After the exhilarating and hard-hitting ride that was last years’ Avengers: Infinity War, fans and non-fans alike were left with several theories and questions in regards to the film and its successor (coming out this April) left unanswered, one of which being: “Who was that person that Fury paged during the end credits sequence?” Of course, die-hard fans of Marvel would recognize the logo on the pager as belonging to no other than Captain Marvel, who has now received her own stand-alone movie as of right now, becoming the first film in the MCU with a lead female character.
I feel that I can’t reveal too much of the actual plot without going into spoiler territory, so lets keep it as brief as possible – the film follows Vers (Brie Larson), a noble warrior from the planet Hala, which is in the middle of a galactic-scale conflict. However, during a mission, Vers is ambushed and brought to mid-90s Earth, where she meets the younger Nick Fury and embarks on a new kind of mission: bridging the gap between her lost memories.
With the plot out of the way, how does the actual movie hold up? Let’s begin with the good stuff: Brie Larson is certainly no stranger to acting, and she did a pretty great job despite what she was given to work with – more on that later. As always, Marvel takes their visual/digital effects and CGI up to eleven in every film they make; this one is no exception either. Most of the character interactions are definitely enjoyable to watch, be it Fury and Vers talking like they’re in an 80s buddy-cop movie or Fury’s normally no-nonsense composure turning to mush when he meets Goose the cat. Moreover, if you’ve read my Black Panther review, you know I consider many ‘origin story’ films (not specifically Marvel) to be quite formulaic and cookie-cutter. However, this one decides to mix the recipe up a little bit and as a result, there are a few interesting plot twists to be seen – although I can’t tell you about them!
Nonetheless, there are several aspects of this movie that I found to be lacking, so I must go over the flaws in the system. First, despite Larson’s performance, Vers isn’t all too compelling a character, and she generally feels like she’s just there to keep the plot moving along. To add to that, the movie as a whole never really made me feel anything, which is a shame, because a character of her caliber and importance has as much potential for an emotional core as any other MCU character does. My last point is about the whole movie in general, and it is that this Marvel movie is one that was (mostly) made out of necessity, not necessarily because they were passionate about this character or story and felt the need to share it. I felt that this here film was only released to fulfill one purpose, which is to introduce a character that will (seemingly) be important in the second part of their biggest hit yet, and that without this purpose it would simply have never been released.
In conclusion, despite the flaws I mentioned above, Captain Marvel is an overall entertaining experience which, although could use some polishing, shines just enough to be a somewhat fun and lively distraction from life.
Final score: 6/10
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