Movie Review: Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel **** / *****

Directed by: Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck.

Written by: Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck & Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Nicole Perlman & Meg LeFauve.

Starring: Brie Larson (Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Ben Mendelsohn (Talos/Keller), Jude Law (Yon-Rogg), Annette Bening (Supreme Intelligence/Mar-Vell), Lashana Lynch (Maria Rambeau), Clark Gregg (Coulson), Rune Temte (Bron-Char), Gemma Chan (Minn-Erva), Algenis Perez Soto (Att-Lass), Djimon Hounsou (Korath), Lee Pace (Ronan), Chuku Modu (Soh-Larr), Matthew Maher (Norex), Akira Akbar (Monica Rambeau – 11 years old), Azari Akbar (Monica Rambeau – 11 years old), , Mckenna Grace (Young Carol Danvers), London Fuller (Young Carol (age 6).

 

Captain Marvel is the 21^st film in the MCU, and remarkably, the first with a woman as the main character. Like all of the films in the MCU, this thing runs on rails – it is another origin story, and it pretty much follows the script you know about these sorts of things. And unlike the best recent MCU films – Thor Ragnarok or Black Panther – it doesn’t really have much of the personality of its directors – Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, indie stalwarts known for films like Half Nelson or Mississippi Grind. And yet, by the standards set by the MCU, Captain Marvel is just about as entertaining as these films get. Almost all of that credit belongs to Brie Larson, who is wonderful as Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, with a big assist going to Samuel L. Jackson, playing a younger Nick Fury, as the two actors realize they are making a mismatched buddy comedy, and go with it. Oh, and Ben Mendelsohn is quite good, under a lot of special effects and makeup, Jude Law makes a great mansplainer, and Lashana Lynch deserves her own movies as Carol’s best friend. If only they found something, anything of interest for the great Annette Bening to do.

 

The film takes place in the 1990s – and if you’re like me, and came to age in the 1990s, the film is full catnip references for you, which are both cheap and easy targets, but also incredibly satisfying just the same. After a prologue in outer space, where we learn that Vers (that what they call her) is a Kree – fighting a war against the shapeshifting Skrulls, Carol crashes to earth – right into a blockbuster (which makes sense – considering how many blockbusters there were at the time). There are skrulls there, and Vers is determined to track them all down as she waits for the rest of her team. Of course SHIELD – led by Fury and a younger Colson (it’s nice that they gave Clark Gregg some hair back) get to her first. What follows is an exploration of her past – and what led her there in the first place – as well as her realizing the full potential of her powers.

 

You can probably tell where most of Captain Marvel is going, and you’re probably going to be right more often than not. There is no real attempt to reinvent, or upend, the formula for MCU origin stories. The big advantage here is that Larson is so much more funny and charming that most of the MCU leads, and she is clearly relishing every single moment she gets to be a superhero. The nature of her character, her powers, and the climax itself basically does mean that much of the climax is going to be more mindless CGI soup – but even there, it’s done better than most. And I do love how the film handles what could have been a pointless final confrontation where Law basically yells at Captain Marvel to debate him, and she handles it quickly.

 

In short, Captain Marvel doesn’t reinvent the formula, but is an example of how that formula can still be used in effective ways. I find that with most MCU films, my interest starts to flag at about the 90 minute mark, as the film comes in for its landing, but here, I enjoyed myself right to the final credits (Goose helps). I don’t think it quite gets to the top echelon of MCU films – Black Panther, Iron Man, Thor Ragnarok, the first two Captain America films – but it’s closer than most to getting there. And considering just how much my 8-year-old daughter loved it – I’ll probably only have to see it another 100 times, so the fact that it’s really good makes me even happier.