Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume 3 (2023) Dir: James Gunn
Instagram post:
Where do I begin? How about some context? I'm 2014, when the first Volume of this trilogy arrived, I adored it. It was great fun. Then, in 2017, Volume 2 arrived, and I was less enthused, mainly due to some strange narrative choices. Now, in 2023, writer and director James Gunn brings Volume 3 to screens. Put simply, it is a 2 and a half hour car crash.
Firstly, the writing is abysmal. It has been a long time since I watched a film with such lazy dialogue. It has zero subtext, and essentially spoon-feeds its audience everything, especially surrounding Star-Lord's arc. It's painful.
The dialogue in general is awful, with heavy exposition, needless swearing, over-written character speeches and the typically Marvel childish and repetitive jokes that land maybe 5% of the time, which itself was a problem exacerbated by seemingly every other line being a punchline or supposedly witty one-liner.
The story was frustratingly flawed. The main core of it was so intriguing, and I couldn't wait to see where it would go, but it was hampered greatly by the film around it.
It had so many plot holes or nonsensical decisions, it very much came across like Gunn put very little thought into the plot around the core story he wanted to tell.
The antagonist is forgettable, over-the-top and weak. There is never a point where he feels like he should be feared. The soundtrack was good sure, but it had a tendancy to be jarring at points.
Visually speaking, it honestly felt as though half the film was set up purely to create funny visuals that have no relevance to the story. Oh, and every other shot is either a slow pan or in slow motion, which makes scenes look cool to a point, until its done to death.
The post credit scenes, that are so often what Marvel fans look forward to, are extremely forgettable - case and point, I had forgotten the first one by the time the second one played.
Furthermore, the character arcs are bizarre in some cases, with one of the new characters, who is supposed to be a big deal, being not only wasted and presented as utterly irrelevant to the story, but made to feel like a useless idiot as well.
This speaks to a larger issue I have with the MCU, in which every character now has to be a fool, and every group has to argue constantly. It's repetitive and boring.
Bradley Cooper has some really emotional deliveries of dialogue, but I really did not enjoy his young Rocket voice.
Chris Pratt seems, by little fault if his own in fairness, to get less and less likeable from volume to volume. His dialogue is just woeful.
Dave Bautista is the sole person whose character has maintained his quality of writing, and has remained consistently funny.
Zoë Saldaña is solid enough in her role, but it feels like her character took a real backwards step in terms of development. Gunn just repeats her previous arc.
Will Poulter had a tough task in a wasted role, but is still easily the most enjoyable performer. Karen Gillan has her moments, but suffers from the dire writing, which forces a mediocre performance.
Vin Diesel gives the same performance he always does, which is to say, it was okay, but barely noteworthy.
Pom Klementieff acts her heart out, but the problem is, her character is written woefully throughout the film.
Chukwudi Iwuji does his best to present his antagonist as anything other than a tool for the narrative, but he can only do so much.
Finally, I'll list off some other notable appearances; Maria Bakalova, Sean Gunn, Nathan Fillion, Daniela Melchior, Sylvester Stallone, Nico Santos, Elizabeth Debicki and Ving Rhames.
Overall, this was a waste of a really strong idea, with a sloppy mess of a story and an abundance of terrible writing dragging what could have been a trilogy-defining film into the mud. I had relatively low expectations, but even these were not met.
Comments