The feel-good and pacifist turning point of the nice loser Marvel (score 4)- Corriere.it

Who wants too much… Back for the third time to give life to «Guardians of the Galaxy» after his relationship with Disney (owner of Marvel) had suffered a strange interruption (he was fired in July 2018 and was rehired eight months later), James Gunn evidently wanted to aim very high, folding what was a light-hearted and fun comedy sci-fi to the politically correct imperatives that have become indispensable in Hollywood: everyone has within themselves the potential to redeem themselves; no one should consider themselves an outcast or an outcast; friendship is the strongest bond there is and for her one must be ready to take any risk; the defense of individual freedom cannot stop at people alone but must be extended to all creatures of creation, including animals. Not even Kubrick with 2001 he aimed so high…

Too bad that to leave all this space to «messages»Gunn (who directs and writes alone) ended up sacrificing what was the main feature – and winning – of Guardians and that is their being likeable losers, as Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning had developed them for the Marvel books. Or rather: their characteristic is still there and in every situation the seven friends — Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), l Groot tree and Rocket the raccoon — they always give the impression of having stumbled upon them a bit by chance, without really knowing how to behave, but while in the previous two films this way of being of theirs became the spring to trigger the fun and adventure, in this third episode everything ends up being static and predictable, crushed under a flood of speeches that can never really excite.

Meanwhile the winning idea of ​​the original film — having structured each sequence as a mother-scene in itself, capable of «epicizing the suspension of disbelief» [Mazzarella] – has dissolved like snow in the sun. The plot is very thin: the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) responsible for the genetic mutation suffered by Rocket in the past, wants to take him back to carry out his plan to re-found the universe, but his envoy – the impetuous and clumsy Warlock (Will Poulter ) — manages only to reduce the poor raccoon to the point of death. To save him, Peter must find a secret code capable of defusing what the High Evolutionary had implanted in his body and with his friends he sets out to find who might know him. But above all: the various steps of this adventure do not trigger various adventures but rather long speeches where the different positions of the protagonists (Peter’s pacifism collides with Nebula’s deadly vehemence, Drax’s brute force with Mantis’ empathy, not to mention the sentimental skirmishes between Peter and Gamora) should capture the viewer’s attention.

Let’s face it: sometimes even the dialogues by Quentin Tarantino give the impression of being a bit stretched, let alone those of Gunn when for the umpteenth time we hear repeated that the trap where ours are predictably about to fall “is not a trap but a confrontation”. Or we hear the animals cruelly mutilated and modified by the High Evolutionary enraptured by the vision of a sky they will never reach.

No, we’re not quite there. And this, which is announced by the production like the last adventure of the Guardians (although after 150 minutes of film, after the endless credits with the expected “hidden” sequences, a sign announces the forthcoming return of Peter Quill/Star Lord), she ends up being crushed by her feel-good ambitions, because – ça va sans dire — in the end everyone will find not only their redemption but also that better soul they kept hidden inside them. While the obvious happy ending opens up to a biblical-ecological vision that doesn’t spare us even a Michelangelo’s hand that brings back to life those who were about to lose it.