This past Wednesday I rewatched an entry in one of my all-time favorite movie series, Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Part of the larger Marvel cinematic universe, GotG 2 centers around the titular team of misfit superheroes going up against a living planet bent on taking over the galaxy, a wacky yet on-brand plot for the series. If you enjoy superhero movies, sci-fi space adventures or comedies, I think you will like this movie because it qualifies as all three! It’s easily one of the MCU’s best movies, so definitely worth watching.

One thing you will need to know going into the movie is that it is a sequel, so it will require a viewing of the first movie to fully understand. This shouldn’t be an issue though as the first movie is also great and this is not a lot of “required viewing” by MCU standards. One thing this movie does well is it immediately establishes the tone in the opening scene. In the first 10 minutes of the movie the guardian’s character traits have been established, you’ve seen plenty of aliens and action, and listened to a catchy pop song, all main staples of the franchise. Another great quality of the movie is its characters, which I know is a given for any good story to have good characters, but these ones really stand out among other movies in its genre. The Guardians of the Galaxy are a group of 5 superheroes that all get equal focus in the movie, and one thing you will immediately notice about them is that most of them are aliens. The movie takes place in space far away from Earth, so the main focus is the people living in this strange imagination of alien civilizations in our galaxy, and the main characters, with one exception, are aliens. Their different appearances than what is expected does not mean they are not interesting and 3-dimensional however. The guardians are all formerly criminals trying to make up for their past actions, so no perfect role models among them. Although they have rough pasts, and they still have villainous impulses (one character’s greed is a huge driving factor in the plot) they are all funny and willing to change so you can’t root against them. One final thing I want to touch on is that the movie takes a bizarre plot that seems like it would turn people off and makes it emotionally compelling. If a story about superheroes in outer space fighting space pirates and anthropomorphic planets sounds too strange for you, I insist you give it a shot. When I first watched the movie, I quickly found myself getting attached to the characters that seem strange on first impression, and I’m not embarrassed to admit it. The film crew behind the Guardians franchise did an excellent job at bringing bizarre and unpopular comic book characters and making them people we can sympathize with and root for.

Needless to say Marvel was not mistaken to adapt the little-known Guardians of the Galaxy comics into movies. Even if you’re not a fan of Marvel superheroes, I wholly recommend this film. Guardians of the galaxy 2 has just the right balance of weirdness and heart to make it an all-time classic.