Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3
Overview
Rocket cries in this one. So will you, probably. The third Guardians film takes the saga's funniest character and puts him on a table, dying, while his friends scramble to figure out how to keep him alive. The answer leads straight back to where Rocket came from: the High Evolutionary, the man who created him and never once saw him as anything more than a successful experiment. Chukwudi Iwuji plays him as a self-appointed god who treats living things like drafts of an idea, and he is genuinely frightening. Around that rescue mission, the old magic still works. Chris Pratt's Star-Lord leads the charge, with Zoe Saldana's Gamora, Dave Bautista's Drax and Karen Gillan's Nebula all getting their moments, and the jokes land the way they always have with this crew. The action is big and weird in the best way, but what lands hardest is what the film is really about: a group of broken strays who became each other's family, fighting like hell for the smallest, grumpiest member of it. It is funny, it is loud, and then it sneaks up and breaks your heart. As a send-off for the original Guardians team, it is bittersweet in exactly the right measure.
