Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023, James Gunn) (Patreon)

50/100

Belatedly and grudgingly decided that I should watch this after noticing that my peer group collectively prefers it to the other two, based on its average in a Variety-style "crix pix" roundup. Do not concur. (My ratings for the first two: 55 and 53, respectively. Could've been worse; I've seen much steeper declines.) Everybody must have a sense of my feelings about the MCU content machine by now, so lemme just quickly list the merits and demerits.

I ENJOYED:

• Mantis growing more playful/devious, and Klementieff's continuing ability to be remarkably expressive without having full use of her eyes. 

• Karen Gillan has always given the strongest performance in any of these films (meaning the entire MCU, which doesn't remotely deserve her), and while I don't love that Nebula has become little more than a font of dry sarcasm, given the character's previous volcanic fury and heartbreaking anguish, she's extremely skilled at being female-cyborg comic relief.

• Speaking of which, I'm old enough to remember car doors that you opened by pushing a big round protruding button located beneath the handle, so that whole bit was gold (albeit just a riff on videos of Gen Z and rotary phones).

• While I kept rolling my eyes at Vol. 3's ever-less-vintage needle drops (Spacehog and Faith No More, shark-jumpers both), I'm impressed that Gunn reduces "Do You Realize??" to a barely audible muffle through headphones right before "that everyone you know someday will die," allowing those who know the song to complete the lyrics in our heads. 

• Didn't really care about Quillmora in any of these suckers, but did appreciate that Alternate Universe Gamora doesn't soften much even at the very end, staying apart from the group hug and giving Quill only "I bet we were fun" before returning to the Ravagers. More adult than I expected. 

I DID NOT ENJOY: 

• Woo-ooo-ooo-OOO-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo. 

• Baby Rock Hudson rock yeah.

• The approximately 16,000 times that somebody says "Let's go save our friend" or words very much to that effect. 

• A communication from the Ravagers in which the phrase "totes up to you" is spoken.

• Groot saying "I love you guys" (most shameless cheat in ages). 

• Any of the Rocket flashbacks, least of all the one that explains how he got his name. At least "we named the dog Indiana" was a joke.

• Anything involving Adam, least of all the embarrassing Michelangelo reference. 

• Discovering that half an hour remained after it seemed as if the film had reached a natural ending not once but twice. 

Anything not mentioned above was fine, passed the time amiably enough. Still think the trilogy peaked with the first film's opening-credits sequence (which then got retroactively enriched by Endgame: "So he's an idiot").