Captain Marvel - Review

Release Date: March 8, 2019​​​​​​​​

For Once, DC Did It Better
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This movie was supposed to introduce audiences the most powerful character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was tasked with being the precursor to the biggest film of the year, Avengers: Endgame. Right off the bat, I can tell you that most of the action scenes are spoiled in the trailer; story beats, jokes, and more were all exposed, not leaving much for the feature itself. The reason for this has to do with not much happening. Its problems are similar to Ant-Man and the Wasp in terms of the scale of the movie being small; it's not what people came to see. 

When you go to see a Marvel movie, you expect some big action sequences, humor, and emotional depth as deep as a kiddie pool. Captain Marvel checks one and a half of those boxes. 

The humor in this movie can be split into two different categories: jokes that people are used to from the rest of the MCU, and Captain Marvel humor. The former is used to great effect here. There are plenty of moments that are funny because they're supposed to be.

The whole point of these scenes is to make you laugh. Sure, not all the jokes land, but it works. The Captain Marvel specific humor had me suspicious of what their intent was. Towards the beginning, there were many moments that were supposed to be funny, but no one in my theater laughed. It came across as trying to get the audience on board with having a female as the main character.

There are seldom moments in superhero movies where the character is made to look inexperienced or foolish. In Iron Man, he invents his own stuff and you see him have fun testing out his new technology. Thor smashes a beer mug because he is from a different culture and Star-Lord gets called fat to build up how ripped Thor is. Carol Danvers is silly and lighthearted while fighting enemies. Struggling to fight effectively with a couple of gags thrown in for good measure, but these were the parts no one laughed at. It came off as slightly uncomfortable because jokes should tell you more about the character; here, it was used to try and make her seem more relatable. Carol Danvers is a lot of things, but relatable is not one of them.

The story that Captain Marvel tries to tell, doesn't recognize the big shoes it has been told to fill. How do you get excited about the 21st entry in a series; how about a bunch of throwbacks? This movie suffers from a problem the Star Wars Prequels suffered from, but was more potent in Solo: A Star Wars Story. I didn’t need to know where Han Solo got his lucky dice or the spoiler version of that for this movie. I don't need to see how every little detail came to be in the universe. Every little unknown doesn't need an answer. 

Speaking of Star Wars, there were a couple of sequences that reminded me of the prequels. At one point, I thought I was watching a pod racing scene while another was similar to the shortest space battle ever put in a big budget movie. The battle consisted of about two shots, one of which is in the trailer, while the other makes me think of the space battle above Naboo.

To pull off all of these action pieces, lots of CG was used to varying degrees of success. By the end, there were many scenes that looked fake; there was no denying the whole sequence you were seeing was all made in a computer. When the characters got to fight in person, the beginning of the movie used the ‘far away’ trick. This is where you see all the action at a distance, so stunt performers can perform without putting the talent in harm's way. This allows for separate close up shots to be spliced into the sequence, making it seem like the actor was really doing the fight choreography.  

Other than some good jokes and some nice synth music, Captain Marvel doesn't succeed in being a good movie. I saw it on opening night where people would be the most excited to see it, and everyone thought that it was fine. Not "wow that was good" or "that was solid", just fine. Some people will complain that Carol Danvers didn't grow as a character, but I didn't need that. Learning more about the character was discovery enough, and Nick Fury picks up more slack than one person should be allowed to carry. This movie continues the trend of Marvel just not caring about fan theories, providing little fan service. Any major effects you thought this movie might have on the larger MCU continuity should be forgotten.

4.5/10
Wonder Woman was a better character in a better movie, DC finally won one