payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
Drone operator? They dont even get shot at all!
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I think you're judging it pretty harshly.
This is an entirely different grade to the other recent Marvel movies. It's an actual movie. A film, that you could watch, with stuff to care about, and characters and a plot and cinematic stylization. Whereas most recent Marvel movies have just been a dull story slowly told with some very cliched character development.
I think about 80% of this movie landed, which like, is incredible for an MCU movie post-Endgame, just incredible.
I do agree that it wasn't quite as sharp as the previous two movies - I think two was extremely good myself, probably the peak of the series - but it's still an actual movie that people will watch and feel things about 10 or 20 years from now, which they absolutely will not about Wakanda Forever or Multiverse of Madness. 20 years from now, those movies will be watched by completist nerds and no-one else. This movie will be watched people who want to see a good movie - if kind of a goddamn upsetting one!
I mean, it's a brutally manipulative movie - Gunn a brutally manipulative writer and director and I wouldn't have it any other way. He's not particularly subtle, but he's also not completely reliant on heavily-used tropes and cliches in the way most of the MCU is constructed. (I will say there was one cliche that didn't really work - the "you have to go back now" - that was just a bit too obvious for a Rocket plot point)
One thing I really wanted to highlight is the visual design - not only has it been consistent across three movies (not true of any other MCU trilogy, not even Spider-Man, which had the same director on each), it's really distinctive and impressive and really works (and the videogame, despite using different "spins" on the characters, was able to ape the distinctive style very effectively). Add to that consistent characterisation and use of sound/music (again, even Spider-Man, the closest the MCU has got to this, isn't quite there), and even a consistent tone across the movies, and you have something kind of tremendous.
I will say I felt like this was kind of ridiculous as a 12A (and I presume a PG13 which is basically the same thing, in US terms), because jesus bloody wept this would have screwed me up a lot worse than, uhhhh, any 15 I can even think of, if I was, 11 when I watched it (let alone younger jeeeeeeeeeeeeesus). It's frequently quite scary, there are a lot of genuinely horrifying images, the stuff with Rocket's friends is beyond brutal, the High Evolutionary is quite alarming, there's a huge amount of people being chopped in half, swords through chests and so on. Like Top Gun Maverick and Everything Everywhere were both 15s last year, and they're waaaaaaaaaaay less upsetting than this movie. I guess more evidence, were it needed, that the BBFC is hopelessly subject to regulatory capture.
Anyway it was a good movie - great to see an actually-good MCU movie! Albeit from the director/writer who is now going to be in charge of DC's movies going forwards.
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
Thats fair, I haven't seen much post endgame Marvel, so perhaps, its worse than I imagine?
Im not sure about this third one. Probably included because its part of an excellent trilogy, but certainly not on its own merits.
I felt like this is where the movie really failed for me. The wanton violence played for laughs, and then used for feels just didn't contrast well for me. Both ended up feeling off and thus I enjoyed the film much less for it.
Cant argue visual design, it has remained consistent for Guardians. Though, I felt like something was off with the awesome mix. Perhaps Gunn felt he was off the hook of the 70's but it just was all over the place and too obvious. I liked it better when Starlord was our vicarious character into this world. Int he past, the awesome mix was like a background character, and in this film it felt forced into the front with everyone else. I didnt care for it.
Yeah, the themes didn't line up with much of Marvel. Got pretty dark at times too. There were faces to the violence which is usually against faceless stormtroopers, emotionless aliens, or beasts. G3 certainly gave a lot of emotion and character to folks that were getting caught into fights. Thats on top of the animal experimentation and other themes.
Again, I didn't dislike the movie, I do think it was a good flick. I just felt like it was below the high bar set by the first two.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I mean, that's not saying much. I can think of exactly three "third movies in a trilogy" which get watched on their own merits, and I'm doubtful that there are many others:
1) Three Colours: Red
2) The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
3) Army of Darkness
In all three cases it's because they're pretty much stand-alone stand-out movies. Most third movies in a trilogy are somewhere between car crashes (Godfather Part III, TRoS, Blade Trinity, etc.) and a significant step down (RotJ, Spider-Man 3, Mummy 3, Matrix Revolutions, etc.). I would argue this isn't even enough of a step down to fit into the latter category.
It's the bolded bit.
"All over the place and too obvious" is a good summary of Awesome Mix Vol 1 and Vol 2, so that's not really getting into this imho.
What we're really seeing is that Gunn's musical taste re: the 1970s and the 1980s is a lot better than his musical taste re: the 1990s and beyond. The thing I thought was very weird was that we were shown the Zune being set to "1990s", yet like, what, two songs were from the 1990s at all?! And only one of them was real "'90s banger", and the 1990s is absolutely full of bangers. The vast majority of the songs remained early 1980s ands late 1970s, and those were good, sure, but like don't pretend you're doing 1990s when you're not! I'm pretty sure The Batman had more 1990s music in it than this.
Particularly what we can say is that is that the last song was just the most mainstream advert-rock track choice possible. I mean for god's sake, not only are you picking Florence + The Machine (an utterly MoR/safe choice), but you're picking their most overplayed and generic-sounding song (Dog Days Are Over). Also barely even '00s as it's from 2009 and really represents a sound that went big in the early 2010s. Why not just play Mr Brightside if you're going to go that mainstream?! It's actually a bit more of a banger!
