You couldn’t make up the irony in the current co-CEO of DC Studios being pinpointed as the savior of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but those are the expectations to have been laid upon James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
To say longtime fans of the franchise have been growing disenchanted with a constant stream of underwhelming movies and Disney Plus shows would be an understatement, and that increase in apathy has been reflected in dwindling responses from critics and free-falling box office numbers.
However, the Guardians saga has always been one of the MCU’s most reliable offshoots, with the hype and excitement levels rising exponentially as audiences around the world prepare to bid farewell to both the current lineup of the titular team and the filmmaker who turned them from complete unknowns into universally-beloved favorites.
You know Kevin Feige is confident he’s got a winner on his hands when the social embargo drops almost two full weeks ahead of release, so it’s no surprise that Vol. 3 is already garnering rave reactions as one of MCU’s very best.
After the critical and commercial disappointment to have affected Eternals, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in one way or another, the all-conquering comic book behemoth was in dire need of a certifiable smash hit, and it looks as though Gunn is going out on his sword by ensuring that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 single-handedly arrests the MCU’s recent decline to get the stuttering series back on the right track.