This film is a 12A, was released on March 8th 2019, and this review will contain NO SPOILERS
Introduction
Do you want to know why I love the MCU so much? Well there are many reasons but one of them in particular is that it has introduced me to tons of knew characters. Sure, everyone knows who Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Hulk are, but how many people could tell you who the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man or Doctor Strange were 10 years ago aside from the nerds. Not a lot. This franchise has brought these obscure characters into the spotlight and given them a chance to shine and have been met with lots of success. But what do you notice about most of those characters that I listed? None of them are female (aside from Gamora in the Guardians). Well, 11 years into the franchise, Captain Marvel came about.
Thoughts Going In
I was excited for this movie. Not as much as Endgame, but excited. However my excitement levels dropped after seeing all the negative buzz surrounding this film as well as some of the controversy. I'm not going to comment on it because I have literally nothing to add to the conversation so to me it's a big fat "who cares" situation. Nevertheless, I was still keen to see this movie and as my second wave of mocks have just finished, I felt like a new Marvel film was what I needed.
The Story
Carol Danvers is a member of the Kree warriors. She has some vague powers but when sent out on a mission, she is kidnapped by an alien race called the Skrull. She manages to escape but winds up on Earth. She runs into Nick Fury and the two of them set out on a journey to find out some secrets about another member of Kree as well as some secrets about Carol's past.
What I Liked
The MCU movies are very character driven stories, so it was such a relief to see another great lead. Brie Larson was great. I disagree with all arguments about her being bland because to me, she sunk into the role of Carol Danvers very well and added the charismatic nature that I like to see from MCU heroes. She was a strong lead and perfect fit for the role. Samuel L Jackson was as good as ever but the de-aging CGI on his face was remarkable. It looked so realistic that it wasn't until the end of the movie when I realised it was CGI. It's amazing what can be accomplished with technology nowadays. All the supporting cast were great too, although the stand out aside from the afore mentioned two was Goose the Cat, who is the best cat in a movie.
The score was also really good. There were times when I found it to be more than just your standard "DAH DAH DAH" sounds. There are some nice electronic motifs and it made certain scenes more atmospheric and engaging. Whenever there isn't any background music, you've got a smashing 90s soundtrack the is incorporated into certain scenes very well, almost as well as the Guardians movies. So, fantastic in the music department.
The film offers plenty of the action you've come to expect from Marvel. Plenty of blasts and punches, kicks and such. The energy to them is great and they're tons of fun to watch. However, it's only until the third act when the action shines. This is once Captain Marvel fully unleashes her powers and it does get more entertaining. As for the rest of the movie, there's one chase scene on a train pretty early on and there are the occasional one-to-one fights.
Another thing I liked, but won't say is a huge praise, is that it is very satisfying to see some of the ways that certain things in the MCU came about, such as Nick Fury's missing eye, the name of the Avengers initiative and a few more.
What I Didn't Like
The storytelling was the weakest element of this film. It's told in a way in which we, the audience, are finding out details regarding Carol's life at the same time as she is. However, there were a lot of times when it was hard to follow or just confusing as to what was going on. Withholding information in a film can be done effectively, but a weakness of it is that you can only fully be engaged in the character that you're finding details about once a lot of the information has been revealed, and that means there's a lot of film time when you're not invested in the character of Captain Marvel. Fortunately, once you know everything about her the film does get a lot better, but there's a lot of time where I struggled to get invested.
The style was pretty generic. If you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor Ragnarok then there's essentially nothing new on offer here from a stylistic standpoint. It's your standard space and science-fiction look and there isn't much to differentiate it from the films mentioned. This isn't always a deal-breaker for me however I think it really would've benefited the film if it gave Captain Marvel a more distinguishable style among the other MCU heroes, because as it is, it feels quite unremarkable.
The film is also a bit bumpy in general. What do I mean by that? Well there's a whole portion of the movie, I'd say the whole first act and a bit of the second, that isn't particularly interesting or engaging. It's mostly setting up the character and it unfortunately has a lot of standing around and talking. Now to be fair, Infinity War had a lot of standing around and talking, but there was enough exciting action to balance it out to the point where you could look past it. Here, the film only really gets going until we're halfway into the film, so you can probably tell that there isn't enough to balance out that slow first act. Thankfully, Larson and Jackson are a likeable duo so it wasn't boring in any way, just slow. Although, unfortunately, it wasn't as funny as many of the other films. It does attempt humour but roughly 1 in every 4 jokes work.
