Captain Marvel Movie Review
3 out of 5
After more than 10 years and now with 20 films in release, Marvel continues its march toward the highly anticipated Avengers: Endgame with its latest chapter in the saga…Captain Marvel.
Brie Larson stars as Carol Danvers, alongside a not bald Samuel L. Jackson, as a member of the Kree Starforce caught up in a war with an alien race called the Skrulls — a shape shifiting group who aren’t necessarily what they seem in more ways than one.
Early in the movie, called only Vers, Carol is coming to terms with her role within the Starforce along with how to control her emotions and powers, which for some reason the Kree want her to keep a check on. She also is struggling with flashbacks of what seems like a previous life on Earth (known as planet C-53 to the Kree). Strangley, when the first mission she is allowed to go on fails miserably, the Skrulls capture her and seem equally as interested in the memories of Earth stored deep in her mind.
After breaking free of her captors, she finds herself with a handful of Skrulls on Earth in 1995, where she runs into a two eyed Nick Fury, who at this point in his life has never even entertained the idea of Aliens existing, let alone the Avengers. With strict instructions to stay where she is from her Kree Team, Vers of course ignores her orders and begins a pursuit of the Skrulls and trying to figure out what the fragments of a previous life mean as they continue to flash through her mind. Children of the 90’s will particularly enjoy the soundtrack of this movie, as well as some familiar sites such as Blockbuster and Grunge Clothing.
That’s about as far as I can go without letting some major spoilers loose, and I don’t want to be THAT guy…So let me tell you what I thought about the movie as a whole.
Visually, this film maintains the level of what Marvel has already been doing. Not so much on the Earth scenes — which is the majority of the film — but early on as we visit alien worlds and environments. It’s reminiscent of Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy and Blade Runner 2049 all rolled into one. The realism just never ceases to amaze me. I wish there had been more with that storyline — although that would have been an entirely different movie.
You may have heard a lot of the clamor around some comments Brie Larson made about the people who review her movies, and that she went to Marvel and asked to make this a “big feminist movie,” and while those comments will surely turn some people off — I’m here to tell you as one of the people who she didn’t want to see or hear as much of in the reviews, none of that is present in the film. And while two of the major characters are indeed female in the movie — the film doesn’t beat you over the head with political messages. It is Disney remember, and they’re not going to allow that in their films — they want to make money and keep the fans’ favor the best that they can. On the other hand, Captain Marvel and her best friend in the movie, Maria Rambeau (played by Lashana Lynch) don’t take a back seat to anyone — male or female — and they do a fine job of handling the reigns of the film once it takes off.
With that being said, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn and a cat are scene stealers in the movie. Jackson steals scenes because of his naivety — as Fury not being the tough guy we’re used to seeing in the other movies is fun to watch. As for Mendelsohn and the cat…well…you’ll just have to wait and see.
Overall, this film isn’t in the same league as Avengers Infinity War or Black Panther, but it’s as good as some of the earlier films. It’s funny in all the right places, and the action sequences are good — and as I said the 90’s nostalgia was a fun trip through memory lane.
For those of you looking for clues to the ending of Infinity War and Fury’s pager — you’ll get that answer at the end, but other than that, unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of clues as to what’s going to happen in that movie.
Captain Marvel is a good movie, and I appreciate how Marvel allowed for some nice twists and turns in the story so that the film doesn’t follow the same basic plotline of so many other super hero films. In the end, you know who’s gonna win — but it’s the journey there that you want to enjoy.
Captain Marvel is now playing and is rated pg-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief suggestive language.
