On May 5, 2023, Marvel Studios released the last movie of the Guardians of the Galaxy saga.

Before I get into the details of the third movie, here is a recap of the past two movies.

After his mother’s death, Peter Quill is taken by Yondu (leader of the Ravagers) to live with the Ravagers. On one of the ravages, Quill steals a mysterious orb. 

Ronan the Accuser—an evil villain trying to take over the world— tries to stop Quill from stealing the orb but ultimately fails. Quill heads to Xandar, a planet, in an attempt to sell the orb. 

Then, Gamora—adopted daughter of Thanos—shows up and tries to steal the orb from Quill. Rocket, a genetically modified racoon, and Groot, a living tree, join the fight for the orb once they hear about the value of the orb. Unfortunately, the four are eventually captured by Nova Corps, the equivalent of police in Xandar, and put into a cell. 

In the cell, the four meet a Kylosian creature named Drax the Destroyer. Quill manages to convince them all to break out of the cell and head to collector Taneleer Tivan to sell the orb. With the stone, they are able to vaporize the villainous Ronan the Accuser.

After all of the fighting and life-or-death situations, the group grows closer and becomes the Guardians of the Galaxy. Then, in a battle against an evil creature of the galaxy, Quill and his group were suffering badly and struggling to win; however, Quill is mysteriously saved by his father, Ego, whom Quill had never met before.

Ego created a living humanoid extension of himself and a planet that that functions off of his “brain.” He invites the Guardians of the Galaxy onto his planet and leads Quill to believe that he is good. 

Quill then finds out that Yondu was hired by Ego to collect him as a child, but Yondu never followed through with it. Quill’s father had impregnated multiple women and hired Yondu to collect the children in an effort to take over the world.

Ego then sought to see if his children could manipulate the celestial powers, but none of them had been successful—so he killed all of his past kids who were unsuccessful.

None of them had been successful, until Peter. 

Ego wants to keep Quill on his planet forever so that they can take over the world, but Peter manages to escape with the help of the other Guardians. Right before the movie ends, Gamora admits that she is in love with Peter. 

As for the third movie, some people may expect the third movie to be as light-hearted as the previous ones, but—as a forewarning—it is quite tragic.

Yes, there are jokes scattered throughout the movie, and the characters are just as strange as before, but this movie felt different.

There are scenes showcasing animal abuse and the past of some of the guardians. Some of the scenes are very graphic as well. 

The movie highlights the animal abuse that Rocket experienced in his past, from his past master, the Sovereign and the abuse that other creatures were still facing under the power of the Sovereign. 

The main focus of the third movie is Rocket and saving his life.

Rocket is a genetically modified raccoon, and when he was originally modified the surgeons put a kill switch inside of him to stop anyone from trying to get the technology inside of him.

When a strange creature covered in gold shows up and attempts to kill Rocket, his kill switch is set off. Once his kill switch is set off, his estimated lifetime left is 48 hours. 

So, the adventure begins and the Guardians set off to find the code to deactivate the kill switch.

The plot for the movie was written quite well, but I would have liked to see Rocket’s arrogant and stubborn personality highlighted  more throughout the movie. 

I also wish more of Groot’s strange and unique personality had shown through. In the second movie especially, Groot was very funny and developed a role as more of a main character than a side character. It would have been very interesting to see Groot’s character develop more in the third movie.  

Additionally, the romance development was very unsatisfactory. In the second movie of the trilogy, the directors created a bit of a romance between Drax and Mantis, but it never truly evolved in the third movie. This was disappointing, as I was hoping to see the romance grow and develop into the plot. 

A romance between Gamora and Peter had begun to build in the second movie, but it immediately ends in the third movie, which was very disappointing. I felt as though the directors developed a romance just for it to end almost as fast as it started. 

As this film was the end of a saga, the ending was quite disappointing—though the outcome was exactly what I expected.

Overall, I would give Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 a rating of 3 stars out of five. The plot of the movie was strong, but the lack of character development was unsatisfying.