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Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3 (12A)
Review: If unadulterated pleasure is measured in minutes and seconds, the third chapter of writer-director James Gunn’s big-budget blast through the pages of Marvel Comics packs the lightest payload of gasps and giggles into the longest instalment of the otherworldly trilogy. Running a few seconds shy of two-and-a-half hours, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 opens with a soaring acoustic rendition of Radiohead’s Creep – a perfect, melancholic prelude to the film’s daredevil mission to protect Rocket the raccoon from spectres of his harrowing past. Gunn’s script gets hung up on the song’s lyric “I wish I was special”, engineering a series of increasingly outlandish set pieces that meld physical creature effects and prosthetics with eye-popping digital trickery.
Something doesn’t quite jive about the Guardians’ wistful third tour of duty despite emotional outbursts from Chris Pratt’s lovesick leader, genuinely upsetting scenes of animal cruelty and a surprisingly low-key introduction for Will Poulter as childlike entity Adam Warlock. More of Gunn’s bombastic tomfoolery for your interstellar buck is somehow less at the third attempt, including two additional scenes snuggled into the end credits, one of which comes with an on-screen promise. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is made with familiar ingredients including a generous dollop of dysfunctional interpersonal relationships but serving the same hearty meal a third time doesn’t exactly leave tastebuds tingling with excitement.
Copious supplies of intergalactic booze help Peter Quill aka Starlord (Pratt) to numb the pain of losing his beloved Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to Thanos’s snap. The incarnation of the green-skinned assassin who now controls the merry band of pirates known as the Ravagers has no memory of their whirlwind romance or her gung-ho adventures with the Guardians including Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), vengeance-seeking warrior Drax (Dave Bautista), cute tree-like sidekick Groot (Vin Diesel), Gamora’s adopted sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) and empath Mantis (Pom Klementieff). During one of Peter’s alcohol-soaked stupors, Adam Warlock (Poulter) attempts to kidnap Rocket at the behest of the raccoon’s sadistic creator, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), who conducts unethical genetic experiments under the auspices of correcting nature’s imperfections.
The explosive abduction by the “super-douche with ray gun hands” fails and Rocket is badly wounded in the melee. The Guardians deduce their wise-cracking mammal pal will perish within 48 hours unless they can disable the kill switch connected to his heart. A re-energised Peter spearheads the hare-brained heist of kill switch codes from the High Evolutionary’s headquarters while the team outruns Warlock and his ‘mother’, golden high priestess Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki). Meanwhile, a comatose Rocket lingers in limbo, haunted by nightmarish memories of his formative years as a twisted science experiment alongside Lylla the otter (Linda Cardellini), Floor the rabbit (Mikaela Hoover) and Teefs the walrus (Asim Chaudhry).
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is a moderately satisfying swansong for the current line-up of the superhero dream team but earlier outings had bigger laughs and groovier mixtapes in the soundtrack boombox. Gunn warmly embraces the escalating lunacy and Pratt, Saldana, Bautista and co fall in delirious step, screaming swathes of dialogue above the din unleashed by Iwuji’s deranged despot. The writer-director introduced Starlord almost a decade ago with an exuberant chorus of Redbone hit Come And Get Your Love. By the conclusion of the third film, that love is running on empty.
Find Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3 in the cinemas
