Captain Marvel Review

        It took a matter of films where Marvel Studios finally released a female superhero film. As I mentioned back with Ant-Man and the Wasp, those type of films didn’t do financially and critically well. Wonder Woman broke that mold, and it made bank in the box office and was a darling when it came out. With Captain Marvel, a lot of hype occurred since her appearance was teased at the end of Infinity War. As well as being the film before the subsequent Avengers sequel. In my opinion, this is the weakest entry in the 3rd phase of the MCU.

1. Carol Danvers

        I doubt anyone has read my review for Shazam! since there’s a lot of backstory to the Captain Marvel name. To make the history short, Shazam’s comics was originally called Captain Marvel. The publisher who prints copies of Superman sued the makers of the Captain and ultimately won the court case. The name remained in limbo and Marvel Comics swooped in and made their version of Captain Marvel by trademarking it. By doing that, they continually publish titles to retain the trademark. 

        With all that out of the way, no there’s one more thing. 2019 was probably the rare year where two comic book films came out that literally have a direct connection to each other. Both Shazam! and Captain Marvel came out mere months from each other. While the former I feel is an underrated film, this one grossed a billion dollars. And wouldn’t you know it, the sequels to the films came out last year. 

        Alright so let’s talk about this one. This is an interesting film in the context that it’s a quasi-origin film where we see how she gets her powers. With the caveat added that she suffers from amnesia and we’re with her trying to figure who she really is. Story wise it can be a challenge since the film uses flashbacks to show the main character before we see her. So, we see Carol living in another planet and join the Kree military group called Starforce. They only refer to her as Vers.

        Involving her and Jude Law’s Yon-Roth, the team is tasked with stopping the Kree’s enemy the Skrulls. Green aliens that can shapeshift to anyone’s appearance, right down to their voice. What I like about the film is that it seemed that Carol’s team is the quintessential good guys trying to stop the evil looking aliens. Right down to the one scene where we see them analyzing Carol’s memories to find something they’re looking for. 

        All the action takes place on Earth during the 90s. It was great seeing a young Nick Fury and Agent Coulson again. The whole film has a buddy action film with Fury helping Vers figure out why she has memories of a woman who she thinks is a target of the Skrulls. Most of the action is great since we see just how Vers uses her powers. It reminds me of a fighter jet exhaust, well duh since she was in the Air Force before her fateful encounter. 

    I think the biggest misstep in the whole film is that we don’t really get to know who Carol is as a person. The film tries to go about it by having her flashbacks when she was in the Air Force and when she was with her wing mate Monica. Although, while we see tiny glimpses of her past life, we are only told stuff about her that really hampers the relatability we are trying to get with her. The studio prides itself on making relatable characters but this is the rare mistake that they did. One scene in particular highlight the problem. Before we see the initial action take off, both Yon-Rogg and Vers are training. Rogg has the upper hand and scolds her for holding back by saying her emotions hold her back. 

        Now, of course this is a female centric film. It’s going to go the way where we see some restrictions that Danvers has where she can’t use her abilities to the max. In one way, I wish the film was structured where we at least see a glimpse of her before we transition to her being part of the Kree. That way we at least get an understanding with her with who she is before her abduction. 

        While that aspect really hampers the whole movie, I feel that the supporting characters save the film from being a dud. I might as well talk about the Skrulls since halfway through, the whole story practically changes the whole perception of them. Seemingly we are led to believe that they’re evil, but then the leader Talos tells everyone that his race is near extinction and that they’re refugees. To me he saves the whole film since he subverts the type of casting that the actor usually plays. 

        One last thing is that it sort of utilizes the 90s aesthetic while not being to obvious with references and what not. Just seeing Danvers crash land at a Blockbuster Video hits the nostalgia button for me. What makes the whole emersion work is just having the details that tell audience that we are in the 90s. We have the soundtrack that contains TLC, Elastica, Garbage and Nirvana to name a few that adequately capture the time. Especially the old computers that had slow dial-up load times.

2. Review Bomb

        While the film was met with just a shrug of okay, it made a billion dollars. Mind you, it didn’t have either of the core MCU heroes and was the first debut comic book film to ever achieve that. But while it made and broke records, the discourse of the film was toxic from what I can recall. The gist is that Brie Larson made a comment of movie critics harshly reviewing films where it didn’t align with their ethnicity. Which then prompted that multiple users in Rotten Tomatoes to review bomb the film. 

        Basically, attacking the film for its representation of feminism. Whether it had a correct view or not, it didn’t matter since they practically wanted the film to fail. This prompted the company to change their algorithm to reflect the user score. And it’s still rotten even after the change in the system. The reason I bring it up here for this film was that it was this one and with the 2016 release of Ghostbusters where it was common for some female centric films to be outright rejected before anyone even had a glimpse of it. 

3. Overall

        Captain Marvel is one of the weakest films in the 3rd Phase, while it did offer some comfort that the Endgame is coming.