Review: 'Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3' puts the humor, and the heartbreak, back into the Marvel franchise

Is James Gunn the only person left in Hollywood who remembers that comic-book movies are supposed to be, you know, fun?

The thing about comic-book movies lately — especially those in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — is that they’ve become overstuffed with ancillary characters and random computer-generated action, not stories so much as vehicles to keep the franchise going to the next one. 

Look at the schedule fillers of “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” or “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” — and, if I’m being honest, “Thor: Love and Thunder” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and the last two “Spider-Man” movies were good, but it’s been four years since “Avengers: Endgame,” the last time the MCU was really firing on all cylinders. (Oh, I forgot about “Eternals” — but so did you.)

Gunn is back as writer and director for the third full-fledged trip with the Guardians of the Galaxy, the ragtag, foul-mouthed, regularly bickering heroes of the cosmos — and it’s great getting the gang back together, even though it’s strongly hinted that camaraderie has a sell-by date.

We find Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), aka Star-Lord, drowning his sorrows over the Thanos-caused death of his beloved Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) — and having trouble reconciling that an alternate-timeline Gamora is alive and well, hanging out with Quill’s old friends, the Ravagers, without any memory of their romance.

Quill can’t wallow in self-pity for long, because something serious has happened to Rocket, the Guardian’s cantankerous small mammal who doesn’t like being called a raccoon. Some of our minor villains — primarily Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), the high priestess of the Sovereign, with whom the Guardians tangled in “Vol. 2,” and her super-powered creation Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) — launch an attack on the Guardians’ HQ, and in the melee, a kill switch in Rocket’s heart is primed.

It’s up to Quill and the team — monster-sized Drax (Dave Bautista), surly android Nebula (Karen Gillan), telekinetic Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and human-sized plant Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) — to dig into Rocket’s origins, to find the code to deactivate the kill switch and save his life.

Gunn sets off the flashback machine, to show us Rocket’s backstory as a raccoon pup given bionic enhancements and other doodads. Here’s where we meet the movie’s main big bad, a megalomaniacal scientist called the High Evolutionary — played by a genuine Shakespearean actor, Chukwudi Iwuji, who classes up the proceedings with his performance. 

The Guardians’ journey goes through some entertaining turns, from a biotech firm’s space station of a corporate headquarters to a counter-Earth that’s surprisingly suburban. The most ferocious action set piece is a battle in a giant corridor, which looks like the hallway fight in “Oldboy” redone as a rotating 360-degree computer-aided single take.

Now there’s nothing surprising about the way Gunn melds action with snarky humor — it’s the backbone of the “Guardians” franchise and the two “Suicide Squad” movies he’s made for DC/Warner Bros. What is surprising is how much heart and soul he wrings out of this frenetic story, particularly in the telling of Rocket’s tragic history. Give some credit to the visual effects team, and to Bradley Cooper’s vocal performance, which adds some world-weary heartache to Rocket’s cynical default setting.

Everything in “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3” hints that this is our group’s last ride together, and that’s OK because it’s such an enjoyable ride. The saddest part for MCU fans is the happiest for comic-book movies in general, because Gunn is moving over as co-leader of Warner Bros.’ reboot of the DC universe — and it will be fascinating to see what he can do with a goody-goody like Superman.

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‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, May 5, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, strong language, suggestive/drug references and thematic elements. Running time: 150 minutes.