Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Midnight Run (1988)

 I need to add one more to my [perfect movie] list: "Midnight Run" (1988). I don't think I had seen it before until now. It holds up well, it is very quotable, shot and edited really well. You can understand how this guy made "Beverly Hills Cop" four years earlier. I do think the secret of this (and BHC) is character. These characters are really well written and played. Charles Grodin is giving a master class in playing down beat against DeNiro's comedic version of "Taxi Driver". Yaphet Kotto looks like he is going to have an aneurysm - and Dennis Farina is truly a scary Chicago mobster. Added bonus - Danny Elfman soundtrack.
Post a Comment
Read more

Fences (2016)

Fences (2016) is nominally a story about being black in the United States of America in the 1950's. 'Troy' is a disaffected working man that never really had a chance. He is unable to make sense of an unfair world. Viola Davis doesn't get as much screen time (this is Denzel's movie), but when she is let on the scene, she destroys. 'Rose' is setting herself aside to make a life & family despite very little prospects for measurable happiness. Based on an August Wilson play - the magic of his writing is that at its root, this story is about people who set aside themselves for "existence". All people yearn for happiness on this world from their achievements (at least to achieve 'success' & 'happiness' relative to people around them). People want to proclaim they are in control of their situations. People want to be treated generously and with respect. People think that the world, society, economy, and people around them should a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jacob's ladder effect

There is a movie I have never seen, but I know the twist. Think of it as a really grim Wizard of Oz tale where Dorothy clicks her heals and then the audience realizes she was killed by the tornado. That got me thinking about how much of the story telling in my beloved b-movies would be first rate if you just latched onto this premise. If you assume the inciting incident in act 1 almost killed the main character, and everything from there forward is a fever dream or the last brain synapses firing before the main character crosses over. With that lens the story telling just got a whole lot better. Imagine if instead of the script and editing being shite and the directing + acting being inconsistent, unbalanced and paper thin ... instead the cast & crew were students of Descartes' *Meditations on First Philosophy* or Plato's *Theaetetus*. They were purposefully challenging the distinction between waking and dreaming states. As they are soliciting backers, they have a copy of Z...
Post a Comment
Read more