Review: Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, tells the tale of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), an intergalactic space warrior caught in the middle of a war between two alien species. Along the way, Danvers makes her way towards Earth, where she meets a young Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and teams up with him to discover the mysteries of her past life on Earth before she became a laser-shooting super gal.
This is the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU for short. The films of the MCU have been a mixed bag for me overall, with some movies being great (The Guardians of the Galaxy films, Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok), some movies being pretty bad (Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk), and most of the movies being nothing more than fun wastes of time (basically every other Marvel film). Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good Marvel superhero film as much as anyone else, but after seeing almost twenty films from this franchise you can see a bit of a pattern forming for these films, and for the studio’s first female-lead film it unfortunately does more of the same. This is about as generic and bland a Marvel film can get.
The biggest issue I have with this film lies with Captain Marvel herself. Carol Danvers isn’t a very interesting protagonist. There’s nothing about her character that makes her memorable and relatable when compared to other heroes in the MCU, and Brie Larson’s incredibly stoic performance doesn’t really help much either; she’s a space warrior that’s finding out her past. Danver’s character arc isn’t all that interesting either; basically her whole arc consists of dudes putting her down because she’s a girl, but she needs to show them she’s more than just a girl, she’s a SUPER girl.
The rest of the cast, with the exception of Sam Jackson as Nick Fury, aren’t very fun to watch either. A lot of their performances range from just okay to pretty dang bad. The film-making itself also drags this film down for me; nothing about this film is unique or interesting visually compared to other Marvel films. Now I know these kinds of films aren’t made to be artistic in any sense, but there has been films in this very franchise that went above and beyond to make themselves incredibly unique in their own right. The Guardians films are very much James Gunn films, Thor: Ragnarok is very much a Taika Waititi film, Black Panther is very much a Ryan Coogler film, even the first two Avengers film had Joss Whedon’s finger-prints all over them. I wanted this film to do something unique like the films just mentioned, but no; this is just another generic, bland, cookie cutter superhero film.
Now there are some things to like in this film. The chemistry and dynamic between Larson and Jackson does work throughout the film. Despite what they’re given the two still manage to make their interactions believable and genuine. The action is also still fun. The trademark Marvel action is prevalent in this film, and it is a lot of fun seeing Brie Larson turning super saiyan and torpedoing herself into space ships. Outside of those and a couple neat transitions here and there that’s about all I liked about this film. The rest of it was just dull.
Overall I honestly can’t find myself to enjoy this film. There’s just not enough that’s unique about it to justify me watching it again. People who are just fans of any Marvel movie thrown at them will most likely enjoy this film either way. If you’re like me though and want more than just another Marvel superhero movie then chances are you’ll probably not enjoy this film very much. If anything, you might as well wait until Avengers: Endgame at the end of April to see them re-introduce Captain Marvel to the rest of the team, hopefully in a better fashion.
Final Verdict: 4/10