Finally got round to seeing Guardians 3… What a waste of 2 1/2 hours that was. I enjoyed the first 2, but 3 was just terrible. The “story” is awful. Numerous, cheesy, cliché bits thrown together here and there. Nothing interesting or very cohesive. Nothing ever had a sense of consequence.
Even the soundtrack couldn’t quite save it (though was easily the best part).
“Written and Directed by James Gunn”.
Good luck DC, you’re gonna need it.
I enjoyed it a lot (probably more than 2 but less than 1), and for me the smaller stakes were one of the reasons why it worked.
Marvel have done the huge stakes already and it’s hard to top what they’ve already done - Thanos eradicating half of the universe. Much of what hasn’t quite worked in Phase 4 so far is that they’ve been trying to do exactly that though - it’s no longer about saving the universe, now it’s about saving the multiverse, and after a while the stakes get so big as to be meaningless. When you’ve already done the massive stakes, bringing it back to a smaller scale and more personal stories about beloved characters seems like a smart way of reconnecting with audiences without trying to top the untoppable - at least for a while.
I cared about the stakes in this film far more than I cared about the massive multiversal stakes in Ant-Man 3.