At long last, I'm back once again with another movie take, this time on the movie Captain Marvel, the latest entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As always, if you haven't seen the movie yet and you don't want it spoiled for you, then please step back from your computer or whatever electronic device you're reading this on and stop reading now. If, however, you're wise enough to know that movie reviews with spoilers are always more interesting than the ones without them...well...Higher, further, faster, Baby!
As many of you know, Marvel Studios took quite a while to make a female-led superhero film. The Marvel Cinematic Universe launched in 2008 with the first Iron Man film, and Black Widow, the MCU's first female superhero, made her debut as a supporting character in the sequel, 2010's Iron Man 2. Black Widow joined the MCU Avengers in 2012, but after three Avengers films and a couple of Captain America movies, we're still waiting for a solo Black Widow film to arrive in theaters. Other female superheroes followed, with Sif, Scarlet Witch, Gamora, Mantis, Valkyrie, and The Wasp all making their big-screen debuts, but none of them has received their own movie as a solo lead.
None, that is, until Captain Marvel.
With Warner Bros./DC Films realizing that a Wonder Woman movie might be a good idea, Marvel Studios finally got serious about making a Captain Marvel film in 2014, after Marvel Comics had spent the past couple of years revamping Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers into a higher-profile superhero using the Captain Marvel name. The film was first announced for July 6, 2018, then bumped to November 2, 2018, and then moved again to February 27, 2019, after Marvel cast Brie Larson as Captain Marvel and finally hired Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck to direct the movie.
After a lovely modification of Marvel's logo to honor Stan Lee, the film opens in 1995, on the Kree Empire's capital planet of Hala. We're introduced to Vers, a member of the Kree Starforce, who looks and acts like a human from Earth, and suffers from hazy memories that sometimes involve an older woman she doesn't recognize. Yon-Rogg, her mentor and commander, trains Vers to control her unique abilities while the Supreme Intelligence, an organic artificial intelligence and ruler of the Kree, urges her to check herself before she wrecks herself.
Things get a bit clunky with heavy exposition and a bunch of new MCU characters as we see the Starforce undertake a mission to rescue an undercover Kree operative infiltrating a group of Skrulls, alien shapeshifters and archenemies of the Kree. Vers gets captured by the Skrull commander, Talos, taken aboard their ship that's headed for Earth, and forcibly subjected to a memory probe. As the Skrull ship reaches Earth's orbit, Vers manages to escape in a pod that crashes into a Los Angeles Blockbuster Video store, just to remind you that hey, this is the '90s. And if that isn't enough, well gee, here's a bunch of great Nirvana, R.E.M. and Garbage songs to clinch it.
Vers' presence attracts S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Nick Fury and Phil Coulson, both rocking less wrinkles and considerably more hair thanks to the spiffy de-aging CGI special effects budget. Fury and Coulson confront Vers, only to have their investigation interrupted by a Skrull attack. In the ensuing chase, Vers recovers a crystal containing her extracted memories while Fury kills a Skrull impersonating Coulson. Talos, now wearing the form of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Keller, seems all kinds of shady as he convinces Fury to work with Vers.
We head into the movie's Second Act with Fury taking Vers to the Joint USAFA Facility in Nevada to confirm Vers' claims of coming from Earth. It's here where the movie really starts to click, with Larson and Samuel L. Jackson having great buddy cop movie chemistry as they banter back and forth and start enjoying the adventure. Vers discovers she was a U.S. Air Force pilot who was presumed dead in 1989 after testing an experimental engine designed by a Dr. Wendy Lawson, the same older woman from Vers' nightmares, who's a friend of former pilot Maria Rambeau. With Lawson's cat Goose as a stowaway, Vers and Fury steal a Quadjet and fly to Louisiana to meet Rambeau.
Talos, meanwhile, arrives at the Rambeau house just as Vers discovers her real name is Carol Danvers, which should take you all of two seconds to realize why Carol was called "Vers". In the film's big twist, supposed "Big Bad" Talos reveals the Skrulls aren't the bad guys here, but are actually refugees searching for a new home, and Lawson was a Kree renegade named Mar-Vell who was helping them. Talos then plays the recovered black box from Lawson's plane, which causes Carol to regain her memories and remember the day of the crash. Lawson told her to destroy the engine's energy core before being killed by Yon-Rogg, the film's actual Big Bad, and Carol absorbed the energy from the ensuing explosion at the cost of losing all her memories. Talos then leads everyone to a cloaked lab ship orbiting Earth, where several Skrulls are hiding and protecting the Tesseract (Yes, that Tesseract), the source of the energy core.
