"Your mommy's alright, your daddy's alright," promise the Cheap Trick vocals from their smashing anthem Surrender, the song that closes out Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2 with a line that, in context, seems like severe understatement: "They just seem a little weird." You don't say. Daddy issues have long been a staple of intergalactic storytelling, but things are noticeably nuttier in this film where many a father and father-figure is brought to task. At one point when a character wonders whether he should chase after the charismatic silver-fox claiming to be his father, another asks him that most eternal of questions: "What if this man is your Hasselhoff?"
What, indeed.
I'd loved the first Guardians Of The Galaxy, an eye-popping and irreverent treat, a stunning and stupendously silly space opera: Star Wars made for those who prefer a Deadpool to a Darth Vader. Featuring a non-star quintet of obscure comic book outcasts, director James Gunn had the elbow room to make things messy, mischievous and genuinely weird, and this time he subverts things even further: In Vol 2, for instance, we realise that every major character has a truly messed-up (and genuinely horrifying) backstory, and they've earned the right to be - as Cheap Trick sang - "a little weird."
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 Movie Review: A still from the film
You know the band by now, of course. There's 'Star-Lord' Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), a swashbuckling hero-type who acts before he thinks, trying to keep these misfit brigands together; Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a green-skinned assassin who shoots off schoolbus-sized guns to teach her sister a lesson; Drax (Dave Bautista), all brawn (and yes, laughter) and tactlessness, with a body of muscular, veiny stone; Rocket (Bradley Cooper), a perpetually growling weapons expert who has trouble winking; and, of course, Baby Groot (Vin Diesel), a pocket-sized twig who is tiny and feral and could prove to be very useful indeed if only he understood what he was being told.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 Movie Review: A still from the film
The band's back to their usual shenanigans, stealing things and being all outlaw-y, carrying a purple prisoner while on the run from golden people and cobalt blue people. (If ever there was a comic book series clamouring for elaborate colouring books...) Purple, honestly, doesn't do Nebula - Gamora's sister, played rather wonderfully by Karen Gillan - justice. Her face is like the Moonlight poster come to life.
This is a film, however, about Ego.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 Movie Review: A still from the film
While Ego - as befits the name - is certainly complicated, the film is full of characters driven by insecurities, confidence issues and the need for validation. It's rare to see a smorgasbord of unique characters with such clearly-defined conflicts and motivations, and Gunn sneakily keeps telling us more than we think we know, taking a rollicking, trippy story and raising the storytelling stakes till he eventually builds up to something truly moving.
This is a long film and despite the inventiveness, coherence and sense of play imparted to the action sequences, some feel a tad too long simply because the results always seem inevitable. There are five end-credit sequences, by the way, so the film doesn't even end when it claims. Also, in introducing new characters - like Elizabeth Debicki's gleaming Ayesha and Sylvester Stallone's Stakar Ogord, both doubtless bound for bigger parts in Volume 3 - and the Peter Quill and Gamora relationship feels shortchanged. Merely mentioning Sam and Diane from Cheers does not, alas, a Sam and a Diane make.
Guardians Of The Galaxy was unlike any superhero movie we'd seen before, and, in contrast, Volume 2 mirrors it rather loyally, playing off it instead of breaking new ground and standing on its own, but - as sophomore albums are bound to do - it has more to say even if we've heard these sounds before. The ones echoing relentlessly in my head come from a song by Silver that captures the film's spirit with pop panache: Wham. Bam. Shang-a-lang.