Captain Marvel, the latest entry in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, provides ample entertainment and a much appreciated ‘Girl Power’ message to inspire the young’uns. It features plenty of 90s references to get your nostalgia senses tingling and an adorable kitty cat, which is an element I will never fault any movie for including.
It’s also another by-the-numbers superhero origin story that doesn’t strive for greatness so much as it just checks off all the boxes we’ve come to expect from Marvel Studios. You’ve got your generic CG-powered action sequences here, a joke or two (or twenty) there. Throw in some Avengers Easter Eggs to make fans the world over positively wet themselves with glee and, baby, you got a stew going. But it’s a lukewarm stew at best, joining the ranks of such middle-tier MCU episodes as Ant-Man, Doctor Strange and most of Phase One.
At the very least, Captain Marvel is relatively fast-paced and fun. The Writer/Director duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck of Half Nelson and Sugar fame try their darndest to spice things up with some weird, non-sequential storytelling pulled straight from the Christopher Nolan screenwriting handbook. In some ways, the zigzagging story helps distract from the fact that there isn’t a whole lot to engage with. It hits all the standard superhero beats, but rarely offers up much inspiration. Since these ‘self-contained’ origin stories tend to fall outside the primary, overarching storyline featuring the characters we’ve come to know and love, they can’t help feeling insignificant in the process.
As Vers, a.k.a. Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, Brie Larson is...fine. She’s been great in other roles, but with her performance here, I couldn’t shake the vibe that she’s already over the whole Marvel thing. To be fair, the screenplay doesn’t give her a lot to work with. There isn’t much of a reason to invest in Carol’s personal journey because it’s not entirely clear what that journey is. She might be tough, she might be snarky (a little too snarky, if I’m being honest - some of these one-liners are painful), but she’s not very interesting. Maybe it’s the dull ‘I don’t remember who I am’ trope she’s saddled with, or maybe it’s because she’s able to take on every foe with what appears to be minimal struggle, the latter being especially noticeable during the film’s climax when she demonstrates a full mastery of her abilities without much of a learning curve. Whatever the reason, Captain Marvel lacks an engaging arc for its titular character. Lots of people around Carol keep telling her how wonderful she is and why she’s such a powerful person. It would have been nice to see a little more evidence as to why, not just a fifteen-second montage of her getting up at different points in her life to stand in for a total absence of character development.
But let’s be honest. The true star of Captain Marvel is not Brie Larson. It’s Ben Mendelsohn as the film’s villain Talos. As Talos, Mendelsohn is charming, threatening and, for reasons I won’t spoil, incredibly endearing. Talos’ journey in this film is far more captivating than Captain Marvel’s.
Oh, and Goose the cat is great too, because...you know...he’s a cat
Despite the standard plotting, there are some genuine twists and fun surprises as the story plays out that lend Captain Marvel some much-needed flair. I enjoyed the ‘buddy cop’ angle between Captain Marvel and Nick Fury; Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson have solid chemistry and play well off each other. But, as is often the case with these origin MCU entries, the film doesn’t feel the need to do anything more than the bare minimum. The 90s nostalgia gives the film a unique flavor, but the references don’t delve much deeper than the surface. The soundtrack takes great pleasure in milking some of your favorite hits from the decade, but the song selections are a bit on-the-nose. I guess Boden and Fleck are trying to follow the example set by James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, but it never gels in the same way. A particular song choice during one of Captain Marvel’s climactic fight scenes is more cringeworthy than anything else.
Look, Captain Marvel isn’t terrible, but it just feels so run of the mill, giving into the worst inclinations of the MCU’s origin stories. What should have been a unique, standalone entry ends up being little more than a less-than-satisfying appetizer for next month’s main event. The film’s tagline ‘Higher. Further. Faster.’ really should have just been ‘High enough. Far enough. Fast enough...to hold you over until Avengers: Endgame.’
