I forgot lots of important things and characters from the first movie (Michael Rooker and his whistle-controlled flying spear, Gamora’s psychotically evil sister Nebula), but they came back gradually. Also forgot that these are really good movies – funny and stylish, with exciting (and comprehensible) action. Chris Pratt discovers that his real father is a god-planet which takes the form of Kurt Russell, impregnating planets and women across the galaxy, and when he finally locates a son who carries some of his powers, he uses Star-Lord (like Magneto uses Rogue in X-Men 1) to amplify his energy and attempt to make all planets into parts of himself. Fortunately there’s the wiseass raccoon, the big loud warrior, the swordswoman, the baby cartoon tree, and now Rooker and Nebula and an empath named Mantis to stop him. No Benicio Del Toro, sadly, but we get cameos by Michelle Yeoh and Ving Rhames.

It’s like all the humorous bickering of The Avengers mixed with the action of… The Avengers. So it’s like The Avengers, or maybe Firefly. But funnier, and with more rock songs. Katy and I don’t like the shot-too-close, over-edited action scenes, but otherwise had no complaints.

Heroes: Andy Dwyer, hulky Dave Bautista (Brass Body in Man With The Iron Fists), green Zoe Saldana (Avatar), talking raccoon Bradley Cooper (Midnight Meat Train) and kinda-talking tree Vin Diesel (The Iron Giant). Not heroes: Andy’s mercenary ex-partner Michael Rooker, Zoe’s evil-blue-robot sister Nebula, “the collector” Benicio Del Toro, super baddie Ronan (partnered with Thanos, a main Thor/Avengers baddie) and Ronan’s enforcer Djimon “Digital Monsters” Hounsou.

Supplementary good guys: president Glenn Close and cops John C Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz.

Introduced: something called “infinity stones” which I think power some of the other magic stuff in Avengers-world, and rumored superhuman backstory for Andy.

“Shut up, crime!”

Rainn Wilson plays sort of a comic-book version of Michael Douglas in Falling Down, pushed to the breaking point by a dissolving marriage and life’s constant irritations. He becomes superpowerless superhero Crimson Bolt, armed mainly with a pipe wrench, and sets out to defeat wife-snatching drug-dealer Kevin Bacon, plus people who butt in line at the movies.

An extremely dark comedy, hilarious and truly horrible, which manages to hold onto its heart through Rainn Wilson’s sheer lovability and the exceptional script. It’s possibly better than Gunn’s great Slither. Can’t compare it to other fake-superhero movies like Special, Defendor and Kick-Ass since I haven’t watched those, but now I’m afraid to. This one set the bar too high. Can you tell I’m excited?

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I recognized Michael Rooker as monstrously morphing Grant Grant (the TV producer with the dirty handshake in Mallrats) but it took me forever to notice that good-cop lead actor Nathan Fillion was the guy from Serenity. Guess it might be time to watch those Firefly DVDs.

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Rooker gets an alien shot to the chest, impregnates a local girl with thousands of mind-controlling slugs, and morphs quickly into a room-sized ugly mess of alien. It’s up to Fillion, Rooker’s wife and a girl they pick up along the way to save the day. It’s a love story! Hilarious and wonderful throughout, gotta see again.

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Katy caught brief glimpses and seemed disturbed.