Captain Marvel

So this is complicated movie to talk about because I have more thoughts on the lead up and fan reaction to this movie even before it came out. However, I want to get to the meat of the review first before I delve into that stuff. I think this movie deserves a proper review because there is a lot to talk about but it has been overshadowed by the dumb fan boyisms around it. I will talk about the culture war around the movie near the end, but let’s get right into it.

Captain Marvel is in an intriguing spot in the MCU for me.

Allusions to new movies in the post credit scenes of Marvel movies is as old as the franchise itself. These allusions have been pretty successful for Marvel because they are at the end and allude to an exciting new adventure. But with Captain Marvel, the stakes seemed to be raised. Not only were there allusions to her at the end of Infinity war, there was something about that ending that suggested

Captain Marvel is going to be the key to defeating Thanos. This wasn’t just a hammer sticking out of the sand, or the camera panning out to show the black panther statute to say that these movies are happening, the end credit scene in Infinity War seemed to be saying, not only is there another movie, but this hero is the key to resolve the pain and suffering you just experienced.

Now we could be blowing this out of proportion. That scene could have just been a clever way to allude to Captain Marvel and bring her into the fold for End Game, we’ll figure out in May. But it felt like there was a lot riding on Captain Marvel. Not only is this movie Marvel’s first female driven superhero film, not only is she another superhero in a franchise with pretty high standards, Captain Marvel is hyped up to be one of the only people who can stop Thanos. What could go wrong?

Captain Marvel centers on an amnesiac Kree warrior named Vers (played by Brie Larson). She is a part of an elite warrior team of Kree led by Yon-Rogg (played by Jude Law, and I’m just gonna refer to him as Jude Law because I’ll be honest, I never caught his name in the movie). They’re mission is to combat an invasive species called the Skrulls who invade planets with their shapeshifting ability to take on other people’s form.

After a mission to find one of their leaders named Talos (played by Ben Mendelsohn) goes wrong, Vers ends up stranded on earth in the 90s. Without giving too much of the plot away, she ends up teaming up with a young Nick Fury (played by Samuel L Jackson with, in my opinion, an impressive de-aging CGI look) to stop the Skrull plot on earth.

This is definitely a movie I’m gonna have to do another post in order to go into spoilers because there is a lot of stuff I want to talk about with this film. But as a whole, I did really like this film. I think like a lot of Marvel movies, it’s hard for me to rank where it stands right after I see it. Lots of the time, I really enjoy a Marvel film right after I see it but I like giving it time to marinate and the illusion kind of diminishes a little. That being said there are some things I know I loved and things I wasn’t as wild about this with film.

Let’s start with the things I liked.

The number one thing I liked was the science fiction feel of the movie overall. There was a feeling of unabashed science fiction melodrama and cheesy that they really lean into. The idea or image of the Skrulls could easily be reshaped to feel more realistic or gritty, but the MCU is at a point where they’re just embracing the weirdness and vibe of their properties without restricting it at all. I love how I got an original star trek vibe to the whole thing while still having a typical Marvel blast with this movie. The same way Thor Ragnorak embraced the weird neon 80s adventure vibe, Captain Marvel embraced campy science fiction serials while injecting that 90s nostalgia we all love.

And while a lot of it felt like flash Gordon sci fi cheese, the fact that she can’t remember her past was really interesting. I feel like I would have liked to see some more memory manipulation tropes to keep me guessing on what her backstory actually is or make me think that I’m getting played this entire time, but overall I felt like what they did with her past and unfolding that piece by piece was really good.

I liked the buddy cop feel of the movie between Vers and Nick Fury. I think there were some genuine friendship moments in this movie and as odd as it sounds, Nick Fury and Captain Marvel have chemistry. Not in a way that I want them to end up together in a romantic way, but I liked their back and forth and they seemed to really be invested in each other throughout the whole film.

I like Nick Fury in this movie. Nick Fury has always been a character that has been good but kind of on the periphery. This gave him a little more of personality. There are some aspects that I’ll talk about in my spoilers review that I wasn’t that wild about, but at least one thing in particular, while annoying, doesn’t break the movie, it was just kind of dumb.

I liked Ben Mendelsohn in this movie as the main skrull. I think when you think of Ben Mendelsohn of the pompous villain and while there’s some of that in there, it was a little bit different underlining the fact that he’s a really good actor. Talos is a good character and I think they did well with him as the villain without it being too typical Ben Mendelsohn typecast.

