Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Has Marvel run its course?
In a previous newsletter, I talked about 3 movies that I really wanted to see in the upcoming months, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 being one of them. In that review, I said I was expecting to be disappointed, since the second movie of the franchise was pretty bad. After seeing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 this week, I will say I was surprised by this movie. It was better than I expected it to be. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is another post-Endgame movie, showing the characters trying to rebuild and work together. After an attack from a mysterious enemy, Rocket is severely injured, but they cannot heal him because there is a “kill switch” on his heart that will instantly kill him if they do so. They must find the “High Evolutionary” and attempt to get the passcode to save Rocket, or else he will die.
Let’s suffice it to say this movie exceeded my expectations, which, let’s be honest, were pretty low after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It was actually a decent movie, and although it wasn’t Marvel’s best movie, it certainly wasn’t the worst either! The plot was pretty standard for the recent Marvel movies (evil villain tries to create his own universe, heroes fail at first, but then work together to defeat him). So, it certainly wasn’t their best plot, but like a standard Guardians of the Galaxy movie, you watch it as much for the humor as the actual plot line. There was certainly humor in this movie, and it wasn’t as dirty as in the second Guardians movie, which is good. I was also disappointed on a few different levels by the way in which the movie ended, but that is just my opinion. Overall, the movie was just okay, nothing super special, but also not terrible. This movie was rated PG-13, but like most of the recent Marvel movies, it is on the shadier end for a PG-13 rating. There was a lot of violence and animal abuse, but the main issue is the amount of language in this movie! There are countless instances of most of the standard cuss words, including the first f-word in a Marvel movie. The good news is this movie didn’t have as many inappropriate jokes as the second Guardians of the Galaxymovie. Nonetheless, this movie is probably not a good choice for kids under 12.
So, what does Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 mean for the MCU going forward? Both Marvel movies of 2023– this movie, along with Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania— show that Marvel has most likely run its course. The only excellent post-Endgame movie (excluding the Spider-Man movies), was Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The rest were just okay. While Marvel is certainly still making money from their movies, they just aren’t producing quality movies like they used to. I still plan to continue to watch Marvel movies, but what I’m saying is I don’t expect them to be as good as they used to be. I think this movie is certainly better than the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie and close to the level of the first one. If you enjoyed the slap-stick humor from the previous Guardians of the Galaxy movies, then I think you will enjoy this movie! You can watch the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 here or buy tickets here.