Captain Marvel
[Devin Dayley]
Year Released: 2019
Directors: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Stars:
Brie Larson
Samuel L. Jackson
Ben Mendelsohn
General Summary:
When Earth is caught in the crosshairs of two alien races battling, Carol Danvers (Larson) is assisted by Nick Fury (Jackson) as well as others to become one of the most powerful superheroes in the universe, Captain Marvel.
Review:
First off, I know you’re all curious, I would classify this as a movie, rather than a film. I went to this movie to be entertained, and that’s what I was. There were times when I thought the filmmakers were trying to get me to feel something or learn something, which I will come back to later. Speaking generally, though, I was entertained, which was what I wanted and expected.
The story was fine. I’ve heard some complaints about it being too predictable and formulaic. To that, I scoff thinking that it kind of needs to be predictable. Carol Danvers is a person that becomes a superhero, there are only a few ways to tell that kind of story. Adding onto that, the Marvel writers have found a formula for writing movies where they get a lot of people to the cinema and, in turn, makes them a lot of money. So we can’t fault them too much for that. Right?
Something I liked quite a bit was having the superhero be a woman. I thought it was new, it was innovative, and I thought the world was ready for it. I thought that if she showed a little more weakness and more emotion, she would have been humanized and more relatable than she already was. Being a woman, though, did add some relatability to her character in the first place, there could’ve just been more.
The score of the movie is something that has stuck out to me both times I’ve seen it. It has kind of a “Stranger Things” vibe to it, at some points. There are sometimes, a lot of times, where the score is just a “normal Marvel movie” kind of score, with a lot of horns and different sound effects but there were other times where there was a pulsating beat that was as loud or slightly louder than the accompanying rhythm. It was entertaining to listen to and made the movie a little more interesting to watch because we don’t hear that kind of score in other Marvel movies. I will say, though, “Aquaman” had a beating and pulsating score as well. So could Marvel possibly be copying DC? I don’t know…
Speaking of “Aquaman,” Something else I noticed that was similar to “Aquaman” was one of the villains being a main character, and a celebrity that people know and love...or hate. You saw it in “Aquaman” with Patrick Wilson, and in this movie with Jude Law. It is very interesting because they are who your mind tells you they are, which is usually nice, wholesome people. So, they get a chance to break out of the mold that you’ve put them in and become new people.
**Sidenote** There is a good 20 minutes towards the end of the movie where the sound effects sound EXACTLY like Star Wars. It’s really comedic! Well, it is to me. It starts where they are flying the spaceships through the maze of canyons, and there’s that cool shot from above showing you what’s going on. Then it ends, I believe, when they discover Mar-vell’s laboratory for the first time. It during a fight sequence.
I thought the whole “Mar-vell” storyline was reaching. It seemed made up at the last minute and I never really connected with it like a lot of people did. I just rolled my eyes at Lawson being a Kree undercover agent really named Mar-vell. Beh, even now I’m thinking about it and rolling my eyes.
Brie Larson as Carol Danvers I did not love. I liked her okay but I did not feel like I knew her, like I feel with a lot of other superheroes. Thinking about it, though, it takes multiple movies and advances with the character for me to get invested in most of these characters, except for Tony Stark as Iron Man, I connected with him from the very start. I did not like her “hero pose” when she stood. I thought it looked unnatural and she looked uncomfortable standing that way.
Since this was a movie, for me, about entertainment and enjoyment, I did not appreciate some of aspects of the film that were forced or political. I thought the whole cockpit joke was funny but I didn’t really take anything to heart like, I think, the filmmakers wanted me to.
Overall, this movie was fine. I would classify it as a weaker movie in the MCU. It was better, in my opinion, than Doctor Strange but in the same caliber of movie greatness. It was no Avengers 1 or Iron Man 1, which are my two favorite MCU movies, followed by “Captain America: Civil War.” It wasn’t bad, just not fantastic.
I would rate this movie a 7.1/10.
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