This will make for a good transition to the stuff that I didn’t like as much, but overall I did like Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. I’m looking forward to seeing more from her and bringing her into the modern day with the Avengers. I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes from here. I say that with the caveat that I didn’t love their approach to her character in this one.

Vers is a weird character. On one hand, she’s a warrior Kree and they apparently purge emotions. They remind me of Vulcans. But because she’s a little different, she’s snarky and a little more of a smartass. The reason she’s a little stoic in the trailers is because she’s an alien coming to earth with a little bit of a fish out of water story going for her. So I get what they were going for overall, but if I’m going to give any criticism of the trailer credit, it is that Brie Larson is a little wooden in the majority of her performance. Which is weird because I’ve seen Brie Larson performances in the past, she’s a good actress, she’s good at emoting, she’s good at showing emotion. This isn’t about her not smiling, because she definitely does in this movie, there’s just a weird juxtaposition to the moments where she’s showing emotion, having a good time, and being snarky, to when she’s being Captain Marvel and being heroic. I think they kind of stumbled at firmly establishing a consistent personality for Vers/Carol Danvers so a lot of the times she looks uncomfortable and out of place. Again, I want to see her again as Captain Marvel because I think it’s a good role and I get where they’re trying to go, I just want them to flesh her out more and get her more comfortable. A lot of it felt very wooden and inconsistent for me and could be done better in the future.

But that’s not even the biggest issue I had with the film. The biggest issue I had was that a lot of this movie felt like a step back for Marvel because it returned to a lot of the tropes were starting to get annoying about Marvel up until recently when they didn’t do it as often. Movies like Thor Ragnorak, Black Panther, and pretty much any MCU film from the Russos were starting to divert away from the typical and predictable Marvel formula and this movie felt like a step back.

It’s kind of hard to explain fully, but I didn’t feel like Captain Marvel was unique enough of a project to stand out like Ragnarok and Black Panther did. While there were some allusions to it being campy science fiction homage, it still felt very formulaic Marvel, very similar to the way Ant-man is a heist film, but not a very distinct heist film and more a Marvelized heist film. Furthermore, Captain Marvel seemed to be a step back in the sense that it integrated a lot of bathos (inserting unnecessary comedy in the middle of dramatic, emotional, or serious moments), or flooding the film with call backs to previous films in the franchise. This was the first MCU film that I was distracted by forced comedy, or felt the movie pause just to refer back to a previous movie or allude to a future sequel. The reason Thor Ragnorak, Black Panther, and Infinity War were some of the strongest MCU films is because they were mostly contained to their own stories and any allusions to future films or them being self aware that this is a shared universe were contained to the end of the film in more of a teaser for a future film. Again, the overall formulaic feeling of a MCU film is hard to really quantify, but it’s like the difference between experiencing a unique superhero film or one that feels like it was produced from a canned committee on what Kevin Fiege assumes audiences want in a superhero film.

On a quick note about unnecessary throw backs, I thought there were a lot of tie ins that were oddly dependent on seeing the other Marvel movies. I’ll talk more about it in my spoiler review but a good example is that I felt like there were some references in this movie to obscure political plot points from Guardians of the Galaxy that had me a little confused and which I felt were very unnecessary. Overall, this movie could have stood on its own and I think could have been better if it had thrown out almost every reference to previous MCU film with the exception of Nick Fury.

Last few notes, I liked the cast. I’ve already mentioned my thoughts on Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, and Ben Mendelsohn, but I thought everyone else was really good too. Jude Law was entertaining if not lacking in some areas, he has a supporting role but he’s definitely not the focus. I liked Annette Benning in this film. Lashana Lynch plays a pilot who is connected to Vers past in one way or another. One character I was actually kind of disappointed in was Clark Gregg returning as Phil Coulson. Maybe this is a spoiler, but he’s barely in the movie. When he is in the film they have deaging CGI and I wouldn’t be surprised if they focused all their work on Samuel L Jackson and half assed him because he looks terrible.

There are a few retcon decisions. I’ll talk about them more in my spoiler review but if you’re at the same point as me and a lot of people who watch MCU films, there are some continuity errors that don’t fully track. I find it interesting because I went with my friend who is pretty new to the MCU and doesn’t have that same connection that I do. He obviously didn’t find much issue with them but I had a little bit of a pause a couple times due to some things that don’t totally track.

