"What's that supposed to mean" I hear you asking, a dribble of chocolate milk running from the corner of your mouth. "You want him to make worse movies or something?"
Obviously not. Good movies are good. Great movies are great. I have no complaint with the overall quality of the Guardians films, but I do have inherent beef with the way he so effectively plays with my emotions! Look, back in 2014, when the first movie launched, we were all on the same page about how silly the whole concept was. A sentient tree and a talking raccoon were two of the main characters, and the movie seemed to be on board with us about that! The trailers made it clear this was going to be a comedy, and a comedy it was. A very effective comedy, in point of fact, and probably still one of the funniest movies in the MCU. Top 4 at least.
But it was also a very well made movie! We were expecting goofy raccoon and tree, and we got an ensemble cast developed from nothing to relatable with a remarkably deft touch in a short enough space of time that we still had a chance to get emotional several times at the end. I didn't cry the first time I watched it, but no doubt "We are Groot" made me tear up a bit once I realized that, yeah, he was gonna die. Guardians expertly mixed emotional character beats with thrilling action and outrageous humor, and it seemed like the kind of alchemy that was only ever going to work once.
And then Vol. 2 came out, and if anything, mixed even stronger emotional character beats with even more thrilling action and even more outrageous humor. It was incredible to see how the characters that had been so brilliantly developed in the first one continued to grow, and how several of them grew from erstwhile tenuous allies and outright trying-to-stab-her-sister enemies to companions and Mary Poppins (also father figures). None of that felt forced, and the introduction of new characters like Mantis and Kraglin was just as deft as the first film had been with rapid, effective characterization. Heck, the only part of that movie that felt forced was Ego, which tracks, because as it turned out he was a dick.
So Vol. 2 managed to one-up the first one in every measurable metric, and it did in fact make me cry a couple of times on my first viewing. Still does, in fact. Even though I know it's coming every time, the line "He may have been your father, but he wasn't your daddy", despite the obviously intentional cultural baggage, still gets me. It seemed frankly impossible that simply doing the same thing again would pack anywhere near that level of impact.
Which brings us to now, and Vol. 3, and the fact that it is somehow even more emotional, more thrilling, funnier, and just completely better than the first two movies and I am sick of James Freaking Gunn doing this! Remember how I whined about how Endgame made me cry a couple of times and so even though I thought it was probably better made than the original Avengers it wasn't as infinitely rewatchable for me personally? Well as it happens James Gunn must have read that and thought "you know what, I'll bet I can beat that record for that dude personally" because that is exactly how this movie plays out. The last time strong, legitimate emotional connection to characters in a movie caused me to weep as often and as openly as it did during Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 I was watching 12 Years a Slave!! What right do you have to make my soul ache over the imprisonment of a fictional rabbit as much as it does over the actual enslavement of real people, Gunn? What right???
If I sound pissed about this it's because I am. Generally speaking it's not hard to get me to tear up in a film so long as you have any level of craft to your character storytelling. Even Bluey manages to do it sometimes for crying out loud, and not over sad stuff either, just by being really good at making the simple emotional heights of childhood come across believably in the characters. And if you do that successfully with any character, you can get me. But Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 takes nearly a decade of character building, a decade spent in assembling a found family of genuine, believable people, and then uses all of the conflict, all of the loss, all of the joy and comradery and yes, all of the humor of the years we have spent watching these characters to expertly craft a story that puts every single one of them into every single emotional extreme you can imagine. Grief, sorrow, happiness, anger, resentment, forgiveness, everything... it's all here.
And it's all executed on basically perfectly. Quill's arc takes him home, finally, Nebula's arc sees her in control of the life she wants to live, finally, Drax becomes a father, Groot becomes a brother, Rocket becomes a leader. Mantis leaves to set her own path, Kraglin takes on the responsibility of a captain, and even Gamorah, who famously died that one time, finds the trust and companionship she always wanted, even if it was in a different place than we expected. Even Laika, you know, the dog the Soviets shot into space, who was included as an easter-egg at the end of Vol.1? Even she got a believable and touching character arc! I genuinely can-not with how well all of this was handled, these myriad character stories woven together into a tale with genuine stakes, real concern, and some of the best humor in the MCU. I remember being amazed by how funny Ragnarok was while still being quite a tidy character story for more than one character. Turns out that was amateur hour. Guardians 3 is a masterclass.
I'll put one spoilery bit right here as an example of how perfectly this comes together. Adam Warlock features quite regularly in the film, as I'm sure you guessed from the trailers. He's gold, he's strong, and he's kinda stupid. The movie gets a lot of mileage out of him for humor and for conflict, which is frankly just great. And in the end he's unconscious on an exploding ship and the Guardians rescue him, despite the fact that he's been trying to kill them this whole time. This sets up an opportunity for him to have a (quite understandable) change of heart right at the end, and then puts him in position to save Quill after Quill jumps back into the exploding ship to grab his dropped Zune after saving a bunch of baby raccoons.
Just... watch the movie. It'll make sense. And unless you're heartless it'll make you cry. Yes, somehow.
Because in a bit of a weird realization for me, Quill doesn't have his rocket boots or space helmet thing in this movie, and none of the other Guardians can handle hard vacuum. Which like, tracks, but is kinda surprising to me after the fact. So there's a lot going on here, emotionally. Quill has saved his best friend, then stayed behind to save his best friend's little buddies because he's a supportive guy, and then he had to stop for a second while fleeing the exploding ship to grab the music player his surrogate father got him before he died, which, like, understandable, and then he gets stuck floating in space because even though he's clever and quick, he just got a little unlucky. Genuinely I thought he was going to die. It was an incredible moment. And then Adam Warlock, a completely overpowered hero along the lines of Captain Marvel who is absolutely not bothered by hard vacuum, flies out there and grabs him.
And despite the fact that I was actively sobbing and there was exactly zero lines of dialogue it was one of the single silliest, funniest jokes in the entire MCU.
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| Dammit, Gunn... |
So fine, you win Gunn. Vol. 3 managed to be even better crafted than the other two movies because you built on the foundations of those movies (and the Christmas special, and a little bit of Endgame) like an actual foundation. The final installment stands taller because the craft was excellent all the way down. Zero misteps. Well done, you turd.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is probably the single best-made movie in the MCU. It may very well be the best made action or superhero movie in history. It does found family in a way that feels earned, rather than forced *cough* fastandfurious *cough*, and it delivers on every promise the trilogy ever made. All three of the Guardians films are indisputably amazing, and the only reason Vol. 3 ranks so low on this list is because if I'm gonna watch a movie over and over again, well...
It can't make me cry as much as this does.
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