Thomas’s review published on Letterboxd:
To be honest, I´m feeling a bit of MCU fatigue right now, I even skipped the last Ant-Man at the cinema, yet I still looked forward to “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”. Found family is my jam, space adventurers are my jam, I like these characters, and I like James Gunn, so not much could go wrong for me. And it didn´t for the most part.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is an entertaining comic book blockbuster with the heart in the right place. It features several great character interactions, some funny and some heart-warming, jokes that land more often than not, cool action scenes, the classic James Gunn needle drops, many badass slow-motion team walks (you could make a drinking game out of this), and a plot that gets surprisingly emotional and even quite heavy at times. It was certainly the right decision to prioritize personal stakes over cosmic, universe-ending stakes for this film. Rocket Racoon is the emotional center of this movie and gets one of the saddest backstories in the MCU. I will always be amazed by how James Gunn took this D-level comic book character and made him one of the MCU´s most beloved heroes. Good for him.
I have my complaints about the film. The main villain is pathetic, the Adam Warlock stuff feels tacked on, the constant screaming at each other got on my nerves, the comedic and serious tones clashed with each other a few times, and the space adventure aspect was underwhelming to me. For a universe, in which you can do pretty much everything, the set pieces aren´t that imaginative. Well, and that I´m not a fan of the MCU´s bland CGI aesthetic is nothing new.
Still, the positive outweighs the negative. The film builds on and rewards the emotional investment we have in these guys and their last adventure as a team has several strong moments. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is not a masterpiece of comic book filmmaking but it has enough humor, action, and heart for a great time at the cinema and all in all, it´s a worthy and satisfying conclusion to this trilogy.
