The Marvels (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

Much will be made of CGI overload, of confused plotting and endless sequels, of franchise and superhero fatigue. Some might bleed into my thoughts here. But, generally speaking, few people are considering The Marvels on its own terms as a film. Maybe that's deserved, being the thirty-third feature film in the MCU, where nothing is really standalone anymore and everything leads to yet more projects in an ever-expanding multiverse of characters, stories, themes, and media. Public interest in the juggernaut of IP is waning -- if not collapsing -- but that doesn't discredit the films, franchise, or genre as a whole. When people bellyache and despair of Disney and Marvel and superheroes, they're saying far more about themselves than about the art.

So for this, I'll just list my ruminations on each key element of storytelling here, because I have no coherent observations or arguments for the purpose of lionizing or decrying this film. For me, The Marvels is one of the least satisfying and most confusing MCU films, but it's a lot of fun in its breezy (and mercifully brief) running time.

The plot? A mess. This film seems meant to be the lynchpin of several disparate storylines, something the MCU will need to continue doing to tie together the multitudinous tapestry it's created. The problem for me is that I can hardly remember where all these characters originated or why they're all significant. Principally, the film is meant to be the sequel to Captain Marvel -- and frankly I barely remember that film -- continuing Carol Danvers's (Brie Larson) vague intergalactic antics with the Kree and the Skrull. I can scarcely remember who they are, except that Lee Pace played an evil Kree in the second Thor film and Ben Mendelsohn played a good Skrull at some point, unless I've mixed them up as well. Essentially, and I do mean bare basics here, Danvers had destroyed the AI ("the Supreme Intelligence") that ruled the Kree homeworld of Hala, unwittingly leading the Kree into civil war and planetary desolation. So their new leader, a revolutionary warrior named Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), seeks magical "quantum bands" to restore Hala and save her people by siphoning resources from other planets. Earth is on the list.

The characters? Mostly disappointing. The leading actresses are mostly wonderful. Larson continues her cool, prickly leading streak. Teyonah Parris remains one of the most compelling and delightful additions to the entire franchise as Monica Rambeau, though her lack of a codename is still frustrating after her introduction in WandaVision; thankfully, this film recaps enough of her story via flashbacks that you don't need to have seen it to understand her, but you do need to have seen Captain Marvel. Iman Vellani is just as cute and energetic and slightly irritating as she was as Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel (which I saw but also don't remember well), and I was able to follow her arc here without recalling previous information. With their varied personalities and styles, I was excited to see them team up, become quantum-ly entangled, and kick ass. And while they are richly realized on screen, they are pitted against one of the most bland and forgettable villains yet, despite Ashton's clear desperation to make something exciting out of a flat, nondescript character.

The writing and direction? I'd compare the storytelling efforts here to a juggling act with smoke and mirrors for flair. Director Nia DaCosta (Candyman, Little Woods) also co-wrote, and I was so excited for her voice, especially with a team of females fighting a female villain in a franchise dominated by men. Unfortunately, we don't get much of her voice because she's too busy trying to recreate and continue the distinct flavors of the other characters. Scenes with Khan are frenetic and cutesy, loaded with Gen Z-isms and dynamic special effects; scenes with Rambeau are more stately and dignified, mirroring her wisdom and warmth; moments featuring Danvers tend to be a bit sassy and wry, as she is clearly the most powerful superhero in the MCU but also just a badass woman. The screenplay is a mess, too, co-written by committee (writers from WandaVision and Loki penned this mess) attempting to mash up these characters for the first time while sharing enough backstory to get by and also ham-fisting exposition into almost every scene.We get enough breaks with frenzied, kinetic action that it doesn't feel to forced, but a second viewing reveals a sort of tripping skip in terms of pace.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned that you also need to have seen the miniseries Secret Invasion to know what Nick Fury has been up to in space for the last few years, and even with that knowledge now (I hadn't seen it before seeing The Marvels) I am very confused as to his doings with the Skrull and Kree as well as Samuel L. Jackson's characterization, which is much different here. Here he does basically nothing except offer snarky commentary, and I am none the wiser as to what he's doing, why the whole tentacled-cats thing keeps happening, and how it ties in with anything else in the larger franchise.

The visuals? My opinion here is firmly my own, but I don't understand why people hate on CGI so much. Don't get me wrong: superhero movies tend to overuse it, and I don't think it's always necessary or effective in terms of storytelling. But the number of people who call certain CGI elements "bad" or "cheap" clearly don't know how much work and money go into these shots. Let's work toward avoiding these words and start talking about what's actually on screen, because there's so much nuance to unpack. In this movie particularly, I had trouble understanding what, exactly, the womens' powers were, despite lots of talk about harnessing light energy, because it all just sort of looked like rainbow-colored light that comes out of their hands and eyes. When Dar-Benn rips holes in space and pirate resources from other planets, we're presented with now obnoxiously familiar images of black holes and global destruction, and it's not as awe-inspiring as it used to be.

You'd never know that master cinematographer Sean Bobbitt was behind the cinematography, as choppily edited and fast-paced as the film is. Further, even primarily dramatic scenes without lots of CGI are flatly lit and so packed with unnecessary set pieces and props that the emotional energy gets lost in the mix. When the chaos starts -- Dar-Benn claims one of the quantum "bangles" which somehow then entangles the three heroes -- we flip around between the Marvels with an apparent disdain for continuity and rules. They keep telling each other not to use any powers to avoid swapping places, but they all keep doing it; worse, they apparently only change places sometimes while using their powers, which makes the whole thing feel like a half-baked gimmick.

In the end, there's also not really an end. SPOILER ALERT. Monica's sacrifice sends her off into another dimension (or something, because nothing is sacred anymore and who knows what's coming next) in which her mother is alive but also not her mother, and in which she meets Kelsey Grammer's Hank McCoy "Beast." I'm excited for the X-Men to join the MCU, and it makes sense with the multiverse crap, but I wish for less buildup and more cohesion. Meanwhile, the short-lived team of women leads Kamala to go off on her own, locate Kate Bishop (seen in Hawkeye, because why not throw in yet another miniseries we need to have seen to make sense of this?), and suggest they start a new team of young Avengers. Oh, and Carol casually flies through Hala's sun to repower it and help restore Hala for the Kree. Because she can apparently just do anything. It's all fun until it's eye-rollingly irritating. Getting an actual conclusion for literally any of these multiplying characters and plots would be great, and relying on audiences to have seen literally every MCU production to make sense of ongoing films is not great.