The year is 1995 and we find ourselves in Kree space. Brie Larson (who goes by at least three names in this movie, so let's just call her Larson) is a member of the Starforce, tasked with rescuing an undercover agent among their enemies, the Skrull. Overwhelmed with the nomenclature yet? Add in a Flerken, other characters with multiple names and alliances, and the mysterious powers of the Tesseract, and you've got Captain Marvel, the latest MCU flick that is at once a great reminder of the genius of this franchise and a mild disappointment to fans of the recent franchise turns.
Let's start with the positive: It's a lot of fun. Some of the laughs are forced and the spectacle can be cheap, but it's awfully pretty to look at. And, for a hero with rather unspecific powers (kind of like Vision, who shares Larson's Infinity-Stone-given powers), it's probably okay to simply show her swathed in an aura of bright light. Do we really need to understand her powers? We might want to, but the reality is that she'll serve as a sort of quasi-savior in Avengers: Endgame, so her salvific powers can be a bit too awesome for our comprehension.
While the names and titles can all get a bit muddled, the essence of the film is not unlike that of Winter Soldier, with shifting alliances and secret infiltrations and a massive shift in our expectations of who really are the "good guys." Of course, we see it coming miles off, and that's because of the narrative simplicity here. In fact, the straightforward earnestness of this movie -- its determination to craft a standalone heroic entry, introduce a character, and feature no small amount of girl power -- is almost rousing. It feels like a spiritual sister to the first Iron Man and Captain America as a solid, old-fashioned origin story. And that's fine.
Much more better are its bankable stars doing admirable work. Though Larson's badassery isn't served well by a script that all but flatlines her dramatic arc, her physicality challenges that of the men in this franchise, and her hair beats out Thor's by a landslide. Samuel L. Jackson gets to sort-of co-star this time around, and his Nick Fury has been digitally de-aged in a pretty cool way. Clark Gregg, Djimon Hounsou, and Lee Pace return in minor parts as characters they've played before, which is a lot of fun and provides fodder for fans who like to tie together elements from across the franchise. We also get Jude Law and Ben Mendelsohn as the leaders of their respective Kree and Skrull soldiers, which is fun except that Mendelsohn's makeup looks like a Halloween mask and he sounds like he's speaking through prosthetic lips (which he is).
My favorite addition is Annette Bening as Mar-Vell, a fantastic use of gender-swapping much like Tilda Swinton's in Doctor Strange. She gets much better screen time and dynamic drama than Glenn Close did as Nova Prime (still bitter about that), and she's electrifying to behold.
You might have noticed my ambivalence about some of these positives, and they only strengthen my overall disappointment with this installment. It's a solid origin story, reasonably entertaining, and easy to follow. The dialogue can get clunky, her powers aren't really understandable, the effects are often wasteful, but its shallow sense of nostalgia kind of helps us link this movie mentally with the very first installments of the franchise. I mean, when the climax sneaks up on you without your awareness, it's a hint the pacing is just all wrong; when the climax involves the hero flying through a warship and it starts exploding/melting around her, it might be time to rethink the logic of what a climax needs to be.
But, as this is the MCU's first time letting a woman headline a film, it's just shameful that they played it so safely. Gone are the visual inventions of Doctor Strange and Ant-Man, the narrative ingenuity of Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War, the cultural relevance of Black Panther. If it's a game-changer to have a woman headline a superhero film, why isn't Captain Marvel a game-changer as a film? I can't help but think this is just too little too late. Again, that's not to say it's not welcome! It just doesn't fit in with the films of its ilk released in the last couple of years.
Plus, it doesn't help that its placement completely undercuts all claims to feminism MCU might stake. Captain Marvel is a placeholder, a dull lengthy introduction to the climax of the entire franchise. Not only is she the last cog in the great big machine, but she's literally being used by the studio to generate inclusive interest before what will surely be the biggest opening ever for a movie. She may be a savior, but she's being used as such by Marvel/Disney execs, and that's just annoying.
Then again, if that mid-credits heartbreaker of a scene is any indication of the drama she'll elicit in Endgame, I may have to revisit this critique.
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