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"Captain Marvel" review - Not terrible, but not marvelous either.

As we all know, the latest MCU movie "Captain Marvel" had finally reached our cinemas, and thus after months of drama surrounding it, with one group hailing it as the best thing Marvel ever did, and other claiming it would be a movie that would destroy the whole franchise... before anyone had a chance to see it... we can finally see how is it.

And well...

In my opinion it's a solid Marvel movie, not bad or anything, but nothing special either, something around the level of "Captain America - The First Avenger", or first "Thor".

It has it's moments, but compared to previous MCU movies like "Doctor Strange" or "Black Panther" it lacks something that would make it special and unique.

I mean, with "Doctor Strange" we had our first introduction to magical side of MCU, plus trippy visuals connected with the Mirror World, and "Black Panther" had introduced us to the whole new culture and unique visual style of Wakanda, so they had something going for them even in their weaker moments.

And I don't think "Captain Marvel" has something like that.

I mean, 90's references are cool and I got a few chuckles out of them, but if I wanted to remind myself of those dumb and glorious times, when I was younger, slimmer and less cynical I could go on Tumblr...

Oh, yeah I am already here.

And people who don't remember those times would probably be as baffled by seeing pager and dial-up modems, as they were be seeing alien cities and spaceships...

But let's start at the beginning, that is with the plot.

Our heroine is Vers, a member of an elite military unit known as Starforce serving the interstellar Kree Empire, but despite her unquestionable power and fighting skills, her commander and mentor Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) has doubts about her performance, since she has a tendency to let her emotions guide her, something that Kree warrior shouldn't do.

Yeah, this cyborg guy from “Guardians of The Galaxy” is there too...

Vers emotional problems are connected with the fact that she lacks memories from before she joined the unit, and is tormented by recurring nightmares where she sees chaotic and fragmented pieces of her past.

Still, as I mentioned before, she is still a powerful and confident warrior, so despite Yon-Rogg's doubts, she takes part in a mission to extract a deep-cover Kree agent from one of the border planets controlled by an ancient enemy of her people, a shapeshifting race of Skrulls.

Mission ends badly, as it turns out that the agent was already compromised by Skrulls and Vers is captured during a resulting ambush by a Skrull commander, Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), who used some kind of memory probe to access her buried memories... that turn out to be about her previous life, but not on one of Kree planets, but rather on a primitive, backwater planet C-53, also known as Earth.

Apparently Skrulls are looking for a scientist known as doctor Wendy Lawson (Annette Bening), that Vers somehow used to know, and who according to her memories developed some kind of new faster-than-light engine.

Vers manages to escape captivity using her ability to generate energy blasts from her hands, as well as her hand-to-hand skills, but the escape pod she steals from Skrulls gets damaged, causing her to crash-land on Earth, to be precise in one of Los Angeles Blockbuster Video stores.

Does anyone remember Blockbuster Video anymore? Sorry, getting back on the topic...

Her less-than-stealthy arrival alerts the local authorities, including a pair of S.H.I.E.L.D agents, Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Mothafu#kin Jackson), who are a bit skeptical when a woman "dressed like for Lazer Tag" tells them she is an alien soldier who hunts other aliens, who are shapeshifters, but they are attacked by one of Talos's troops, confirming that her story is true.

And thus Vers and Fury would have to join forces to stop Skrulls and find the truth about our heroine, from her fragmented memories...

Before the movie I was curious and to be honest rather worried about how screenwriters would tackle the backstory of Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel, since in the comics it was rebooted so many times, that I doubt that even people writing her remember about everything, with numerous costume, identity and power changes, not to even mention new personality traits with each new writer...

But they did managed to jump this hurdle, by creating a completely new origin story from the ground up, that while using certain elements from her comic book counterparts, gives us something relatively simple, and accessible to causal moviegoers and hardcore nerds alike.

And let's be honest, since Carol is not exactly the most popular character ever, despite numerous attempts at making her relevant in the last few years, so I don't think there would be any purist fans outraged by the changes made for the movie.

I mean, whole cast of "Guardians of The Galaxy" had undergone massive changes, and everybody was OK with that, heck some of those changes were even retconned into comics, so probably here it would also work that way.

As for the plot itself, it really did reminded me of first "Thor".

I mean, we have a superhero from an advanced race, that is dumped on Earth without having any idea of how the place works, but finds a hypercompetent human sidekick, and together they stand against Big Bad only for The Hero to unlock their True Power in the third act.

Yeah... Seems kinda familiar, eh?

It's not necessarily bad or anything, but it's really a shame that some things hadn't been expanded upon a bit, like Kree culture, relationship between Carol a.k.a Vers and Yon-Rogg, etc.

I mean "Black Panther" managed to fit whole three act formula into the plot, while also show the viewers quite a lot about Wakanda, so why not here?

Movie also drags a bit in the middle, as save for two action scenes, most of the story-arc is comprised of our heroine and Fury driving from place to place looking for answers, talking a bit and so on, which is not really adrenaline-filled superhero cinema...

