I honestly don’t think I could watch this movie again. If you’re anything like me, you would expect humor and great music from the Guardians movies. While this movie did have some good humor and music, it was completely overshadowed by troubling backstory we were given about Rocket.

The whole movie was Rocket’s swan song, and set up to make it seem like Rocket was going to die. Which, technically, he did, but he was brought back. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The movie started with a look at Knowhere, the head of a dead celestial being we first saw in the original Guardians movie. Now, it’s the HQ of the Guardians, which now includes Nebula and Kraglin. And Cosmo, the dog we saw in the first movie as part of the Collector’s collection. Peter was still mourning the loss of his Gamora and drinking away his pain. Nebula became the mother figure, and took him away to sleep off it off, but it was not meant to be. Adam, who we first heard about in the end credit scene in the second Guardians movie, appeared, ready to kill Rocket. This attack is what sets everything into motion. With Rocket gravely injured, and the med packs not working on him, the gang realized they needed to go to the person who had experimented on Rocket originally to get the code to allow them to bypass the kill switch installed on his heart to save him.

This is when things start hurting. Thrown into the movie are flashbacks of Rocket’s time with a man who called himself the High Evolutionary. A man who is unhappy with the universe (sound familiar) and decided he needed to change it. He conducted horrible experiments on what was probably thousands to millions of creatures, including Rocket. Other animals we saw, who were Rocket’s first friends were an otter named Lilla, a walrus named Teeths, and a rabbit named Floor.

For someone with a strong love of animals, these flashbacks were hard to watch. I know that was the point, but it felt like there weren’t a lot of people clamoring to see the experiments and everything Rocket went through. The movie tried to offset these rough scenes with jokes and music when it switched back to the guardians, but a lot of the jokes fell flat. The audience was dead silent after these scenes and the jokes did not lighten that mood. It would take several minutes before a joke caused a laugh in the crowd again.

We saw Rocket with a group of other baby raccoons (I want to know how the High Evolutionary got access to all the animals he had. Is there some sort of animal trade between a human and this maniac?) and saw the initial surgeries that changed him. We saw him met the other animals and how the High Evolutionary became obsessed with him, or more precisely, Rocket’s brain. Rocket was the only “experiment” that could really invent things, apparently, and when Rocket fixed the pod thing that the High Evolutionary used to speed up evolution, it gave the High Evolutionary the urge to examine Rocket’s brain. This is what caused Rocket to escape. During the escape attempt, the High Evolutionary shot Lilla, and Rocket wrecked his face (deserved). When more guards came, Rocket used a gun for the first time and shot them, but in the aftermath, discovered Teeths and Floor had gotten shot by the guards. Rocket escaped, and that’s it for flashbacks (thank god). I, however, would have loved to see Rocket meet Groot. That’s the backstory I want.

In between those flashbacks, the Guardians worked to find the High Evolutionary. First, they journeyed to Orgo Corp, the company the High Evolutionary owned to hide his experiments. To get inside, Nebula contacted Gamora. Naturally, Peter lost his mind, and this caused one of the biggest problems in the movie.

The fighting between Peter and Gamora. Peter wanted her to be the old Gamora, but this Gamora never joined the Guardians and doesn’t know them, overall. So, they fought. And it got so tiring. After the second fight, I was rolling my eyes whenever they talked together. I would have loved to see Gamora’s story and how she joined the Ravagers. She was welcomed back at the end of the movie with joy and she was generally happy there.

I did enjoy the break-in to the Orgo Corp. And Drax and Mantis are always a fun pair. Mantis really used her powers to turn a security guard into a simp for Drax to let them past the check point. And Peter trying to charm the worker, just for Gamora to hold her at gunpoint was a fun moment of showing how Gamora would act without the Guardian influence. But otherwise, their dynamic got rather annoying.

After they found out the true info they needed was with some guy working with the High Evolutionary, off they went. They landed on Counter-Earth. A version of Earth the High Evolutionary made, populated with various evolved animals (which were often rather unnerving to look at). The gang splits up, with Peter, Groot, and Nebula going after the High Evolutionary and Mantis and Drax stay behind with the ship and Rocket. That doesn’t last long, with Drax deciding to join in the party and dragging Mantis with him.

