Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 (2023) - the olive garden of the MCU

If I had it to do over again, I would have waited for streaming.

A melodrama is constructed for strong emotional appeal. The sensational tug on your inner feely-wheelies takes precedence over the story. There is dialogue which is bombastic and excessively sentimental. Characters are flat as a pancake. The struggle is against some outside force. Music plays a big part in setting the tone and informing the audience.

And THAT is “Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3” (2023). Sprinkle in some visual spectacle and a dash of camp, and you have the James Gunn space soap opera. Not opera - soap opera. It is a giant, velvet drawstring bag on his MCU legacy. The film has lots of shouting. Lots and lots of it. Lots of spittle. Lots and lots of it. Lots of ‘bum-bum-buuu ummmm’ moments. Lots and lots of it. Lots of tears on top of too much makeup. Lots and lots of it. *sigh*

The action setups were game quests with exposition cut scenes between. Many of the jokes were set up - remind you of the set up 20 minutes later - punchline 20 minutes after that. Some of the jokes were set up and then forgot to hit the punchline entirely. There was interpersonal conflict between main characters, but at this stage in their shared history I would have thought these issues would have been worked through long ago.

If there is one thing that I don’t need in a 150-minute movie, it is 20+ minutes of denouement. Holy moly I was ready for it to wrap up. If there is another thing I don’t need, it is a cast party integrated into the movie. It was a spectacle meant to tell me this party was over. It actually told me that my rear-end was ready to stand. I wonder if there are theaters where the audience joined in. I wish I had.

What did I like?

The little bit that Elizabeth Debiki was on screen. They changed her makeup quite a bit, and made her simper and whimper more, but still a great role. There is an exchange with her and the big bad guy that I thought was brilliantly written. This version of Drax was the Drax from the first 10 minutes of the first film - the one who took everything literally. That was good for some laughter in the theater. The new ship they got was cool even if incomprehensibly complicated. The who’s on first / where’s on third kerfuffle before the final fight could have been great, if they would have skipped the drawn own ‘escalating stakes’ that were resolved as soon as they squeezed in some of the umpteen effects shots they paid for.

This movie is fine. If you are looking for a similar tone to the first two installments, you will be a bit disappointed. There are aspects of those films here but that is not what the movie is.