IT’S TIME TO FACE THE MUSIC.

During an attack on the Guardians, Rocket is critically wounded and in order to save his life the gang need to find an override code for a kill switch inside his body.

The most ambitious of James Gunn’s Guardians movies, but that’s not always to its advantage. The tone is darker, even mournful, in a film that serves us Rocket’s background story; this time, much more is at stake for the Guardians.

Way overlong, with a typically generic villain, but it does have heart, generous amounts of madness and great effects.

2023-U.S. 150 min. Color. Widescreen. Written and directed by James Gunn. Cast: Chris Pratt (Peter Quill), Zoe Saldaña (Gamora), Dave Bautista (Drax), Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Will Poulter, Linda Cardellini, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Rooker… Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova. Voices of Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Seth Green, Judy Greer. Cameo: Pete Davidson. 

Trivia: At one point, Gunn was fired as director because of insensitive tweets he had written years earlier, but Disney ended up rehiring him.