Ranking Every Aspect Of The MCU From Worst To Best

James Gunn has the most creative freedom out of any filmmakers working under the Marvel Studios banner, and it shows. As the only current inhabitants of the cosmic side of the MCU, the Guardians of the Galaxy are free to do pretty much whatever they want seeing as their adventures have little narrative bearing on the Earth-set franchises.

The first movie was a breath of fresh air for the increasingly-formulaic superhero genre in 2014, a pop-culture referencing throwback to the space operas of old, this time armed with a blockbuster budget and a brilliant soundtrack to boot. Sure, it suffered from yet another undercooked villain (this time doing the bidding of Thanos and his Exposition Chair) but the overarching sense of fun and natural chemistry between the cast kept things moving along briskly.

Audiences loved the witty, bickering and anarchic Guardians and recognized the movie as the direct product of Gunn's vision. The Troma veteran even had the balls to cast Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper, two of the biggest movie stars around, as a tree and a racoon respectively.

Vol 2. may have lost some of the freshness of the original by ticking the required sequel boxes of going bigger and adding more backstory, weakening the final product as a result, but it remains a hugely entertaining follow-up that brings heavy doses of both the irreverent humor and fantastical locations that have quickly become the Guardians' stock-in-trade.