REVIEW: Captain Marvel

Brie Larson is so cool, and I love the Sammy Jackson buddy cop thing, and she punches an old lady in the face, and it’s Blockbuster Video, and Mohawks.

But y’all…it’s below average.

I love the Kree vs Skrull stuff, and the flying laser fists are rad, and the Stan Lee cameo is utilized so fantastically well, but it’s still an Ant Man, Iron Man 2, Thor 2, Age of Ultron film. Not the worst movie I’ve ever seen but certainly below average. I’m not gonna give Captain Marvel a 2.5 and that’s a dang shame.

I’m also not going to do any synopsizing because let’s get real here, I don’t need to. Boatloads of people are going to see this movie. Literal. Boatloads. Even you, dearest reader, will likely see this movie no matter what my opinion is. And that’s fine. That’s all good. I hope you have a better time than I did.

I honestly think there’s a world out there where the sequel goes smoother than the original on this one. A future where we Ragnarock it out and make something interesting in 20xx. But for now, what we have here is a multimillion-dollar idea/cast/film that is a total waste of potential. A movie that was okay for a day out but that I would never buy on blu ray or be excited about watching again.

And it’s a dang shame because from the Spidermans, to Black Panther, to Infinity War, I thought we were finally moving away from Marvel movies like this, but I guess not.

Every single problem Marvel has always had is ready to punch you in the face once again.

On the writing front it’s crappy pacing, forgettable supporting characters, and a flood of quips that are nose breath funny at best and tone breaking at worst. The MCU is just full of stumbles like this. I’m not sure if that’s a problem with the producers or the writers or upper management or whatever, but the story is painfully muddled and mediocre in Captain Marvel.

The action sequences do almost nothing interesting at all. They’re basically CGI light shows, so if you’re into that sort of thing go for it, but hardly anything creative comes out of the action. There’s one decent fight on a train, but when compared to the hundreds and hundreds of amazing train combat scenes that exist, it falls woefully flat. Like, seriously. Even in superhero movies we have Spiderman 2 and The Wolverine. You’re not going to live up to that. Do something different.

It also fails in all kinds of new places I wasn’t expecting. The soundtrack does absolutely nothing for this film and comes across as an auto generated 90s Spotify playlist rather than something intimately curated for each scene like in Guardians 1 and 2.

AND SPEAKING OF THE 90s! This movie is ridiculous in its use of the time period. It’s basically a crutch. A way to create “humor” by referencing that Mad Fresh lifestyle that all the millennials crave. The 90s have no effect on the story, no effect on the characters, and no symbolic value as far as I can tell. There is absolutely no reason for this movie to be set in the past except to exploit nostalgia and drive ticket sales. Ugh.

There are also several Solo-esqu moments where details that could have gone completely unsaid are force fed to the audience like an unwanted meatball sub because “you guys, this IIIS a prequel alright?” They had an opportunity to explore what early SHIELD looked like and instead went for the dorkiest most banal details ever…like showing how the Avengers Initiative would gets its name. Woop-de-doo.

Like I said above, Captain Marvel is not the worst movie ever made.

I mean, the cast is phenomenal, and I loved the Skrulls, and the implications of them being in future movies is pretty cool.

But I desperately wanted to love this movie and I can’t bring myself to do it.

2/5