Watched on Disney +

One thing you have to hand it to the MCU: they really do manage to make gold out of (almost) everything. When "Guardians of the Galaxy" hit cinemas in the summer of 2014, only die-hard comic fans might have known who these people were supposed to be. There was no connection to "Marvel's The Avengers", none of the popular characters appeared there. It smelled a bit like recycling leftovers in order to profit from the superhero trend, which some people at the time already saw on the brink of extinction. Wrongly, as it has since turned out.

But maybe that was exactly the recipe for success. On the one hand, there is the change of setting: while the solo adventures of Captain America and Iron Man are always about putting a stop to earthly villains, here they go out into the big wide universe. This makes for fresh backgrounds and fresh characters at the same time. Some of these alien races looked more like cheap cosplay than super blockbusters. On the other hand, some of them were wonderfully curious, had strange abilities and really let loose during the many action scenes. But the tone had also changed. Of course, humour has always played a big role at Marvel, and pithy oneliners can't be missing from almost any of the now 27 films.

But with "Guardians of the Galaxy" they went one better. Despite the enormous danger, there was no sense of seriousness here, instead the film was a good-humoured sci-fi adventure full of anti-heroes who constantly punch each other in the mouth - sometimes physically, then verbally. Added to this was the constant use of 80s music, which of course didn't fit at all with the visions of the future, or the concrete situation, but gave the whole thing a wonderful retro charm that was very much its own. Most of this was retained for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2". When it's time to fight a giant monster at the beginning, it's with the use of a fat music system. Meaningful? No, of course not. But just fun. Just as the entire action sequence, which is not stingy with sayings and funny situations, is fun.

For long stretches, the second film follows in the footsteps of its successful predecessor, in a similarly successful way. Above all, the new characters are worth their weight in gold: Ayesha, the leader of an absurdly self-absorbed and self-optimised super race. And we will hopefully also get to see a lot more of Mantis (Pom Klementieff), a naively ugly servant of Ego in the future. They both have comic potential, and Ayesha is also a worthy antagonist - which is really not a matter of course in Marvel. In return, the old antagonist Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker) has been turned into a protagonist, which comes along with some emotional moments.

This is then also the biggest difference between the two works: director and screenwriter James Gunn has discovered the heart of his characters. This may please some for whom the brightly coloured popcorn previously offered too little content. At the same time, however, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" also loses as a result. For as lustily over-the-top the action humour was before, the emotional part is just as over-the-top. On the one hand, this is due to the sheer mass of these tearjerkers - with Ego, Nebula, Yondu and Peter/Gamora there are four emotionally motivated storylines - but also to their intensity. The border to kitsch is not only touched, but crossed in leaps and bounds. Unabashedly. Without the self-irony that actually characterises the film. There are also deductions for the fact that this time there is less of an adventure aspect: for a film set in space, the action is surprisingly static.

Despite these minor weaknesses, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" is great fun, which also lays the foundation for further great adventures in several respects. For example, we can look forward to an expanded function of Yondu's sidekick Kraglin, who is once again played by James Gunn's brother Sean. And then there is Sylvester Stallone, who unfortunately only has a small cameo here, but will certainly take a prominent role in the already announced third part.