'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3': A B- for a mostly funny film

The Guardians of the Galaxy were the goofballs of the Marvel Cinematic Universe before “everyone” wanted to be the goofballs of the MCU.

The first film from 2014 pulled off the unlikely feat of introducing five new, disparate, uniquely funny heroes and making fans care about all of them. The original lineup was human Peter “Star-Lord” Quill (Chris Pratt), the anthropomorphic Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), living tree Groot (Vin Diesel), green assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), and blue powerhouse Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista). Since then, the team has taken on Quill’s half-sister Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Gamora’s adoptive sister Nebula (Karen Gillen), displaced pirate Kraglin (Sean Gunn), and even Soviet space dog Cosmo (Maria Bakalova). They also lost Gamora at the hands of her own adoptive father Thanos, but a past version of the character traveled through time, so she’s still around, but doesn’t remember being part of the team, nor does she want to be.