Weekend Watch: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, Silo

A final chapter for James Gunn's A-Holes and a new sci-fi adaptation

Image Credit: Disney/Marvel

Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, the Guardians go on a final mission (for now) and Rebecca Ferguson digs into a mystery. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite

Ending any movie is tricky, but pulling off a satisfying finale to a trilogy can be even more of a juggling act. With Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, writer/director James Gunn has most definitely stuck the landing.

And given that it almost didn’t happen –– Gunn was infamously fired by Disney after insensitive joke tweets from his past were dug up –– it’s a minor miracle that the film exists in this form in the first place.

For all outer space spectacle, Gunn’s focus has always been on character and heart, and the new movie is no exception –– many of the Guardians are going through something (Chris Pratt’s Peter “Star Lord” Quill, for example, is still mourning the not-quite loss of Zoe Saldana’s Gamora, who died, but returned, albeit from an earlier point in time before she fell for Star-Lord’s charms and became a full member of the team).

Yet the focus here is on Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper, but let’s not ignore the sterling work that Sean Gunn does on set to bring him to life) and his tragic, painful backstory. When he’s injured by the new character Adam Warlock (brought to life as a sort of naive Superman type still finding his way in the world by Will Poulter), the team must rally around Rocket and unlock the secrets in his history if they’ve any hope of saving him.

The result might be a standard find-the-McGuffin quest, but it’s all wrapped in Gunn’s typically funny, weird style, and this is a writer/director who really knows how to get the best out of his cast. Particularly when, as is the case here, they are people he’s worked with for years who have a complete grasp of character and tone. Every one of the guardians gets at least a moment to shine, while the flashbacks to Rocket’s time with the cruel, obsessed High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji, who first impressed the director on Peacemaker) are dark and moving. There is such feeling here, and you’ll root for/worry about a variety of CG critters (trigger warning for any rational human who hates to see animals, even created ones, at risk).

Fear not, though –– this isn’t a depressing slog. Instead, it’s a witty, wonderful romp full of everything you might hope for from a Guardians movie. The hardest thing to accept? That this is the last time Gunn will be bringing his talents to the MCU, at least for a long, long time. Unmoored from most of the need to set up other Marvel movies, it’s a trilogy capper for the ages.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is in UK and US cinemas now.

Image Credit: Apple TV+

On a different end of the sci-fi spectrum, we have Apple’s latest TV series, which is seemingly launching with a lot less fanfare but is just as worth watching.

Adapted by Justified’s Graham Yost from the book series by Hugh Howey, Silo follows the remaining 10,000 humans, who are surviving underground after an unspecified apocalyptic event.

The silo is life for these people, from the engineers in the “down below” who keep the lights (and everything else) running to the “up top” likes of the Sheriff’s Department, who uphold the law. For all the desperate situations, life in the cavernous chamber is relatively serene, at least near the top. But there are hard and fast rules –– no digging into the history of the place, and if you start asking too many questions, you are exiled outside to clean the lens of the camera that sends images of the ruined world outside. And that, as far as anyone knows, is a death sentence.

When the current sheriff, Holston (David Oyelowo), and his wife Allison (Rashida Jones), learn some hard truths about where they live and work, they both end up asking to go outside. The narrative after that first episode, shifts to the real focus: an engineer named Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) who is asked to become the new sheriff. She’s reluctant but motivated by the chance to investigate what happened to someone she loves (that would be George Wilkins, played with nuance and charm by Ferdinand Kingsley).

Silo is far from the cheeriest story you’ll happen upon in the streaming world, and it does take some time to truly kick in, but it’ll keep you guessing and builds its world out well. And when that world is peopled with the likes of Tim Robbins, Geraldine James, Will Patton, Iain Glen and Harriet Walter, you know the performances are on point. Ferguson, of course, is the core around which everyone revolves, and she is, naturally fantastic. Dour and driven, she’s never less than watchable. Give Silo the time to get its hooks into you and you won’t regret it.

The first two episodes of Silo are on Apple TV+ now. I’ve seen the entire first season.