Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
I would consider a dog’s wagging tail to be one of the purest expressions of happiness in nature.
To say the MCU is a rollercoaster of ups and downs is an understatement. There are those that say it’s all been terrible since Avengers Endgame, that since then, Marvel Studios have lost their touch, and now serve their larger story of sludge that leads into the next Avengers movie rather than a story that carries some sort of meaning.
And while there have been some projects I’ve genuinely enjoyed since Endgame (I was a huge fan of Wakanda Forever and Loki, and Multiverse of Madness was really damn fun), I’m also inclined to agree with that statement. To name a few, Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder and the most recent Ant-Man film all bored me nearly to sleep; I had no interest in seeing them in theaters and once I finally got around to forcing myself to watch them, they were exactly as I expected them to be: vapid, corporate black holes where creativity goes to die and I witness my will to watch movies shrivel and die with each one liner.
After seeing Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in theaters and shedding tears, feeling my heart swell with emotions, despite all its flaws, I felt as if I had just witnessed a nebula from a dying star, one last significant, heart-jerking project from a studio conglomerate right before being suffocated under its own weight. 457
And thus, in the months leading up to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, I was hoping and praying that this would be good - and I am so, so happy to report that I was not let down.
Phew.
Even the smallest of us, the ones that feel the most insignificant, the ones not described as “higher life forms” - they do not matter any less.
“Everyone deserves a second chance.”
When that quote was spoken, it all clicked into place for me, and it made me grin from ear to ear. All these creatures and characters, all of the vast lifeforms teeming throughout the halls of Knowhere, they all stand equally - despite the differences among them, the beauty and happiness they exude is contagious (along with a Florence and the Machine needle drop that gave me full body chills). Back to the dog’s wagging tail - in all of humanity’s expressions of emotion and art, there is nothing as genuine, earnest and full of happiness and love as the tail of a dog that is ferociously wagging without refrain.
<PERSON> is the greatest character in the MCU. Couldn’t have asked for a much better birthday movie, and if this is the last MCU movie I ever see in a theater, I think I'd be okay with that. 1009