My strong suspicion is that the 1990s is like, a "dark decade" for Gunn, where he just wasn't paying attention to new music, because there are so many 1990s bands that go so extremely hard and would have fit extremely well with the general vibe - The Prodigy, RHCP, Garbage, RatM, The Spice Girls (100% serious), Smashing Pumpkins, The Cranberries, Massive Attack, and a zillion more (and that's just the mainstream). I mean, fair play in that a lot of people have a decade (more in some cases) where they stopped listening to much new music, but they should have just skipped that decade in that case. Also I continue to suspect that a James Gunn '00s or '10s playlist would be resolutely MoR and no deep cuts at all, like even a nerd like me could do a better '00s or '10s playlist (I know I could do a better '90s one). Stick to what you know, Gunn!
This film shat on all other post-Endgame MCU stuff from a great height, so yeah.
The defining characteristic of post-Endgame MCU movies has been that they tell a story in a very rote and unstylized way, and barely even seem to be movies in many cases. I'd call them "extended videogame cutscenes", but honestly, there are videogame cutscenes with a lot more artistry and cinematic flair than some of these movies (especially say, Metal Gear Solid games - one of which I believe has a 90 minute cutscene).
It's like they've all been given this bigass list of references and plot points that they absolutely have to include, and the movies are often more about "advancing the plot" and "introducing characters" than anything else. There's also been a general soullessness and generic-ness that, for all the flaws GotG3 might have, it didn't have.
Last edited:
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
I look at it this way, lets say neither G1 or G2 were made. All these characters were introduced in other Marvel films. Now lets say G3 was the first stand alone Guardians film. It wouldn't have the admiration that the other two got. Not even close. Just because thats how trilogies usually go, isnt really a defense in my opinion. Im not trying to actively hate on G3, I just am not willing to let it ride on the tailwind of the first two movies which I felt were superior.
Yeap. A few other things I wish he would have stuck to less obvious songs as well. Awesome mix always had radio hits, but never the obvious megahits. For example, if the songs were 80s, they wouldn't have used Welcome to the Jungle by GnR, but instead Rock you like a Hurricane by Scorpions. Despite eyerolling at an action sequence to a Beastie Boys track, at least it wasnt Fight for your Right or especially Sabotage. I eyerolled hard at Dog Days are Over as well.
The real shame was that they rolled credits with the perfect song I will Dare by The Replacements. I just thought to myself, "damn why didnt they pick tunes like this for the whole film???"
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I get what you're saying, but you're significantly wrong, just not quite in the way you might expect.
If this was the first MCU movie like this, and it had all this stuff in it, people would absolutely love it and be surprised and excited by it - there'd be weeping that they were losing this dude to DC. There'd be no similar-but-superior movies to compare it against - so all this stuff would be novel and shocking and cool. Stuff like the use of music, the deep cuts to '70s and '80s stuff? People would be blown away. The darker tone? People would be impressed. The way the characters interrelated? People would be like "Wow, they got Avengers-level chemistry in the first movie!" (which, note, GotG did have, so this isn't cheating). People would be like "This is so different from other MCU movies!" and "This is such a better movie-as-a-movie than almost any MCU movie!" and so on.
It absolutely is "that's how trilogies go" and your own thought experiment actually proves that! Literally the only reason you're not going "Wow this is remarkably good for an MCU movie!" is that it's got two superior relatives. Stuff that makes the original movie special is very difficult to replicate in sequels - what's really remarkable here is that GotG2 is (imho) a better movie than GotG.
THAT SAID, I do agree that the others are better - just that this is a relatively small drop-off. For me I'd say the first one was like an 8.5, the second a 9.0, and this like an 8.0 (grading on a really superhero-centric curve here, to be clear). Normally the drop-off is a lot steeper - see Die 1/2/3 for example. Die Hard is basically a straight classic highly rewatchable era-defining masculinity-defining-for-a-generation* movie so a 10.0 (or at worst like a 9.5 classic action thriller). Die Hard 2 is a lot more of a standard action movie that's trying to do the Die Hard tropes. On a very good day it's an 8.0 but I'd say more like a 7.0. And Die Hard 3 is a clunky reused Lethal Weapon script with literally two things people remember about it - more like a 6.0. And that's being generous.
Yes total agreement to all of this. And yeah I was thankful it wasn't bloody Sabotage. Re: The Replacements, I really think Gunn got out of his element because he foolishly gave himself that Zune, thus freeing himself of the constraints of his own good-quality musical taste, leading us to a sort of final celebration that to me looked and sounded like an Xmas advert for a very middle-class department store - John Lewis, specifically - I'm not quite sure what the US equivalent would be - Target is a lot like John Lewis but a bit downmarket from it. I'm still reeling from him using that, it's like so profoundly antithetical to the rest of what he's saying. It speaks to his age, I think. This is a song so profoundly safe and MoR I could see the current Labour party (an ultra-centrist party) using it in a party-political broadcast. If they haven't already.
* = there's been some good discussion of this - Kill James Bond talked about it a bit for example.
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
Wait...you think Die Hard 2 was a better movie than Die Hard 3?
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I watched both over Xmas, and yeah. I didn't remember it that way though. Certainly it's a better Die Hard movie even if it's not a better movie. I have to admit I've never watched 4 or 5.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Die Hard 2 has PacBell phones at Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia! NEVER FORGET!
froths with anger and frustration
froths with anger and frustration
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
Oh, I do not recommend watching 4 or 5.
Similar Threads
