Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the sequel to Marvel’s 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy, written and directed by James Gunn, like the first. It’s comical like the first Guardians, but this time each character has their funny moments or comments. Many stars from the first Guardians of the Galaxy — including Vin Diesel, Zoe Saldana and Bradley Cooper — are back once again.

The Guardians are bargained with by Ayesha, the leader of an alien race known as the Sovereign, to protect their Anulax batteries from an interdimensional monster. In, exchange for protecting the batteries, the team is given Gamora’s sister, Nebula who was caught trying to steal the batteries.

When a fleet of Sovereign drones are sent after Quill’s team, Drax the Destroyer reveals that Rocket stole some of the batteries for himself. During an argument between Quill and Rocket, a mysterious figure destroys the fleet of Sovereigns, but the ship crashes into a nearby planet. The person who saved them from the Sovereign’s followed them and revealed himself to be Ego.

Quill is accompanied by Gamora and Drax to go to his home planet while Rocket and Baby Groot stay behind to guard Nebula and repair the ship. The Ravagers capture Rocket, but when Yondu is reluctant to go after Quill,  his lieutenant leads a mutiny with Nebula’s help. Baby Groot, with the help of Yondu’s surviving loyalist Kraglin, are able to free Yondu and Rocket and escape before destroying the ship after the Sovereign fleet was tipped off.

Ego explains that he is a Celestial and came to Earth disguised as a human to discover a purpose and escape his loneliness where he fell in love with Meredith Quill. After Meredith died, Ego sent Yondu to bring Peter back to him, but the two never returned and Ego had been searching for his son since then. 

Chris Pratt reprises his role as Peter Quill, the half-human, half-Celestial leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Also returning are Karen Gillan (Nebula), Laura Haddock (Meredith Quill), Wyatt Oleff (Young Peter Quill) and Sean Gunn (Kraglin). There are also a few new additions to the cast with Kurt Russell as Ego, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Elizabeth Debicki as the leader of the Sovereign’s and Sean Gunn as Kraglin.

Cooper (Rocket) and Dave Bautista (Drax) have some of the best lines in the film while in the first Pratt had the better moments. This movie allowed other cast members to shine like Pratt had in the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Vin Diesel has one of the hardest tasks of any of the other actors because his character Groot only says, “I am Groot.” Groot is a humanoid-like tree and he doesn’t have any variety in expressions, so Diesel’s character is completely based off  his tone for the audience to tell how Groot is feeling.

The storyline is interesting because it expands on what the audience already knows about Peter Quill. By the end of the first movie, all we know is that Peter was taken away from Earth after his mother’s death. In this installment we learn more about his backstory, why Quill views himself as the leader as the Guardians, and how he views them as his family no matter how much they fight.

Gunn admitted that he felt intimidated to develop the soundtrack for this movie because the track in the first movie was well loved. Gunn had called the mix in this movie more diverse than the first one with some incredibly famous songs and then some songs that people have never heard. “The first Guardians movies is about becoming a family, and this one is about being a family,” Gunn said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.