
To save Rocket, a cybernetically enhanced raccoon, the Guardians must hurriedly resuscitate him with his original programming. Adam Warlock (Poulter), an artificial being created by the High Priestess Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), comes careening into their lair, leaving Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper and played in motion capture by Sean Gunn) on his deathbed. The group - including Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) - is quickly sent into emergency mode. “Guardians 3," unfortunately, has contracted a touch of “Endgame" grandiosity. Donning a degree of self-importance is probably the most Marvel thing about this “Guardians." Gunn's films - which, unlike most of the comic-book studio's releases, are both written and directed by him - have always stood out for their distinct lack of Marvel house style. I've always liked these films at their most cartoonish. Whether “Guardians of the Galaxy” is best suited to strike these solemn notes, or reach for such last-chapter poignancy in “Vol. Radiohead's “Creep” casts a sour mood over the Guardians, who we find in a lethargic state of disarray in the spaceport Knowhere following their 2017 “Empire Strikes Back”-esque second chapter. The song, though, that kicks off “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. And for even a movie that sends a golden-hued Will Poulter shooting through space to the tune of Heart's “Crazy on You,” that earnest belief goes a long way.

Yet whatever this sweet, surreal sci-fi shamble is that Gunn has created, everyone here seems to believe ardently in it. Sometimes it spoils some of that effect by trying too hard to juxtapose tonal extremes, and show off its brash juggling act. But you rarely question whether Gunn's heart is in it. A ragtag group of outcasts, more so than even the cast of “Fast and the Furious,” talk a lot about “family” and “friends.” Against the odds, “Come and get your love” has turned out to be a legit invitation.


Cynical exteriors cloak sentimental emotions. Breezy ‘70s rock papers over extreme violence. 3.”īut as Gunn has showed over over the course of these increasingly soupy sci-fi spectacles, the genetically spliced DNA of his chaotic, cartoonish cosmic vision is a double helix of opposites. When Peter “Star-Lord” Quill, while inspecting a murky extraterrestrial region, pressed play on Redbone's “Come and Get Your Love" in the first “Guardians of the Galaxy,” it would have been hard to imagine that James Gunn's space opera would ultimately lead to something as sincere, poignant and kinda cornball as the trilogy-ending “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
