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<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\nWhile Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 is the trilogy’s most “unruly and excessive” instalment, it’s also “sweetly touching”, writes Nicholas Barber.<\/p>\n
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Shortly after the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 in 2017, someone made a fuss about the tasteless jokes that its writer-director, James Gunn, had made years earlier on Twitter. Gunn was then fired by Disney, the company behind Marvel Studios’ superhero films, but because the cast and fans of Guardians of the Galaxy stood by him, he was eventually rehired. We’ll probably never know how the negotiations went, but it seems likely that one of Gunn’s conditions for returning to work was that he be allowed to do absolutely anything and everything he wanted. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 is a film with the colossal budget of a typical Marvel blockbuster, but the sensibility of the low-budget cult horror comedies that Gunn made with Troma at the start of his career.<\/p>\n
More like this:<\/strong> The franchise was always on the fringes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, of course. Its heroes are a ragtag band of mercenaries comprising Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), a manchild who is obsessed by soft rock anthems; Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a tough-talking raccoon; Gamora (Zoe Salda\u00f1a), a grumpy, green-skinned assassin; Nebula (Karen Gillan), a grumpier cyborg; Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a walking tree; Drax (Dave Bautista), a hulking warrior who doesn’t understand irony; and Mantis (Pom Klementieff), a wide-eyed empath with antennae. They’re an endearingly odd bunch, by anyone’s standards. But they’re the least weird thing about Guardians Vol 3.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It starts with the Guardians living in the hollowed-out skull of a humongous god. Then they’re attacked by a golden superman (Will Poulter) who is both a merciless killer and a bumbling oaf. When Rocket is gravely injured in the attack, they go in search of his medical records, and the film becomes a heist caper set aboard a space station made out of pink, lumpy meat. (The security guards’ uniforms appear to be made out of bread rolls.) But Rocket is also being hunted by the insane High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), an interstellar Doctor Moreau whose animal-robot hybrids are disgustingly reminiscent of Andy’s next door neighbour’s creepy toys in Toy Story. Younger viewers might be upset by the gloomy and disturbing scenes in Guardians Vol 3, but you have to admire how wildly outlandish it is. And you can see why Disney caved in and brought Gunn back. No one else could or would make a film quite like this one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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