Conclusion
The best way to describe Captain Marvel is adequate. There are some great performances, an awesome cat, incredible and unnoticable effects, atmospheric music and the occasional burst of energetic action, but there's also a needlessly convoluted story, unremarkable style, and quite a dull first half. Despite that, I still enjoyed this film just fine. It has enough of what I wanted to see to make me able to say I liked it. As a whole, it isn't as good as recent MCU offerings, but it's much better than a lot of the earlier films, such as that of phase 1. Don't take this as me being someone who loves the film or that I'll go out of my way to defend it, because I can somewhat reason with the points people have made against it, but I like it enough and will definitely be watching it again. A sufficient addition to the collection.
I'm going to give Captain Marvel a 7/10
The score was also really good. There were times when I found it to be more than just your standard "DAH DAH DAH" sounds. There are some nice electronic motifs and it made certain scenes more atmospheric and engaging. Whenever there isn't any background music, you've got a smashing 90s soundtrack the is incorporated into certain scenes very well, almost as well as the Guardians movies. So, fantastic in the music department.
The film offers plenty of the action you've come to expect from Marvel. Plenty of blasts and punches, kicks and such. The energy to them is great and they're tons of fun to watch. However, it's only until the third act when the action shines. This is once Captain Marvel fully unleashes her powers and it does get more entertaining. As for the rest of the movie, there's one chase scene on a train pretty early on and there are the occasional one-to-one fights.
Another thing I liked, but won't say is a huge praise, is that it is very satisfying to see some of the ways that certain things in the MCU came about, such as Nick Fury's missing eye, the name of the Avengers initiative and a few more.
What I Didn't Like
The storytelling was the weakest element of this film. It's told in a way in which we, the audience, are finding out details regarding Carol's life at the same time as she is. However, there were a lot of times when it was hard to follow or just confusing as to what was going on. Withholding information in a film can be done effectively, but a weakness of it is that you can only fully be engaged in the character that you're finding details about once a lot of the information has been revealed, and that means there's a lot of film time when you're not invested in the character of Captain Marvel. Fortunately, once you know everything about her the film does get a lot better, but there's a lot of time where I struggled to get invested.
The style was pretty generic. If you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor Ragnarok then there's essentially nothing new on offer here from a stylistic standpoint. It's your standard space and science-fiction look and there isn't much to differentiate it from the films mentioned. This isn't always a deal-breaker for me however I think it really would've benefited the film if it gave Captain Marvel a more distinguishable style among the other MCU heroes, because as it is, it feels quite unremarkable.
The film is also a bit bumpy in general. What do I mean by that? Well there's a whole portion of the movie, I'd say the whole first act and a bit of the second, that isn't particularly interesting or engaging. It's mostly setting up the character and it unfortunately has a lot of standing around and talking. Now to be fair, Infinity War had a lot of standing around and talking, but there was enough exciting action to balance it out to the point where you could look past it. Here, the film only really gets going until we're halfway into the film, so you can probably tell that there isn't enough to balance out that slow first act. Thankfully, Larson and Jackson are a likeable duo so it wasn't boring in any way, just slow. Although, unfortunately, it wasn't as funny as many of the other films. It does attempt humour but roughly 1 in every 4 jokes work.
Conclusion
The best way to describe Captain Marvel is adequate. There are some great performances, an awesome cat, incredible and unnoticable effects, atmospheric music and the occasional burst of energetic action, but there's also a needlessly convoluted story, unremarkable style, and quite a dull first half. Despite that, I still enjoyed this film just fine. It has enough of what I wanted to see to make me able to say I liked it. As a whole, it isn't as good as recent MCU offerings, but it's much better than a lot of the earlier films, such as that of phase 1. Don't take this as me being someone who loves the film or that I'll go out of my way to defend it, because I can somewhat reason with the points people have made against it, but I like it enough and will definitely be watching it again. A sufficient addition to the collection.
I'm going to give Captain Marvel a 7/10
