Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Rocket Blasting Off!

The Guardians of the Galaxy’s third movie focuses on it’s tiniest member, Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), who becomes injured while being hunted by Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) working for the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) who experimented on Rocket, along with a lot of other animals, when he was just a baby raccoon and he desperately needs the singularly special aspects of Rocket’s brain to complete the evolution of a new race in which to create a perfect world.  To save Rocket from succumbing to his injuries, the Guardians must fight not only Adam Warlock and his mother, but the High Evolutionary’s genetically created animal hybrid henchmen and finally the High Evolutionary himself.  Peter Quill / Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) leads the charge with Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Kraglin (Sean Gunn), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and “swole” Groot (Vin Diesel) along for the ride.  They are all ready to give their lives to save Rocket.  Intermixed with the action, are flashbacks telling the back story of Rocket, the torture he went through and the family he forged before he was with the Guardians.

I have some mixed feelings about this film, but mostly I came away really liking it.  It was entertaining, with a good story and some good performances.  There are a lot of action sequences that seemed a bit chaotic and overwhelming, and it is a very loud movie.  A bit too loud for my tastes.  There was some also juvenile crass humor thrown in that I just didn’t think needed to be in the film. The story, for the most part, flowed well and had a good rhythm.  The special effects were good, but as I said earlier, possibly a bit too much and too busy. The music, which is a big part of the Guardian’s franchise, was a group of well-chosen songs ranging from Radiohead’s “Creep” to Heart’s “Crazy on You” and The Beastie Boys “No Sleep till Brooklyn”. See our special article on the Music Of Guardians of the Galaxy.

I did make an emotional connection with most of the characters and the film did move me to tears on a couple of occasions.  The humorous spirit of the earlier films is still present but is tempered with a lot of rage festering in many of the characters and some sadness in others.  This version of Mantis has never been a favorite of mine, but in both the Christmas special last year and this new film, she just seems angrier more than peace-filled like she had been.  I will say that by the end of this movie, I appreciated the journey that she went through and to an extent, this shift in her personality is explained.  Nebula, also goes through a kind of character change, moving from always being angry, to become more of a caretaker of the team. I also liked seeing Kraglin in this film and enjoyed his character growth as well.  The new character, Warlock, I anticipated not connecting with at all, but oddly enough I was surprised by how much I ended up liking his character, who basically has the mind of a child but in a grown man’s body with superpowers.  There are some nice moments between Quill and the “Alternative” Gamora as well.  Quill is still morning the loss of the Gamora he loves, but now thrown together with one that doesn’t remember their past relationship.  Zoe Saldana, does a great job of playing a very different Gamora from her previous version.

Overall, I enjoyed the character interaction and the emotional response that the film pulled from me which overshadowed the weaker points of the movie, and I was satisfied with the ending.  There is a mid-credit scene and an end credit scene so stick around and watch the credits.