Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 4 explores the back story of Rocket the Racoon, who always emphatically denies he is a raccoon. In this installment of the film franchise, Rocket does indeed find out he is a raccoon much to his surprise. Even though this film inserts the usual comedy among the character interactions, it has more of a disturbing undertone throughout. In past movies, Rocket never talks about his past, but the audience learns why.
At the beginning of the movie, the Guardians are attacked in their home city of Knowhere. During the attack, Rocket is fatally wounded. The crew is able to keep him alive, but they find out that if they try to heal him, they may trip a kill switch that is embedded in Rocket’s body. The only way to turn off the kill switch is to find the override code that is in the possession of a mad scientist called the High Evolutionary, who resides at the OrgoCorp headquarters. The adventure begins as the Guardians try to retrieve the override, but in the meantime, Rocket has flashbacks of his earlier life when he was an experiment at OgoCorp. I won’t go any further about the plot so as not to give anything else away; however, I will say that the story about Rocket’s past is sad and disturbing.
The same cast members and voice actors reprise their roles as the Guardians. It’s a great cast with a wonderful dynamic. Will Poulter enters the scene as Adam Warlock, who is responsible for wounding Rocket. Chukwudi Iwuji plays the High Evolutionary, the villain in the movie. Sylvester Stallone makes an appearance as Slakar Ogard, the leader of the Ravager gang that Nebula hangs out with nowadays.
The production and development side of the film was not without drama. James Gunn was fired from the project in 2018. In the Fall of 2018, Disney rehired Gunn after much consideration, but by then, he had made a commitment to the next The Suicide Squad movie. Because of that, filming for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 was delayed until 2021. Of course, the world was still embroiled in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the powers that be did not think that filming would be affected by the pandemic problem. Finally, a release date was announced for May 5, 2023.
The big question is whether Guardians of the Galaxy will return for Volume 4. Despite the rumor that Gunn directed his last Guardians film, the answer to this question is revealed at the very end of the rolling credits. I give this movie 4 out of 5 thumbs up.
