Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
IMHO,
Vol. 3 is mediocre, not only easily the least of the trilogy, but one of the lesser MCU movies, period. (In terms of personal preference, it probably makes it into my bottom five, ahead of only
Black Widow,
Quantumania and
Captain Marvel.) I figured we were in for a rough ride when, right after being told one of our heroes was on the verge of death, requiring a quest to rescue, only for another pop song to fire up in the cockpit, and while things didn't exactly get
worse from there, they didn't get too much better, either.
I don't mind dark subject matter (the animal experimentation scenes didn't bother me), but in this case I found the darkness/wacky humor balance to be off. I don't love
Vol. 1, but in that movie, Drax worked as a primarily funny character despite his tragic past because said past was only discussed. We didn't see flashbacks of him meeting his wife, his kid being born, his wife and kid being killed, him attending their funeral, etc. Well, in this movie, we
do see stuff comparable to that, and the whole plot is one big race to save a life. This clashes with Gunn's oddball characters and wacky banter, which itself is not as fresh or funny as it was during the gang's last outing six whole years ago. What's more, the movie is overlong, the action climax isn't particularly involving or spectacular, and, as Gieferg noted, the character arcs are fairly limited.
In conclusion, I'll have fun with
Vol. 2 again, but I don't see myself revisiting this one. Turns out the best
Guardians movie of the year by far
stars Chris Pine.
Vol. 1:
B
Vol. 2:
B+
Vol. 3:
C