Post by jdv on May 5, 2023 12:10:02 GMT -5
Saw it last night. Right off the bat, it's better than some negative reviews have said - I think everyone in (the packed) audience enjoyed the movie. It's far better then the train wreck that was GUARDIANS 2.
Now beating GOTG 2 is a low bar, but I'd say that Vol 3 is also better than any other MCU flick since the last AVENGERS movie... but that too is a very low bar. It's about equal to the last DOCTOR STRANGE movie, but because it has more characters, GOTG 3 is probably a bit more enjoyable. Suffice it to say that die-hard MCU fans will likely dig it, if only because it's competently made.
Vol 3 has lots of humor, but like many James Gunn movies it is also grim too - there's LOTS of mutilated/augmented animals throughout the film, so much so that younger children - say 7 and younger - are very likely to be upset by this movie. It's a bit like the Wolverine/weapons X plot line but for Rocket Raccoon - ie, lot's of painful memories/flashback scenes.
Yet despite the grim tone of many scenes, the film is clearly aimed at younger viewers - the plot is super simple and relies almost completely on your affinity for the characters. The villain is not great either - he's either very quiet and polite, or screaming when he's being "evil" - and the fantasy element of this movie is so strong as to make STAR WARS look like a scientifically accurate film series.
The film, while being packed full of jokes, still feels a bit laden down with the weight of not only trying to be better than the last God-awful sequel, but also with trying to right the MCU ship, which has seen ever lower quality and slumping ticket sales. Gunn himself of course has had a myriad of public relation nightmares since the first GOTG, and all of that I think seeped into the filming.
It has nowhere near the effortless charm and confidence of the first film, yet it's trying very very hard to match it. It has more charm and true comedic moments than something like recent MUNSTERS reboot, but suffers from the same problem - it's so desperate to be light on its feet that it feels like the GOTG 3 is always looking over its shoulder.
And an example of that is the extensive use of pop songs to prop up the movie. The 70's pop songs made sense in the first flick, and had a lot of charm. The songs in Vol 3 don't really match any kind of story/character need and are simply in the movie because they could afford the rights to use them. THOR LOVE & THUNDER did the same thing, and that's not a compliment.
Every time a pop song started blasting for no apparent reason, I could almost hear James Gunn saying, 'Member when we did that in the first movie? 'Member?".
The film, like virtually all modern Hollywood big budget films, it waaaaay too long. Like maybe an hour too long. Given the extremely simple plot and less than great villain, two and a half hours is a crazy long run-time. Such a run time is fine for BRAVEHEART or THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but for a children's film with talking raccoons, it becomes a bit of a chore to get to the end of the movie.
So while GUARDIANS 3 limps to the finish line, it does get there. I think it will be a modest hit - the good outweighs the bad, it's not woke, and in the end Chris Pratt is incredibly charismatic and believable that the movie still ends up working. The characters are all still mildly interesting, and there's plenty of eye candy.
It's the lightest of scifi/fantasy fluff, but is still a decent family flick to start off summer and a decent end to the GOTG franchise.