Everybody told me I would cry watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and I didn’t believe them. I don’t really care about Marvel movies - I’m not invested in the characters, and I think most of them are middling to bad, focusing more on spectacle than story. GOTG 3 was not that. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the thematically darkest of all the stories the MCU has put on camera, rivalling WandaVision in its impressive willingness to face the dark parts of human nature. It’s rare that I enjoy any Marvel film, let alone feel moved by it, but reader, I cried, like everyone said I would.
I almost made it to the end without shedding a tear, but I cracked when Drax was told he wasn’t born to be a destroyer, but a dad. It made me think about how the point of the Guardians is that they all have different strengths and weaknesses, whereas movies like the Avengers make their heroes seem more like a monolith, dealing with things as a unit and brute forcing their way through struggles. It’s clear that GOTG 3 is celebrating its characters’ differences and quirks, how they all have something different to bring to the table because of their diverse backgrounds and abilities. They have far more dynamic relationships and conversations because they differ so much from each other in personality, but have the same ideals. That’s what makes this movie work so well.
I was particularly taken with Mantis, obviously. Her power is empathy, which she uses to sense people’s emotions and control them, but empathy isn’t just her ability, it’s her whole personality. Throughout the movie, you see her standing up for her friends, defending their weaknesses because she believes their strengths are being ignored for not being typical superhero fare. She is insistent on finding solutions to problems without resorting to violence, and is vocal about the Guardians being kind to each other instead of putting each other down. There’s one scene where some of the Guardians are confronted by creatures too large to fight, and there seems to be no escape. Mantis realises the creatures aren’t hostile, just scared, and reaches out to them to calm them. It’s a beautiful moment that exemplifies her commitment to kindness.
It reminded me a lot of Everything Everywhere All at Once. I’ve written about the importance of this film to me and how it helped me reframe my relationship to the world and my own parents, but what I was thinking of while watching GOTG 3 was Waymond. In EEAAO, Waymond is an example of radical empathy, who faces everything with kindness. He expresses vulnerability, and tries to compromise with the people around him without being resentful about it. He’s portrayed to us as weak and submissive in the beginning, in contrast to the Alpha version of him, who is aggressive and domineering, but we realise in the end that his skill lies in being gentle, communicating well, and having empathy. He refuses to be cynical, or succumb to nihilism the way his opponents have - he believes that with kindness, they can make it through anything.
It almost feels like a naive way to look at the world, but I found it beautiful and, in a way, revolutionary. I consider myself to be a fairly nihilistic person, but EEAAO helped me on my journey towards being courageous enough to face a world that feels locked in a death spiral. It reframed my perspective towards life, and Mantis reinforces that for me. She refuses to bend to other people’s cruelty or fall prey to despair, but instead faces friend and foe alike with kindness. Like Waymond, she protects the people she loves, but tries to do as little harm as possible in the process. Mantis and Waymond both remind me I don’t have to be vindictive in order to create a better world for the people around me, and I never thought a Marvel movie would tell me that.