In the Third Act, Starforce captures Carol and brings her before the Supreme Intelligence, who still looks like Annette Bening and not a giant Jabba the Hutt from the comics. During their conversation, Carol removes a Kree implant that was suppressing her powers, gaining full access to all her abilities and leveling up to Badass Superhero Mode. During the inevitable battle, Fury retrieves the Tesseract and Goose is revealed to be a Flerken, an alien with a pocket dimension inside her body. Goose swallows the Tesseract whole, which puts the cat Flerken in a really bad mood, causing her to scratch Fury's left eye and partially blind him in the process. Carol takes out ballistic missiles fired by returning Kree bad guy Ronan the Accuser, forcing him and his forces to bail. She then confronts her former mentor Yon-Rogg on Earth, sending him back to Hala with a warning to the Supreme Intelligence.
Deciding to help the Skrulls find a new homeworld (and explaining why we never see her until Avengers: Endgame), Carol gives Fury a modified pager to contact her in an emergency. And then, to check that final continuity box, Fury drafts an initiative aimed at locating heroes like her, changing the name after finding a photo of Carol boarding her Air Force jet, which bears her call sign "Avenger". And lo, the Avengers Initiative is born!
For the most part, the movie's cast give solid performances, bringing fun superhero moments and some wonderfully dry humor to the table. Here are some things that stood out:
CAPTAIN MARVEL/VERS/CAROL DANVERS -- As many of you already know, Brie Larson received a Hala-sized amount of advance criticism online from incel trolls that feel threatened by women who assert themselves. Many of us who actually watched the movie (and didn't post "reviews" of it prior to the release date) can attest that Larson is a great Captain Marvel and does a nice job shifting from the conditioned space soldier to a relatable superhero with a sharp, dry wit. Interestingly, Carol is never actually called Captain Marvel in the movie, so it'll be interesting to see how she claims the codename in Avengers: Endgame.
NICK FURY -- Samuel L. Jackson is once again Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, as if that's ever a bad thing. This time, however, we get to see him being a bit freaked by the first aliens he encounters and not as the ice-cool veteran spymaster from previous MCU films. As a result, Fury gets to smile and enjoy himself a bit more, at least until we finally find out how what forced him to start rocking his famous eyepatch. Oh, and points to Fury for actually keeping Goose around after what happened, instead of dumping her into a S.H.I.E.L.D. sub-sub-sub-subbasement holding cell somewhere, never to be seen again.
TALOS/KELLER -- In a great bit of misdirection casting, stereotyped villain actor Ben Mendelsohn was cast as Talos, which only helped sell the presumption that Talos was the movie's Big Bad. And considering Talos is a Skrull, the alien shapeshifters who have been menacing the Marvel Universe since Fantastic Four (vol.1) #2 in 1962, using that misconception was a brilliant plot twist. I have to think Mendelsohn really appreciated playing against his stereotype, and it was fun to see Talos chewing the scenery with humorous quips and slurping on a fast food drink.
YON-ROGG -- Jude Law, meanwhile, got to play against some of those misconceptions as well, with Yon-Rogg turning out to be the actual Big Bad instead of that inspirational mentor who usually dies in the First or Second Act to motivate the hero. (I'm looking at you, Uncle Ben!) Unfortunately, Yon-Rogg feels like a bit of blank slate, even after his Big Bad revelation, so it seemed oddly appropriate that he was taken out by Carol so easily and quickly in their big confrontation scene.
MARIA "PHOTON" RAMBEAU -- As the connection to Carol's past as an Air Force pilot, Lashana Lynch shares some nice scenes with Larson as Maria helps Carol remember her past. I'm guessing, though, that things will feel a bit different when Carol returns twenty-plus years later in Avengers: Endgame, still roughly the same age as when she left Earth. And as longtime Captain Marvel fans know, Maria's daughter Monica Rambeau is the one to watch, presumably with the now-adult Monica taking on the superhero alias Photon at some point.
GOOSE -- Originally Carol's cat Chewie from the comics, Goose is obviously named here for the Top Gun character Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, and is portrayed by four different cats, Reggie, Archie, Rizzo and Gonzo. Like Chewie from the comics, Goose is revealed to be an alien Flerken by Talos, making the cat a great scene stealer and a good source for comic relief. Goose swallowing the Tesseract whole (and later regurgitating it as if it were a hairball) were fun moments, along with the explanation that Goose is responsible for Nick Fury losing his left eye. Anyone else want to see Goose vs. Thanos now? My money's on the Flerken cat.
