Warning: minor spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

The first two Guardians of the Galaxy movies have been very important to me for a long time. They are easily my favorite MCU movies, and are perfect examples of the comic book movie directing skill of James Gunn. He takes Z-list comic characters that nobody has ever heard of and makes extremely popular superhero movies out of them. My grandma knows who Rocket Raccoon is, and that’s because of James Gunn. Gunn’s style is very effective; he takes those unknown characters and crafts a hilarious script that always has a lot of emotion mixed in with it. I’m obviously a pretty big fan, which is why it’s so weird that I was disappointed by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. All of the marketing suggests that this is exactly what I wanted it to be: a funny, but extremely heartfelt goodbye to these characters that I have grown to care for so much. This is exactly what most are saying it is, but I found the film to be strangely anticlimactic and ineffective. It’s just lacking the soul and personality of the first two Guardians movies, The Suicide Squad, and Peacemaker. I feel like a crazy person when I talk about this movie. Every single review I have seen has relentlessly praises it, and I just don’t get why. I think the four main pillars of a James Gunn comic book movie are comedy, emotion, characters, and music, and I didn’t think that Guardians Vol. 3 did any of these nearly as well as his other films. Not to say these elements were bad or weren’t present, but they are not nearly as effective as his other works.

Guardians Vol. 3 has a lot of moments that are supposed to be sad. If you’re not a fan of watching cute animals be mutilated, tortured, and experimented on, maybe skip this one. While Rocket’s backstory was sad, I didn’t find it to be nearly as powerful as many moments the first two. These segments were definitely the most impactful of the movie, but any other scenes that try to make you feel something just do not work nearly as well as they should. None of the characters get a story arc that feels right for them; they all lack a sense of finality that this movie desperately needs. That’s really my main problem with Guardians Vol. 3: how strangely anticlimactic it feels. This does not feel like the final chapter in the Guardians’ story; it feels like the second to last chapter. That very well may end up being true, as the Guardians will probably be in a couple of other movies, but it really shouldn’t. This should be the last time we see the Guardians together working as a team, and it should feel a lot more important than it is. Again, I feel like a crazy person when I talk about this movie. Everybody is praising it for feeling like a true resolution to these character’s stories, and I really do not understand this. After the first two movies had so many scenes that truly did make you connect and empathize with the Guardians, we get a final entry that gives them half the personality and sentiment of their former selves. I find it very ironic that this film’s tagline is “Once more, with feeling”, as I felt exponentially fewer emotions while watching this than I did the first two.

Aside from my problems with the overall plot, I found the characters to have a lot less depth than they had in previous entries. I’ve always loved the Guardians because they feel like actual people once the comedic layers are removed. Not to say they’re extremely cleverly written, but they have a decent amount of subtlety to them. The Guardians don’t feel nearly as realistic and sympathetic as they used to, and I struggled to feel any emotion towards them outside of Rocket’s backstory. Again, this is largely due to the anticlimactic feel, but the characters themselves are written much worse than they once were. Besides the Guardians themselves, the villains were incredibly underwhelming. Adam Warlock was completely wasted- he’s a very important character in the comics, as he is the one that stopped Thanos. But, in his first MCU appearance, Warlock has absolutely nothing to do outside of the very first scene of the movie. Everybody is losing their minds over how good of a character he supposedly is, and I simply cannot see this viewpoint. The credits scene in Guardians Vol. 2 made it seem like he was going to be menacing and prominent. Instead, he’s a literal child who has no relevance to the story after the first ten minutes. And, as for the High Evolutionary- he just didn’t work for me. The High Evolutionary is being lauded as one of the best villains in the MCU, which astounds me. He’s not a bad villain per se, but I didn’t find him to be particularly threatening, entertaining, or well acted. Chukwudi Iwuji is fine, but I vastly preferred his role in Peacemaker. Yes, the character is very evil, but he doesn’t have any depth. Sometimes, it’s fine to get a villain that’s pure evil (Ronan in the first Guardians comes to mind). But, after the fantastic villain that is Ego in Vol. 2, I was expecting a lot more. Honestly, I think Iwuji would have been a better pick for Kang. I simply did not find any character in this film, whether it’s a hero, villain, or side character to be as interesting or well written as those of the past.

There are funny moments (and quite possibly the best joke in a Guardians movie), but the jokes never land as well as they do in the first two. I would excuse this, as it can be a very serious movie, but the first two had plenty of depressing moments, and still had a good balance of jokes. Plus, outside of some of the more depressing plot elements, it’s still trying to be a funny James Gunn movie. The comedy was just inconsistent; I think that his other films blend comedy and emotion perfectly, and it just threw off the pacing in this one. It has a couple of really good jokes, but I do not remember laughing that much. I felt similarly about the soundtrack; I’ve seen multiple people say it’s easily Gunn’s best soundtrack, and I really don’t understand this. This topic is a lot more subjective, but I don’t think that it comes remotely close to the masterful soundtracks of Guardians Vol. 1, 2, or even Peacemaker. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good soundtrack, but it lacks the variety and iconicity that Gunn’s soundtracks always have. I could list almost every track of Awesome Mix Vol. 1 and 2, and have listened to both countless times. While writing this, I’ve sat with Guardians Vol. 3 for about a week, and the only songs I even remember being in the movie are ‘Creep’ and ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn’. I can tell you the exact scenes that songs play in at any point during the first two, but I cannot recall more than a couple scenes with music in Vol. 3. This is a much more personal criticism than the rest of my arguments, but it’s definitely a problem that I had.

Despite the fact that I just criticized every aspect about this movie, I don’t hate it. It absolutely baffles me how high the reviews are across the board; I thought it was an above average superhero movie. The visuals and cinematography were very nice looking. I liked Cosmo a lot. The one-take action shot is probably the best action scene in any MCU movie. But, in comparison to how much I love Gunn’s other work, it does not compare. Again, it does the four main pillars of a James Gunn comic book project much worse than the others: comedy, emotion, characters, and music. It’s just not the direction I wanted the series to take. I’m not saying I wanted the Guardians to die, but it’s time for their era to come to an end. I would rather have something I enjoy end on a high note than be dragged out until I don’t care anymore. The Guardians really shouldn’t be in any more Marvel projects- they got their trilogy and several appearances in other films, and I think that’s enough. I love these characters a lot, and I’m going to enjoy seeing them in other MCU movies, but I won’t be able to fully enjoy it knowing that Guardians Vol. 3 should’ve been their last role. This is not the ending that the Guardians deserve; I wasn’t satisfied with a single one of their final character arcs. Multiple actors are done with these characters, and I wanted them to get a better finale- the text ‘Peter Quill Will Return’ made me upset. It has the opposite problem of Stranger Things; that series kills off the fan favorite new characters in each season because they don’t want to write them in future seasons. This series is too afraid to get rid of characters because people love them too much. I’ve been pretty harsh on this one, but it’s because I care. I care about the characters, the story, and the MCU as a whole, especially the Guardians, and that’s why I criticize it so much. I didn’t dislike the movie, but I cannot give it anything higher than a 6.5/10.