Perhaps not quite as fresh or fun as the original, but still very much a triumph of the Quill.
The Guardians get a welcome return to the big screen, which despite many positives, fails to match the dizzying heights of the original.
The Marvel superhero gang are back together – including Vin Diesel’s Baby Groot alongside Chris Pratt’s Quill – and while there’s plenty of comedy, it doesn’t really go anywhere.
Whereas the first Guardians was a little too flippant and full of in-jokes, the sequel somehow manages to give even the most outlandish comic book characters an interior life.
Tears, romance, turd jokes – it's all here, wrapped in a big messy bow.
It’s… fine. But the underdog element is missing this time around.
Tips over from self-confident to self-indulgent.
It is often vastly entertaining and there is plenty of whizz-bang fun in a film that feels like a bumper edition of classic sci-fi TV – a Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.
While driven along by its wisecracking banter, by the end there’s little to distinguish this from the rest of the superhero stable.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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