ironhorse_iv Review of Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel (2019)

This comic book movie felt like it was made on auto pilot. It was not marvelous

[6/10 · 28 January 2021]

In a very strange coincidence, the original titular character from Fawcett Comics once known as Captain Marvel was released in theaters incredibly close proximity to this cosmic superheroine film in 2019. While this movie written & directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck with some help from Nicole Perlman, Meg LeFauve, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet did receive a huge general blockbuster intake. DCEU 'Shazam!' won more fanfare. So, what happen here? Without spoiling it too much, well for starters, the movie didn't get their story straight. Captain Marvel AKA Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) fighting Earth invading shapeshifters aliens Skrulls in the 1990s was supposed to be amazing. Everybody was really looking forward to a Secret Invasion type storyline. Sadly, we didn't get that as the writers didn't really wanted to redo the big shocking twist from 2014 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' with most of the world's biggest organizations being infiltrated and compromised by a sinister secretly outside source. Instead, they chose to subverted expectations by having that villainous group as refugees trying to find their families and hide away from the eyes of Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) & his unseen ruler Supreme Intelligence. I wouldn't mind it too much if the filmmakers also switch the roles for the Kree. I really dislike watching disordered flashbacks waiting for Carol to catch up to their clearly obvious predictable scheme. Honestly, the filmmakers should had gone with mutants like Mystique posing as aliens in order to play both sides into conquering the planet and placing her as the puppet leader. It would had been a good idea how to introduce some of the X-Men characters into the MCU. After all, everybody wants to see Danvers's big showdown with Rogue in the future. Nevertheless, seeing how none of the more sinister Skrulls were mention or used in the film's story. The aliens could play a bigger factor in future installments in a more faithful role to the source material. As for the revelation of Annette Bening's onscreen character. I kinda dig her character dual role as friend and foe. The same with Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). Shame that Ronan wasn't given the same crisis of conscience development with Carole. They hardly share any screen time. So, in the end seeing Carole fight him was not really that interesting. Nevertheless, I didn't really dig the spoon-fed subplot of the Kree repetitive telling Danvers to control her abilities and keep her emotions in check even if it's a metaphor of outdated gender stereotypes. Not only was the message heavy handed on the nose and over preachy. The montage of her getting up is really cheesy. To add onto that, that subplot also limited Brie Larson's acting chops quite a bit. Scenes where she is supposed to seem angry, sad or charming is delivered in such a robotic way that it comes off as phoning it in. It's not a good direction especially when Larson in other roles could act brilliantly complex. It's already bad enough that the character is indifferent with Goose due to Brie's allergies toward cats. It's also sad that Danvers doesn't even admire Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) enough for the Supreme Intelligence to take that form. The emotional scenes with Maria were delivered so dully. Honestly if it wasn't for the great buddy cop chemistry that she has with Samuel L. Jackson's character Nick Fury to bounce off to. Carole would had been so very unlikeable and boring vandalizing private property shrew. Still, it was a bit odd to see Fury arrived at Pancho Bar before Danvers. He really must had done unrealistic quick detective work to pull that off. Regardless as for Jackson's acting. It's great. It's still surreal to see a more chill Fury around rather than the no nonsense older version. Nevertheless, the silly manner how the character lost his eye in this, really does hurt the powerful message that Fury told in 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'. It's also weird that the attacker is able to roam free around two top-secret military bases after that and before. As for the de-aging computer effects for Fury. It was decent. However, Clark Gregg's young facial feature effects for Agent Coulsen looks awkwardly plastic. Meanwhile the CGI morphing animations for the Skrulls blend so seamlessly with the practical make up effects with Ben Mendelsohn's witty character Talos being a highlight. Sadly, the action scenes of the movie are not that impressive to look at. Having outer space fights in pitch darkness is not a good idea. The limited visuals are quite bland compare to the other Marvel cosmic movies. Then there is the earthly train foot chase. Cliches as hell. None of the battles on planet quite wow me. Actions scene like the jet dog fight only left me with jarring plot-holes such as why did Lawson even bother building a lightspeed engine if the Tesseract can create wormholes? This movie seemed somewhat shoved awkwardly in the MCU continuity and it shows. Hopefully the sequel could explain some big burning questions like Carol or Goose wasn't around during the events portray in 2012's movie 'The Avengers' and why Ronan went after the power stone rather than Danvers in 2014's 'Guardian of the Galaxy'. Also did the Asgardians and Xandarians go to war with Hala after the events of this movie. A lot of things need to be explained. Hopefully the sequel would also solve Danvers all over the place overpower issues. Being adapted from several plot elements from multiple one-shot comics that used the Captain Marvel title over the years including bits of Author Roy Thomas's 1971 "Kree-Skrull War" can cause that. Overall: While this movie has a badass 90s soundtrack full of some of that era greatest hits even if some the songs dark lyrics don't really fit the narrative and a wonderful, but confusing Stan Lee meta cameo/memoriam. Watching this movie gave me jet lag. In the end, it's not quite worth it.