Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (2023)

 "I was stabbed, you extraordinary phallus!"

James Gunn is back at Marvel, presumably just this one and... yeah, this was never going to not be awesome, was it? Gunn doing Guardians of the Galaxy is pretty much guaranteed to awesome. It just is. And, ironically, the success of this Marvel film, at a time when Marvel needed it, may bode well for DC.

And yet it's not based on the most promising material from the comics. Sad though Rocket's origin was, I had a reaction of pure geeky joy to see some of the other animals from that Rocket Raccoon limited series from the '80s that my eight year old self read as a back-up story in Transformers. Yet this is hardly classic Marvel material. Neither is the High Evolutionary stuff, and certainly not the Counter-Earth stories from the early '70s issues of Adam Warlock in those dark days before Jim Starlin, shown here in very 1970s fashions as a tribute..

This, then, is not promising material for a film. Yet the end result is a triumpjh. The characters, the actors, the cast, all are exquisite. The directing, too, is extraordinary, with some particularly impressive set pieces.

It's a good choice to have the High Evolutionary- Chukwudi Iwuji is superb- as an unambiguous villain, and I enjoyed the way Adam Warlock was played for laughs, and seems to join the team. And that's what it's all about, the team. Every character is likeable. Every character has depth. They are a true family. Heart, humour, awesome direction... how could this film possibly not be amazing?