THE SUPREME INTELLIGENCE & MAR-VELL/DR. WENDY LAWSON -- With the movie version of the Supreme Intelligence taking the physical form of the individual most respected by whomever is speaking to it, instead of a giant space slug with brain tentacles, we get Annette Bening. To Carol Danvers, it takes the form of her former mentor Dr. Wendy Lawson (also Bening), who turns out to be a gender-swapped Mar-Vell, the original Kree Captain Marvel from the comics. If that explanation sounds a bit confusing, that's because it is if you're not paying close attention, and it affects the importance of the Mar-Vell revelation.
PHIL COULSON -- After five seasons of playing Coulson on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Clark Gregg finally brings his fan-favorite character back to the big screen as a younger '90s version. Like Nick Fury, Coulson gets the "less wrinkles and more hair" treatment, and his big contribution here is to give Fury and Carol a pass as they escape from the Joint USAFA Facility. Presumably, this decision is what makes Fury trust Coulson enough to make him a recruiter for the Avengers Initiative.
KORATH THE PURSUER -- After being introduced in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Djimon Hounsou reprises Korath as a member of Starforce alongside Vers, Yon-Rogg, and Minn-Erva. He accompanies Yon-Rogg to Earth alongside Starforce and some Kree soldiers for the sole purpose of fighting Carol, only to have his Kree ass handed to him.
MINN-ERVA -- Gemma Chan plays Minn-Erva, noticeably different from the comics character, a Kree geneticist named Doctor Minerva. This version is a member of Yon-Rogg's Starforce team along with Vers, essentially a sniper with a strong grudge towards Carol. During the final battle, she attempts to catch up with and shoot down a ship being flown by Maria Rambeau and containing several refugee Skrulls, but Maria outmaneuvers Minn-Erva and shoots her down. See ya!
RONAN THE ACCUSER -- Another Guardians of the Galaxy vet, Lee Pace, returns as his character Ronan the Accuser, this time with a significantly scaled back role. Because Captain Marvel is a prequel film set in the '90s, Ronan is nowhere close to being obliterated yet and works alongside the Starforce, hunting Skrulls across the universe. After being contacted by Yon-Rogg to eradicate the Skrulls on Earth, he ends up exiting stage left when his fleet is destroyed by Carol. Before escaping, Ronan resolves to come back for Carol, which should be a good trick since he's now a pile of dust on the planet Xandar.
KELLY SUE DECONNICK CAMEO -- Former Captain Marvel writer Kelly Sue DeConnick turns up very briefly in the train station sequence. After Vers loses track of the Skrulls on the elevated train, she wonders around on the train platform in the middle of the train station. It's there on the platform that Vers walks past a commuter played by DeConnick, who's rushing to get on the train.
POSTHUMOUS STAN LEE CAMEO -- In addition to the lovely opening tribute to Stan Lee, he turns up during the train scene where Vers fights a Skrull shifted into the form of an old Earth woman. When Vers first boards the train, she's looking around at every passenger, trying to figure out which one is the shape-shifting Skrull, with one of these people being Stan, who's shown reading the script for Mallrats, the 1995 second feature film from filmmaker Kevin Smith. Not only was Stan Lee reading the script, but he was going over the lines that he actually speaks in the movie.
AVENGERS CAMEOS -- Just to tie Captain Marvel to the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo and Don Cheadle turn up in the bonus mid-credits scene, where we find their present-day characters Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, and James "Rhodey" Rhodes monitoring Captain Marvel's pager, which Fury activated prior to his disintegration in the end credits scene of Avengers: Infinity War. Looking just as young as she did in 1995, Captain Marvel appears and demands to know where Fury is. Awkward.
All in all, Captain Marvel is a perfectly entertaining and enjoyable introductory film to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first female superhero solo lead. As a film, it's not especially innovative and occasionally clings a bit too hard to the typical MCU formula, but there's at least one solid plot twist and Brie Larson more than proves that she doesn't have to constantly smile all nice and pretty to get the job done. And now that Captain Marvel has been fully introduced, I can't wait to see where the character goes from here in Avengers: Endgame and the inevitable Captain Marvel sequel.
And for those who may be wondering, here's the updated list of my Top 20 Comic Book Films:
1. Superman (1978)
2. The Dark Knight (2008)
3. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
4. The Avengers (2012)
5. Batman Begins (2005)
6. Logan (2017)
7. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
8. Black Panther (2018)
9. Man of Steel (2013)
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
11. Doctor Strange (2016)
12. Wonder Woman (2017)
13. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
14. Spider-Man (2002)
15. Aquaman (2018)
16. Iron Man (2008)
17. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
18. Watchmen (2009)
19. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
20. Captain Marvel (2019)
