My latest watch was the third, and perhaps final, entry in the Guardians of the Galaxy series. If you've been wanting to get all the details on the origin of Rocket Raccoon, this is the film you've been waiting for. The movie has some pretty heartbreaking moments and that's not just because of the ending which seems to wrap things up for the Guardians. It's also because of just how freaking tragic Rocket's origin story was.
I'm that sort of softie that I will absolutely hate a movie if a lovable animal is killed. So, YES- once I realized that we were finding out about how Rocket and his friends were early experiments of the High Evolutionary, I made sure to go to Wikipedia and find out who lives and who dies so that I wasn't stunned by the death of a furry friend. It's a good thing I did, because several adorable animals buy the farm in this film. But what really surprises me is that because of that treatment of animals, Vol. 3 actually won an award of praise from PETA! It must have been because director James Gunn used CGI animals instead of the real McCoy.
As for James Gunn, I've seemingly made my peace with him. His scandal of dressing up as a pedophile priest really stung me because I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I was pretty pissed off at him at first and it did factor in me not watching this 2023 film when it first came out. But I've learned that if I want to be an opponent of cancel culture, what I have to do is forgive. It's also a tenant of being a follower of Christ. I'm not perfect. FARRRRRRRR from it and I've got to practice the forgiveness I was given by Jesus on others. Even if I've never met them in person. James Gunn in his escapades was trying to be funny. It wasn't a good joke. But it's not worth holding a grudge against someone. He apologized and deserved a second chance.
I wouldn't say that Vol. 3 was a bad movie. I also can't say that its the weakest of the trilogy. But it is long. At exactly 150 minutes in length, I think we could have cut out about 20 minutes, which is pretty much the length of time the Guardians visit the Evolutionary's counter-Earth. What I was initially thinking was going to be the funniest part of the film just felt unnecessary to me. Based on the clip where Star Lord is trying to help Nebula open a car door, I was expecting much more of this movie to take place on our Earth and not a anthropomorphic duplicate created by the film's main antagonist. The animal hybrids were pretty cool looking but I don't think we needed to see how they lived. I would have been totally fine with seeing these creatures walking about on the High Evolutionary's ship.
As for the High Evolutionary, in comics, he's never been a character that appealed to me. But I thought actor Chukwudi Iwuji was great as the very unhinged bio-scientist. Another character that won me over in the film despite not being one I care much about in the books was Will Poulter as Adam Warlock. The British actor brought a naivety to the character for some much needed comic relief since Rocket spends about 2/3 of the movie in a coma. And I just love the Soviet era pooch with psychic powers, Cosmo. That dog stole every scene!
Although the film was very long, I didn't want the excitement to end. I really have grown to love these characters. As I don't have Disney+, I've never seen the Holiday Special. Maybe I will have that to look forward to this Christmas season. FX is showing streaming series such as Daredevil: Born Again. So maybe we'll get lucky!
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.
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