Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is a bit hard to watch in some scenes.

This is a review of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. If you don't like spoilers, you might want to go elsewhere today if you intend to see it.

So, I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. It's a bit hard to watch in some scenes, because the treatment of the animals (in cages) by the High Evolutionary is pretty grotesque. I was surprised it affected me as much as it did. But this villain (who was obsessed with changing things about lifeforms) was in many ways more terrible than Thanos. Rather than just kill lifeforms with a snap, he tortured and burned them to death. What happened to Rocket Raccoon to make him into what he is was just plain sad. I actually don't know if I like the character of Rocket any better now that I know all of this. But I do appreciate the extent that the character's creators wanted to go to in order to explain his existence. Gunn decided to go dark, and then double downed on that. It was a tonal shift to what I normally expect going into a Guardians movie. Even the humorous banter between Drax and Mantis failed to alleviate the heaviness of the film, which seemed as somber as Wakanda Forever (this was not a fun movie to watch).

Additionally, Adam Warlock wasn't really emotionally satisfying. I've been waiting for this character for a while, and they introduced him in this movie and he was basically a weaker version of Captain Marvel. This is probably (mostly) due to him being a baby mentally. In the end, his inclusion felt more like a studio mandate, but his combination of haughtiness, uncertainty, and naivety has potential. The Adam Warlock I saw in the Infinity Saga comic books was not this Adam Warlock. So, I wonder where they are going with all of this. Maybe it's to do another Guardians movie with Rocket Raccoon as the leader. However, what we got at the end of the credits was: "The Legendary Star Lord Will Return." And this is obviously (maybe) for Avengers: Secret Wars? I guess only Kevin Feige and those around him know the whole plan.

There's also the possibility that Warlock's inclusion was more that James Gunn (who has since parted ways with Marvel and moved to DC movies and Warner) put himself in a corner by adding the cocoon to the post credit scene of 2 and then had to figure out a way to make his inclusion work with the story that he wanted to tell. Considering the High Evolutionary had a pattern of destroying every prior creation whenever he was moving onto his next project, it doesn't make a lot of sense that the Sovereign were made by him and allowed to live when he was done with them. It feels more like Gunn decided that explanation worked well enough to link Adam to the plot of the third movie.

One of the things I did like in the movie was Nebula, who has learned to connect with others in ways that are not built on pain and fear. She embraced Gamaora through friendship with Tony and the Avengers to becoming a Guardian of the Galaxy in her own right. In this movie, we finally got to see Nebula come into her own by caring for others. And she ends up being the mayor of Knowhere, putting on her wings to fight and actually defeat Adam Warlock, and then to find the information on what Rocket needs, and then directing the team to find a way to cure him. It was fun to see the kind of connection that she had with Rocket, and I remembered that she was the only one of the team (aside from Rocket) who wasn't "snapped." So she had five years with Rocket to build a friendship that the others were not privy to, so it made sense that they would be close and that she'd care about him. Also (and near the end) she sheds the last of the toxicity left by her father Thanos and sees Drax the Destroyer as what he really needs to be: a dad. Nebula was hands down the MVP of this movie.

And I want to say one last thing about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. Finales like this tend to come at a cost to one or more of the characters. I think Gunn knew that and used that to keep us on edge about Rocket. Quill (too) towards the end. And, you know we lost Groot in the first movie, Yondu in the second. It was fair to expect somebody to sacrifice themselves, and I got caught up in all of that. But it didn't happen, and that was one pleasant surprise that I liked very much about this movie. They deviated from what I was anticipating, and they actually got a happy ending. That's not a bad way to end things.