And honestly, those are the main points I wanted to discuss in my non-spoiler review. Overall, I like Captain Marvel. I would probably put it in the mid range to lower end of the Marvel films but it’s worth mentioning two things with that. First off, just because it’s on the lower end of the MCU film ranking doesn’t mean it’s bad, just that there have been better MCU films. But also, with few exceptions like Iron Man 2, even a lower end MCU film is usually an above average superhero film. Even the movies that feel formulaic tend to still be wickedly entertaining and that’s what Captain Marvel was.

Now usually, before a super hero movie, or any movie for that matter, comes out, there are thoughts people have, based on the trailer. They can have thoughts on the stories of production or the early reviews before the movie comes out. But something felt different about Captain Marvel. 

Sure, there was the fact that Captain Marvel was set up as a very important character for Avengers: End Game, but something felt different about the movie in the past few weeks, even before all the trailers and all the man hate for this movie, which don't you worry, I will discuss. This movie felt different in what it was building up to. I think it started when Marvel announced that they were going to be coming out with a new slate of movies and essentially showed all the movies that would be coming out all the way up to Infinity War part 1 and 2 (remember when that was t thing?). This was quite a while ago and that slate has since change (it included the inhumans), but I remember the monumental feeling that Marvel was going to finally start to shift their focus towards the less obvious heroes and focus on superheroes of color and who were women, most notably in Black Panther and Captain Marvel. 

And Marvel wasn't the only one doing it, DC gave special attention to a movie like Wonder Woman and prided it on the fact that it was the first big budget female driven super hero film. I don't remember the original release schedule for Captain Marvel, but I do remember thinking that while DC was capitalizing on the first female led super hero film and would be focusing on a super hero of color later (Cyborg), Marvel was doing the opposite, focusing on Black Panther and going into Captain Marvel later. And the result was both were majorly successful. 

But from the get go, regardless of the release date, Captain Marvel wasn't just another Marvel movie release like Thor 3 was, it was a cultural event movie. And after the success of Black Panther and Wonder Woman, it made sense financially for Marvel to approach the movie in that cultural event way. It makes so much sense that Brie Larson came out and said Captain Marvel was going to be a "big feminist movie". Not only is there nothing wrong with that statement, but I'm glad that's the approach Marvel took with this film. I know there are people who are afraid of the word feminist. There are people that have been whining for weeks that this movie is promoting some Social Justice Agenda, or that Brie Larson said something they misconstrued as hating on men, but honest I don't care. If I'm Kevin Fiege and I've looked at the relevant films taht have focused on empowering women, or not white men, it makes total sense to empower women in my movie about a female superhero. Also, we should be celebrating women! I don't understand why this is construed as a bad thing, Brie Larson never said we should castrate men and make a society of women, she wants to show a strong women for an example for boys and girls. Why is this a bad thing?

Is the movie perfect? No! Does it have messaging in it? You bet your ass it does. But the movie isn't bad because of those things. Frankly its a little arrogant of me to say that because they focused on those things that somehow took away from the content because I don't see how you can validly make that argument. The movie can be only less than perfect but still have a good message about a female role model. 

I'm going on this rant because I'm trying to understand how we got to this point where so many can shit on a movie long before they've seen it. And if it was only based on the trailers, I would understand. It happens all the time, a trailer doesn't express the story well. And I could maybe see that for this film because this film does have some twists that they probably didn't want to give away. 

But if your gripe is that the trailer emphasizes the word her in hero, or shows Brie Larson standing in an empowering way, or if you're issue is that Brie Larson isn't smiling enough, I'm tending to think you're shitting on this movie because it's not marketed to you, rather than you don't think it looks good. It's a movie. Calm down. God forbid an actress gets excited about her work and wants to empower women. 

Okay, rant over. 

But what did you think of Captain Marvel? I'm hoping I'll come out with a spoiler review here in the near future because there are some things worth chatting about on that and I promise I'll leave out any more comments on the dumb twitter wars going on. Comment and Discuss below! About either the movie, the lead up to the film, whatever. I'm always open to dialogue about this as long as its respectful. You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog. 

Thanks for reading!