Another Marvel trilogy has come to pass, and it has received a decent amount of fanfare. Oddly enough, some of the first reviews I heard were relatively negative, but since then, the newer reviews I heard were more on the positive side. It will undoubtedly be a box office hit, or at least it should be, and after Quantomania, Marvel needs a new big budget success, and who better to do it with than a group of rag tag space pirates, who have a stellar reputation among fans.
Guardians Vol. 3 is mainly centered on Rocket. It gives his back story. He was originally a baby racoon, who was taken to be tested on by the High Evolutionary, and as his name suggests, he was trying to create a new smarter species to create a perfect world, and as we all know, whenever people try to create a perfect society, it always goes well. So Rocket was thrown in a cage with other misfits, who had been tested on to create more intelligent creatures, and they became his friends, but Rocket is different, he has a higher intellectual level than even the High Evolutionary, but the scientist is going mad, because he cannot replicate Rocket’s genius.
In the modern timeline, the High Evolutionary has created two henchmen, a mother and son, to go after Rocket, and to bring him back to his “owner.” When Adam Warlock attacks, he injures Rocket, and when the Guardians try to place a med pack on rocket, they learn that he has an object on his heart that prevents the med pack from working. So now they must go find the High Evolutionary, or at least his labs, so that they can gain access to the device that is blocking him from being healed. To do this, the Guardians team back up with Gomorrah to break into some planet/large base that looks like it is made from internal organs. This leads them to some revelations that end with them landing on an alternate Earth, where the High Evolutionary has been creating his perfect society.
This movie is supposed to be the emotional end of the Guardians, and there was a ton of speculation that some of them may die in this fight, but this ended up just being speculation. Many people have been crediting it with emotionally affecting them. There are some reunions and break ups in the movie, and there is a lot of death, but just not to any of the core members.
Another area that is drawing strong emotions is the massive amount of animal testing that is occurring. In The Fly, an incredibly gross movie from 1986, a scientist creates a machine that is supposed to teleport objects, but it always ends in a gruesome mess, and the evolutionary tanks that the animals are put into in this movie at first, create some nasty creations, very reminiscent of The Fly. The High Evolutionary puts in a turtle in the first scene, and it evolves into a gooey mess of a creature before it ends in its final form as a violent monster, who gets immediately incinerated. Rocket, although he looks like a normal racoon now, right after surgery had a shaved head, where the top of his skull had been taken off like a cookie jar, and he had all of the hair on his stomach shaved from where he was put under the knife, but he looked tame compared to his friends. His friends looked like creations from Sid’s house in Toy Story. There is an otter with robotic arms and legs, a walrus with wheels, which does not sound bad, but looks grotesque, and a rabbit with mechanical spider legs and a weird metal mouth.
All of this adds to a tough PG-13 movie for children. Some of the original Marvel movies had PG-13 for some light violence and some weak language, but this movie decided to push the limits of the PG-13 rating. It had the first F bomb for the MCU, which PG-13 movies are allowed one, but Marvel had not used one before. It also had the animal testing as mentioned. The violence was definitely much stronger than other movies, except for Multiverse of Madness, which had a large amount of blood for a Marvel film. Then there were some disturbing sights, none more so than when Rocket ripped off the High Evolutionary’s face, and his real face is revealed, and he is missing a nose and an eye, and it was just a disgusting mess that was total nightmare fuel, so when I saw a child leaving the theater, who was probably under ten years old, I worried for his mental wellbeing. PG-13 movies are so diverse in what they show, and this is definitely on the higher end of PG-13 movies, and I am normally pretty desensitized, but that ripped off face is ingrained in my head.
Now for the most important part of the film, and the part that took me out of the film from the opening ten minutes. Cosmo. Cosmo is a Russian Space dog, who was launched into Earth’s orbit, but accidently left orbit, and while in space traveling, she got mutated by cosmic rays, which gave her the ability to move objects with her brain, and eventually she ended up on Knowhere, the home of the Guardians.
In the opening scene that all of the Guardians are in, there is an interaction between Cosmo and Kraglin, that results in Kraglin calling Cosmo a, “Bad dog.” When this happened, I audibly gasped, which is not something that I do ever, but I was offended on this fictional space dog’s behalf. Dogs have one goal in life, to be good, so when Kraglin said this, it immediately cut Cosmo to the core, which was so much worse than all of the animal testing that was being done in this film. This should be a war crime, that is immediately punishable by death. No evidence is needed for this conviction other than the sad look on Cosmo’s face. Heart breaking.
I am not kidding, when I say that this took me out of the movie, because I kept thinking about it. So it happened at the very beginning of the movie, and then Kraglin and Cosmo are not seen again for like another hour and a half, because the Guardians are jerks and did not want to take their dog on a cosmic car ride, and dogs love car rides. Another form of abuse towards Cosmo. When Cosmo finally reappeared most of the movie later, she was still in pain, and she was begging Kraglin to please mend the wound that he had created with his stabbing words, but he keeps refusing to do so.
Towards the end, the Guardians are trying to get back to Knowhere, and they are trying to bring all of the children and animals they freed back as well, and there was only one way to connect the two ships together, Cosmo’s brain power, so she saves the day, and she makes sure that everyone survives, but even then, her compatriots are taking advantage of her. Rocket is the last one to leave the ship, and while Cosmo is expending all of her energy, Rocket is just walking and then he stares at a bunch of baby racoons. He is in no rush. Totally disrespected the brain power Cosmo is using. He knows he is going to save all of the animals, but he goes as slowly as possible. Totally despicable. Eventually once everyone is free, and they are back relaxing on Knowhere, Kraglin does admit that he thinks that Cosmo is a good dog, and all is right in the world again, but at that point the movie is basically over.
Clearly the whole Cosmo thing perturbed me, and it did put a shadow over most of the movie for me. Besides that, I could not get emotionally invested in this film, and I love animals, so seeing them being tortured should have had more of an effect, but it did not. To me, it dragged. When I looked down at my watch, and there was still almost an hour left, I deflated. I was so ready for it to be done. James Gunn is known for making movies that are overly violent, weird, and have great music, which are all great things, but for some reason, his work just does not click with me as much as I think it should. Also the music in this one was pretty good, but I think that the music in the first two were better. I give this movie three stars, but it is a step back in the right direction for the MCU, but they are losing Gunn, so who knows what is to come.
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