it might prove to be more divisive in the long run, based on the darker tone and the go-for-broke mentality that Gunn employs this time around.

Though not quite as violent as last year’s The Suicide Squad, it is even more bonkers bananas than the first two Guardians movie. 

I’m not saying Vol. 3 feels like a big budget Troma-movie, it’s definitely not dirty enough for that. But Gunn is still the guy who kicked off his career with writing Tromeo and Juliet and made his first feature as director with the enervating horror comedy Slither. 

And Vol. 3 does contain both a punky raw power and a sense of the grotesque that you don’t normally associate with a Disney Marvel movie.

So more power to James Gunn, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m sure that a lot of the more hardcore Marvel-fans will agree. But it’s not quite the ‘fun for the whole family’ film that the trailers and internet clips were suggesting.

Now that Gunn is head of DC (together with Peter Safran) I’m really looking forward to his Super-man: Legacy movie, which is now slated for 11 July 2025.