CAPTAIN MARVEL Review

Captain Marvel (2019)

A Review By Ben Hunter

2.5/5 Stars

GET TO THE POINT BEN!

Not necessary to get to Avengers. But if you’re up for a decent, Sci-Fi, slightly Star Trek-y experience, it won’t waste your time either.

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Nursed and nurtured by the “Kree”, a group of noble warriors in the galaxy on the planet Hala, Starforce member “Vers” (Brie Larson) is trained to harness the powers bestowed upon her by the Kree, ordained by their leader, the Supreme Intelligence, an artificial intelligence that rules the Kree empire on Hala and across the universe. Upon capture from the “Skrulls”, the enemy of the Kree, Vers’ mind is probed, and her memories of what happened before her time on Hala start to emerge.

She ends up in pursuit of the Skrulls on Earth after an attempt to escape her capture, and ends up teaming with a young Nick Fury (still Samuel L. Jackson) an agent and not yet director of S.H.I.E.L.D., to uncover the truth and discover her true potential!

Brie Larson is Marvel's newest addition to the cinematic universe, Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel!

When I finally grasped towards the end that this is what the movie is, I latched onto Batman Begins (2005) as a great example of what this could aspire to. It’s a great model of what this was shooting for. The student becomes the master as he (in this case she) realizes her full potential in the end. In a nail-biting finish to overcome such mastering odds and be the hero we’re first introduced to, despite Batman being an already well known character before that particular film.

That helped with identifying why this particular film, Captain Marvel (2019), wasn’t fully connecting on all the necessary points. The primary reason being, aside from its disappointing, anti-climactic finish and other things, the need to link this to the MCU and weave in another person so we can have a more “complete” and colorful line up, or simply something new and fresh before we try to take down Thanos again in the next Avengers film. Because let’s be honest, this is the main reason why anyone went to see this. Just so we don’t miss anything come Avengers next month (the movie we all really want to see). However, it is not necessary in the SLIGHTEST to see this to get ready for that experience (no exaggeration). Had this been a separate, unlinked, and if I’m being honest, “dumbed down” and “flashy” kid’s movie (as in the case for Bumble Bee in the Transformers saga for Paramount), this would’ve been a much stronger story.

But since we’re all woven into this cinematic universe and it’s blasphemy for me to say that, these are the only cards we can play. So, it was hard to develop A LOT of these supporting characters that play a SIGNIFICANT part in the overall relationship with our hero, whom we kind of but not really know why is called “Captain Marvel”. We needed a whole lot more time to develop the personal connections she has with these people to establish trust, and truly sink us into this world the average person coming into this knows absolutely nothing about. This is really important for the direction this story ultimately chooses to go.

But because this is all brand new, there’s a lot of exposition in the beginning, holding us by the hand, and making sure we at least know what’s going on, let alone bonding with the material. That can’t happen because the majority of the story takes place on Earth when Vers is working with basically Fury alone to solve the puzzle. That’s the majority of the movie. And ironically, this is when the story picks up and grabs your interest. Whatever was kind of lollygagging in the back of your mind all throughout the Star Trek space stuff in the beginning, is gone when she gets to Earth and younger familiar faces show up. This is the meat and potatoes of what makes or breaks this story. Not a terrible attempt but far from any praise one might hear. A solid C or early 70’s, percentage wise in my book.

This doesn’t help when the film’s star injects politics into the matter that surrounds everything and gears up more unnecessary division between the fans, the fans and the studio, and everything in between. So much that the higher ups have to trot out Brie to clear things up, causing more separation from fans and recreating the experiences of Ghostbusters (2016), The Last Jedi (2017), & Oceans 8 (2018), amongst others, all over again. It doesn’t help when Brie is a still new to people and still “that girl from 21 Jump Street” when this is how she becomes a household name. To then get people to discover Short Term 12 and Room (for which she won an Oscar for LEADING actress). All of this turns me off to her when I’m one of the few, along with my movie geeks, who’ve known of and followed her work for years now and we’re a great ally to have in helping to spread the word on her work. She put her foot in her mouth for sure on this one. We’ll have to see how it plays out. But only the quality of the film can save her.

And I will say I liked this one a lot better than Wonder Woman (2017), a film I hated. I can get interested in seeing this one again, even though Diana (WW) is a much better character than Carol Danvers (not even close), so that’s a testament to Brie being a better actress than Gal Gadot. Let politics rear its ugly head yet again and I’m actually ready for the sequel to Wonder Woman, despite having a newly minted interest in this character (Captain Marvel) yet not so much with Brie.

So here’s to new beginnings, christened off with a rocky and face-palming start. This episode was like an elongated one of Star Trek, kind of, so that may help patch up this shaky foundation of the newest member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe! … Kind of.

Captain Marvel (2019)

Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi, 124 Minutes, PG-13

Screenplay By: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, & Geneva Robertson-Dworet

Directed By: Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck

Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Clark Gregg, Djimon Hounsou, with Jude Law, & Annette Bening