"Guardians of the Galaxy" is both the most playful and least memorable Marvel movie franchise.
Getting ready to see the enjoyable-but-scattershot "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" (which opens May 4), I listed in my head all the things I could recall from the last movie. The list in its entirety? Kurt Russell was in it. He seemed like a good guy for a while, I seemed to remember, but then he wasn't.
You can look that up but it turns out it doesn't matter much in "Vol. 3." It picks up a few threads from previous entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but largely stands alone as a Guardians mission to retrieve a code that will help them save Rocket, the raccoon-like creature voice by Bradley Cooper. He's at the mercy of The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji, going full-on James Bond villain), one of the movie's (too) many bad guys.
Rocket is at the center of "Vol. 3," which will probably delight die-hard "Guardians" fans but might put off casual viewers, who wonder if a creature best known for digging pizza cartons out of your garbage is an ideal action movie star. "Guardians" makes it case by diving into Rocket's backstory. In flashbacks that present him as a cuddly youth who is very marketable as plush toy merch, we learn he's one of many animals tortured by The High Evolutionary in his thirst for power and youth.
Those flashbacks are one of many side trips in "Vol. 3," in which writer/director James Gunn seems determined to insert at least one colorless bad guy for each of his team of good guys, led by sincere Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). Some of those villainous types simply disappear in the new movie, and others, presumably, are being set up for future mustache-twirling, but their use in "Vol. 3" is not always satisfying.
On the other hand, "Vol. 3" effectively picks up the thread of Quill's stalled love affair with Gamora (Zoe Saldana). She survived when she seemed to have died earlier in the MCU but she doesn't remember her previous life or loves, which makes for a pleasingly complicated unrequited romance.
"Vol. 3" also deepens the friendship between strongman Drax (Dave Bautista) and guileless Mantis (Pom Klementieff), which adds emotional heft to what's reportedly the last "Guardians" movie featuring this team (although the closing credits do promise the return of a Star-Lord).
Uneven though it may be, "Vol. 3" continues to demonstrate that Gunn has a unique skill set. "Special effects movies that also want to be funny" is a difficult thing to pull off, as the "Ghostbusters" reboot recently demonstrated. Something about the obvious labor behind huge special effects seems to work against the effortlessness required to create laughs. But Gunn makes sure that "Guardians" is consistently hilarious.
That's true in incidental stuff, such as a running gag about how much dogs hate it when they're called "bad dog," to further exploration of jokes he's been telling since the first "Guardians." Everyone, for instance, already knows that tree-like Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel, only has one line of dialog — "I am Groot" — but that his inflection makes it mean something different each time he says it. Everyone, that is, except memory-wiped Gamora, who is baffled by her colleagues' comprehension of Groot in "Vol. 3" and ultimately says, "You're all just making up stuff he's saying, right?"
In the end, Gamora's lack of memory feels like a decent metaphor for the "Guardians" audience. When it's time for the next movie, we may not remember a whole lot about this one but, with a mostly new set of characters to save the day, it probably won't matter, anyway.
'Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3'
**1/2 out of 4 stars
Rated: PG-13 for strong language and cartoony violence.
Where: In theaters.
