Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Review

Gunn finally makes the film the first two were reaching for. The spine is Rocket's origin, a caged animal experimented on alongside three friends by a scientist who wants to improve creation, and Gunn refuses to soften any of it: the sequence with Lylla is the cruelest thing this studio has released and the film is better for having the nerve to keep it. Chukwudi Iwuji plays the High Evolutionary as pure petulant vanity, a god who screams when his work disappoints him, and he is the only villain in the run whose ideology connects directly to the heroes' wounds.

The corridor fight near the end, one apparently unbroken take set to a punk track with every character used precisely, is the best choreographed sequence here by a distance. Against that, the film is long and its middle sags inside a fleshy space station whose gross out design outstays the joke, Gamora's amnesiac return repeats an emotional beat the trilogy had already resolved, and the needle drops occasionally do work the scenes should be doing themselves. Still the most complete Marvel picture since 2014.