So Captain Marvel is out – the latest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and it’s fine. It’s kind of a set up for Avengers: Endgame (or at least explains Infinity War’s mid-credit scene) and it’s kind of a prequel to Guardians of the Galaxy. And, without spoilers, a sequel/prequel to a couple other Marvel flicks. In other words, they embedded the character into the universe, for good or ill.
Captain Marvel stars Brie Larson as an amnesiac space cop for the Kree in the same whiz-bang pulp sci-fi universe as the Guardians of the Galaxy (and Thor). She gets involved in a mystery involving her missing past and the shape-changing skrulls that winds up on Earth in the mid 90s. She teams up with a younger Nick Fury (with two eyes and hair) to figure out what’s going on and stop the skrull’s master plan.
So I think Captain Marvel is mid-tier MCU good. It exhibits many of the problems some Marvel movies do in its action scenes but it does do some other things very well. Some of the early actions scenes are pretty good and work but it got pretty “whatever” by the end (something I think of most MCU flicks). Plus it was remarkably dark and murky, making some of the action hard to track.
That said, I think this movie doesn’t want to be a superhero action flick anyway. It’s structured more as a character self-discovery/mystery flick. Yeah, it has an amnesia plot and could have been scripted better (especially the kind of ham-fisted exposition trying to hurry-up explain the hero’s planet). But I liked the character moments in this flick. The buddy-cop relationship between Carol Danvers and Nick Fury (“just Fury”) was a lot of fun. The two actors have a good rapport. And then her relationship with her long-lost friend and her daughter worked too.
One of the better surprises was the villain who, while violating some comic book lore, was well-played by Ben Mendelsohn. He was hammy but I think what he was doing worked. Marvel rarely makes good villains so it was nice to see one on any level. That said, comics purists will probably be annoyed.
But yeah, there’s a structural problem in the movie that, when Captain Marvel goes full Captain Marvel, the flick just stalls out when it should get awesome. I think her full powers deflate the movie and kind of betray the character build-up they had been making. I guess she gets too powerful too quickly and without any apparent limits or errors. That’s a problem only in that she was portrayed as competent, smart, and skilled but not perfect throughout the flick and that’s kind of how I like my heroes.
But, hey, in the long run I generally liked most of the flick. Thought it was a surprisingly good, more character-driven MCU movie with some pretty good action scenes early on. I thought it was funny while managing to take things seriously (something the MCU has a problem with). The flick certainly has a mixed reception with very positive mainstream reviews but more lukewarm ones from other sites/people. I can only shrug and disagree with both sides. It’s fine.
Score: 82