-Her name is Carol Danvers (sp?).
-She's super powerful. Like, enough to swing the
balance in the fight against a full-strength Thanos
-She's human but not.
-There's a whole thing about her and Shazam over
the years involving name changes and legal stuff that's not worth explaining
and doesn't matter anyway.
-I think she might wear a jacket.
In other words, keeping with my tradition, I know
next to nothing about her. I am a well-documented Marvel apologist though. I
love that someone had the balls to try building this interconnected universe
and found a way to make it succeed. There's obviously a commercial element, but
the money grab aspect is more about the studio (Oh no! A business wants to
make money!). The people masterminding the MCU are just creative-types
getting to play on a scale never before seen in cinema. I refuse to be cynical
about something like that. So, I'm a general fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with a low-level of comic book knowledge, who only sort of
remembers what's happened in the other 20 MCU movies.
With that in mind, Captain Marvel is among
the least accessible Marvel films to date (...but still pretty accessible.
That's how they make money.). It's not quite Thor: Dark World, but it's
closer to that than something more straight-forward and terrestrial like Iron
Man. You see, the movie begins by introducing us to the intergalactic war
between alien races called the Kree and the Skrulls. Vers (Brie Larson) is a
Kree warrior. Kree are like a warrior class of Vulcans. The Skrulls are a
species that can morph to look like other people. Vers doesn't fully remember
her past. Some stuff happens, and she eventually crash lands on Earth, where
she slowly comes to realize that she's from. As she starts to remember bits of
her past, she meets up with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, digitally de-aged
disturbingly well) while trying to prevent a Skrull invasion of Earth. That's
as detailed as I'm going to get. Not because I'm worried about spoilers or
twists. It's just a lot to take in, and I'm not that concerned with the story
of the film. I'd rather look at the execution of it.
Captain Marvel is a movie serving many masters. I
don't know how to seamlessly move between its different functions, so I'm just
going to bluntly address all the ones I can think of.
Captain Marvel is an origin story. We don't know Carol Danvers beforehand. She
doesn't even know herself at the beginning of the movie. Overall, this is a
solid origin story. Carol has more than a little Steve Rodgers in her. In fact,
the movie is essentially the space madness of Guardians mixed with the
can-do spirit of Captain America: The First Avenger. Brie Larson plays
the role somewhat reserved. It's hard for her to be herself if she doesn't
remember who that is. To paraphrase the movie itself, Larson is fleshing out
her character with one arm tied behind her back. She lets out just enough of
her personality for me to be excited to see her bounce of the Avengers in Endgame.
She's a great addition to the long list of heroes. She'll cut up with the best
of them. I do think the fact that her greatest strength is her iron-willed
determination is a little incongruous with her backstory as a trained Kree
warrior. She's basically the most powerful hero we've come across. Having her
refuse to get knocked down isn't really that vital. I'd rather just see her be
an efficient badass. (Note: The more I've thought about this, I think my
complaint is actually that I wish Brie had better action directors for her
fight scenes.)
Captain Marvel is a prequel of sorts. Did I forget to mention that this movie is set in
the 90s? I still haven't come to terms with the fact that my childhood has now
moved into nostalgia territory. It was bound to happen. The movie is a
checklist of 90s callbacks that are fun for a moment but add very little
overall. What's more pertinent to the film is that it features younger
versions of Nick Fury, Agent Coulson, and SHIELD as an agency. This aspect of
the movie is responsible for most of my eye rolls. Captain Marvel
crosses what I'm calling the "Solo Line". Named for Solo: A Star
Wars Story, the Solo Line is the point when a prequel explains too much
character backstory. Captain Marvel explains several things that didn't
really need explaining (how Fury loses his eye, for example). Some is fine, but
there's a point when it starts to feel gratuitous, and that's the Solo Line.
Like all prequels, you can feel Captain Marvel pressing up against the
bounds of what it was allowed to do. Characters show up who you know can't die.
Certain threats appear that you know won't amount to anything. It's
unavoidable, but some movies are better than others at not making it so
apparent.
Captain Marvel is an table-setting movie. Some MCU movies are more about moving pieces into
place for future installments than others. Age of Ultron was lousy with
set up. On the other end of the spectrum, Ant-Man and the Wasp got to
exist largely in its own world. Captain Marvel is more on the Age of Ultron
end. It's very busy filling in blanks about who the Kree and Skrull are. It has
to set up exactly how powerful Captain Marvel is (Answer: she's a Hootie AND
the Blowfish; Guns AND Roses; the Fresh Queen of the Universe; Salt,
Peppa, AND Spinderella). Until other movies come out, it's hard to know what
else exactly was set-up for the future. You just know when you are watching
something that is thinking three steps ahead.
Captain Marvel is a female superhero movie. Marvel should've had a female-led movie before the
11th year and 21st movie. Scarlett Johansson has proven in every way that she
was deserving (awesome character, highly respected actress, bankable).
Evangeline Lilly so took over Ant-Man that they could've green lit a Wasp
movie that Monday. That said, I will believe that Marvel had a plan for the MCU
and decided to wait until it was the right time for their story rather than
beat DC's Wonder Woman just so it could be the first. It took too long
and I hope it will be a more regular occurrence. I can come up with a list of a
dozen actresses without even trying who should be leads in superhero movies
(Side Note: Is there an Irish superhero who Saoirse Ronan can play? Please.). Captain
Marvel hits the female empowerment angle hard. I love the messaging. I
would've preferred a little more subtlety, but I get why the filmmakers thought
differently. I'm not going to be the asshole who dies on the hill of
"why'd they have to make it so clear that women can be awesome too?".
No Marvel movie is perfect, and these are the kind of imperfections I can live
with.
At the end of the day, this is a Marvel movie. It's
not a big crossover "event" movie. By now, you should know what to
expect from these movies. I've noticed people keep saying that directors Anna
Bolden and Ryan Fleck brought their indie sensibilities to a major Marvel
movie. That's an overstatement. This is a big, planet-hopping movie. It has
some smaller moments too. Where their indie movie past shows up is that the
smaller moments are the best parts of the movie. The bigger moments are
messier. They haven't made the most visually impressive or action-packed Marvel
movie to date. And that's fine. It's still that familiar mix of action and
humor with just enough drama to keep things moving forward. I really liked the
humor of the movie. Just about everything they do with the cat, Goose, is
great. Ben Mendelsohn gets to be funnier than I'm used to seeing. Whenever
Larson's personality peeks out from behind the amnesia, she's wry and charming.
This is the most that Nick Fury has acted like a stereotypical Samuel L.
Jackson character (and I mean that in the best way). There's enough comic-book minutia in this that I assume the fanboy community will be fairly split on it.
Then, non-comic people will be split because the Marvel movies that deal more
with outer space have a harder time succeeded. Unlike other successful intergalactic Marvel movies (Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnorok),
Captain Marvel doesn't use comedy as heavily
to ofiset the extra-terrestrial bits. So, I'll be curious to hear what
the consensus ends up being on this one. This is one that I'd rather watch as
part of a MCU movie binge than stand-alone in the future. I liked it, and
that's all I need from a Marvel movie.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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