It hadn't reached the point when I got really bored, mainly due to good chemistry Larson and Jackson have together, but I did though that MCU movies managed to overcome their pacing problems after Phase One, so it wasn't a pleasant surprise seeing that they had taken two steps back here.

Another controversy about the movie way before it's release was our lead, Brie Larson, not only because of doubts about her acting prowess, but also quite a few ill-thought things she said be it in interviews, or through Twitter, but the latter is not really important here, so let's focus on the former.

After watching trailers and promo clips quite a few people were doubting Larson's ability to carry the movie, and accusing her acting of being "stiff" and "emotionless" and they were partially right, though I am not sure all the blame can be put on actress herself.

Vers/Carol does seem rather stiff and emotionless through most of the movie, but it looks more like a conscious decision of director's part, as I mentioned Kree pride themselves on controlling their emotions, which is fine, but severely limited Larson in the role, as it's hard to say anything about her character's personality.

I mean, there are a few scenes when she does show that she can act, usually during her scenes with Nick Fury, cause as I mentioned before, they have a nice chemistry together, flashbacks from before she was trained as a Kree warrior, but still comes out a bit bland through most of the runtime.

It becomes even more jarring during the scene when Vars meets her old friend Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), who is rather shocked to see her, torn between happiness and confusion, giving a strong, emotional performance... while Larson keeps the same facial expression through most of it.

As I mentioned before, it's not the actress's fault, but it does harm the movie on some level.

Samuel L. Jackson however absolutely nails it as younger, less cynical Fury.

Now, we got used to gruff, no-nonsense and properly paranoid commander of S.H.I.E.L.D but here we get Nick who sees a being with superpowers for the first time in his life, and is appropriately shocked / awed by the fact that aliens exist, which gives Mr. Jackson an opportunity to have a bit of a fun with the character.

I mean, I had never expected to see Fury going "oh so cute" about a cat, or freaking out about seeing an alien, but it's lot of fun watching him do it, and judging from his actor, a lot fun to play it, which is rather infectious.

Also, this cat is awesome.

Sadly, yet again movie’s villain remains one of it’s weak points.

I mean, damn, I really though that after "Black Panther" and "Infinity War" we got over the so-called "Marvel Curse" and villains who are not Loki wouldn't suck anymore. And yet, here we are, back to square one...

Now, don't get me wrong, Ben Mendelsohn does what he can to sell Skrulls leader, and even managed to have some fun with his portrayal.

For example being rather laid-back and even funny in his true form, and a bit stern and stiff in his preferred human form, as well as giving each of them a different accent, but as they say, You cannot get water out of a stone.

He got very little to work with in terms of motivations, background or even personality of his character, making Talos quite flat, despite the actor's best efforts.

If I had to compare it to other Marvel villains, he would be right there with Malekith the Accursed from "Thor - The Dark World", as both movies had absolutely wasted a great actor due to not giving him anything he can use, nor any freedom to flesh the character out, which is a damned shame.

I mean, they tried with a bit of a twist near the end, but You can see it coming from miles away, so it's not really a surprise, and nor does it help our villain in the slightest.

What else...

... Oh yeah, I had evaded this particular elephant in the room for long enough.

Before the movie premiered many people, myself included, were afraid that it would delve too much into politics, since both the cast and Marvel PR people were putting a lot of emphasis on the feminist message of "Captain Marvel", throwing the phrase "First Female Marvel Hero" etc.

Thus I had expected a sexist, and politics heavy crap like "Ghostbusters 2016", but really for all the bluster of Marvel execs, and journalists focusing of this, the whole "feminist" part of the movie turned out to be nearly nonexistent.

I mean, sure we get a scene with male soldiers telling Carol she is "too weak" to be a pilot, or a guy who obnoxiously tries to pick her up, but it's not like the movie spends extended periods of time on it, or goes to extreme length to show all men as idiots, manbabies and chauvinists, as "Ghostbusters" did, so really there was no point to the whole sh#tstorm about it in the first place.

And really, "Wonder Woman" was really a lot more about "Girl Power" than this movie, so I don't think that people who expected it to be about "powerful femininity" and stuff would be totally satisfied with it...

Other than that, we get good special effects (Especially the ones used to de-age Jackson and Gregg), few nice fight scenes, especially in the third act, overall good acting despite problem mentioned above, and a few obligatory callbacks to other MCU movies...

And that's basically it.

It's a competently done movie that nevertheless lacks the bang it supposed to have, and I think that in a few weeks most people would forget about it, like they probably did with "Doctor Strange" and "Ant-Man & The Wasp", because they would be busy talking about "Endgame".

It would still make a ton of money, as all MCU movies do, even if it clearly show that their formula got a bit stale at this point, and even without making a lasting impression it was a well-made popcorn flick.

Still, it shows that Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel does have a potential as a movie character, despite all weird stuff Marvel did with her comic book counterpart, but it wasn't the time when this potential had the chance to be fully utilized. So, better luck next time, Carol?

#captain marvel #review #movie review #ramblings #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #brie larson #samuel l jackson #controversy #movie #avengers endgame #no spoilers #nick fury #agent coulson #s.h.i.e.l.d.#marvel comics

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