Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (James Gunn, 2017)

Diminishing returns begin to kick in with this sequel, largely because it diverges so little from the formula of the first instalment. Hence, it's still witty enough and full of irreverent fairground thrills, following the motley crew adventure away to a non-stop retro soundtrack and Kurt Russell turning up as Quill's long-lost dad to ham it up shamelessly as some kind of god, but also beset with one of those interminable genre-obligatory end sequences where everything gets blown up, to the point at which you start clock-watching and thinking about what to do next with your day. Naturally, there'll be another one too because they make money and they're harmless fun, but a little more characterisation really wouldn't go amiss; here, the thing on screen with the most charm by far is the animated twig who can only say "I am Groot".

5/10