Peter and Groot make it to the High Evolutionary and in true villain form, he decided to blow up Counter Earth because his “experiments” didn’t turn out the way he wanted (some were selling drugs, fighting, etc.). During this explosion, Peter and Groot jumped out a window with the man who had the info they needed to save Rocket, Nebula, Drax, and Mantis got stuck on the High Evolutionary’s ship, and Gamora managed to operate Peter’s ship to save him and Groot. Peter managed to access the kill switch and save Rocket. But not before Rocket died, and he reunited with Lilla, Teeths, and Floor for a moment (cue tears). Lilla sent him back to life and we got a nice hug moment. Then, it was off to rescue Drax, Mantis, and Nebula.

On the ship, Drax had a nice bonding moment with the newest “experiments,” a large group of white haired children. The kids threw a new wrench into the rescue plan. Instead of blowing up the ship or just running, they needed to rescue the kids. The High Evolutionary’s obsession with Rocket’s brain became his downfall. He was willing to throw everything at the Guardians to get to Rocket, and risk all his “creations.”

Kraglin and Cosmo helped pilot Knowhere to where the ship was, and helped attack it. After boarding the ship, the gang worked to get the kids to safety while keeping the High Evolutionary occupied with the fighting out in pace. Meanwhile, Rocket came across the animal cages, where he had been kept, and he found a group of baby raccoons (and finally saw that he is actually a raccoon). He tried to gather them all to carry away when he noticed the rest of the animals. He was then accosted by the High Evolutionary, who quickly got beat by the rest of the Guardians. Peter removed his face and we saw that baby Rocket had destroyed his face and rendered him into a red skull (sound familiar?). Rocket had the chance to shoot him, but decided not to, citing that he’s a Guardian of the galaxy.

The Guardians managed to get all the animals out of their cages and get them to safety in Knowhere, with the rescued children. Peter, however, didn’t make it over safely because he went back for his Zune (gift from Yondu that Rocket was using at the beginning of the movie). Peter was dying out in space, but was saved by Adam, who turned over a new leaf after Groot saved him from the exploding ship. The movie ended with Peter deciding to go to Earth to find his grandfather, Mantis going off with some new friends (Abilisks) to find herself, Nebula and Drax deciding to help remake Nowhere, and Gamora returning to the Ravagers.

Rocket was named captain of the guardians and an end credit scene showed the new team which consisted of Rocket, an even larger Groot, Kraglin, Cosmo, Adam, the little furry creature that Adam befriended, and a girl that was from the rescued children. Apparently, her name is Phyla and her comic book origin is related to Captain Marvel. We don’t know much about her powers since we only see her for that one scene. We also get a second end credit scene showing Peter with his grandpa (and a funny newspaper about Kevin Bacon’s alien abduction from the holiday special). This didn’t do much except to tell us Star-Lord will return.

The movie tried too hard to be lighthearted like the others, and it didn’t land as well with the much heavier flashbacks. I cried, often, when we saw the flashbacks and when Rocket died. I didn’t shed a single tear when Peter was dying. Not surprising.

Stray thoughts:

• Lilla’s death would have had a bigger impact if Rocket had mentioned her name in the other movies, even just accidentally. Her death hit me hard, but in the way any animal death does. If we had heard her name before, it would have hit harder in a plot way.
• The music was not as important in this movie, but there were still good movie choices. Including using the first song we heard in the first movie for the end credit scene.
• Mantis having to coach Drax in what to say to Peter because no one listens to her is such an accurate thing to happen.
• Cosmo is a good dog.

I don’t expect to see Drax again (the actor wants to do dramatic roles) or Gamora (who seems happy with the Ravagers). Nebula, maybe. And I’d love to see what Mantis gets up to on her own, along with the new Guardians. I honestly wouldn’t care about seeing Peter again or not.

Overall, not a terrible movie, but the worst of the three Guardians movies, in my opinion. It gave a lot of backstory, but also struggled to maintain the tone it wanted to go for. If you have a gentle heart, this one will hurt.