Captain Marvel Review (Spoiler Free)

The return of Marvel is upon us and it marks the return of me writing a movie review after taking a long and undeserved break. It is also Marvel’s first true origin story flick since 2016’s Doctor Strange. Because while Spiderman and Black Panther had their debut solo movies, they were not the stories of their origins.

Marvel’s first entry in 2019. Captain Marvel, Higher! Further! Faster!... more like Meh. Pretty Good. Room for improvement. Call me Captain Spoil Free, as we review.

Going into this movie, I am definitely not up on all of my Captain Marvel lore, so I didn’t have any pre-conceived ideas, or bias based on the comics. The story was good, I just felt that it was put together kind of sloppy. It moved very fast in order to cover a lot of ground. Except that the ground wasn’t really covered. I would define it more like it was sprinkled on. They sprinkled on a lot of ground. What that sacrificed was giving time to get emotionally attached to any bit of it. It felt like they had an idea of what they wanted to do, mapped it out in a flow chart, but then didn’t add any fluff to it. It was like we need to get to Louisiana. Boom! We’re in Louisiana. We need to get to that place to find that thing. Boom! We’re at that place where we need to find that thing. I need to find this person. Boom! Found him. Danvers backstory is in there but it is only vague snip-its, partly due to the circumstances, but I wasn’t able to get attached to her personal struggles either. I recognize that they happened… but I was over them by the time the next scene came on.

Another knock on the story. I never really felt threatened by the villains. I understand the difficulty of achieving this when the hero is extremely powerful, but they could have put a little more effort into scheming something up to challenge Danvers. If not by physical harm, at least psychologically. Superman movies run into the same dilemma. He is just so immensely powerful, you don’t have to fear for his failure. Danver’s largest struggles to overcome the villains seemed like just a minor speed bump. And it didn’t take too much effort or teamwork to get over that bump.

What I did like, the story wasn’t 100% predictable. This for me was my major beef with Black Panther. It was so by the book, cookie cutter, predictable that I knew what was going to happen three scenes before getting there. In Captain Marvel, we do get to enjoy some twists and turns. If you can fool me in your movie, I’m a happy camper. It does make deception easier when you’re dealing with shape shifting hooligans of course. We also get some answers to questions that have plagued the MCU for a long time. Not exactly game changing questions or answers, but I still found their inclusion satisfying. Although one I am still on the fence about. The 90’s nostalgia along with the soundtrack was comforting. Brought me straight back to the good ole days.

Let’s talk a bit about the characters. Oh Brie. I want to like her performance. I truly do. She has endured a lot of criticism for months leading up to the release. At times I did like her performance. Other times, not so much. Again, this could partly be due to the circumstances for a good portion of the movie? If she doesn’t remember her life on Earth, how can she be emotionally attached to anything from her past? While that does make sense, it does make it difficult to really get vested into her character. Even after things begin to click, I can’t say there was a particular emotional or Ah-Ha moment that stands out. It just kind of happened.

“Fury you son of a bitch.” –Steve Rogers

Jackson has a strong on scene presence so he doesn’t need to put in a lot of effort to steal the show, and he does that repeatedly. We get a lot of Fury, but it is a different Fury than we’ve ever seen before. Chalk it up to him being just a young pup in this era. Not quite the serious Nick Fury we now him as today.

I was disappointed to not see as much of some of the other returning familiar faces as they were relegated to more of cameo type roles. I was hoping to see more of agent Coulson as well as Ronan. So far I think they are 0-2 using Ronan. I was hoping this was going to be his chance to justify his stake in MCU. Not so much unfortunately. Maybe he will get a third chance one day.

Skrulls. Well I can’t say too much about them because I don’t want to spoil anything. I was hoping for something similar to “They Live” but that wasn’t quite the direction they went with. No Rowdy Roddy Piper either.

The rest of the Cree squad was kind of forgettable. From the little screen time they had, no one rose above the pack aside from Danvers mentor figure. Still there was something lacking between them.

You receive both a mid and post credit scene after the conclusion of this flick. In typical fashion of late, one is serious and progresses the story of overlying story arc of the MCU and the other is a fun bonus. The mid-credit scene… totally awesome! Almost worth the ticket price alone. Let’s just say it takes place an undetermined amount of time after the decimation.

All in all, it is a decent Marvel flick. Not the best, but not the worst. Most of the components were there, but just not put together in the best format. You get your typical Marvel humor, although more misses than hits in the jokes department. Visuals for the most part are on point. Danvers looks fantastic fully suited up in red, blue, and sporting the Mohawk. There were a few CGI close ups that I thought looked a little off but not a deal breaker. Her photon blasts look marvelous especially when she realizes her full potential. This may be Marvel’s first miss after a historic run of successes, but I do think it is still worth a watch.

Have you seen Captain Marvel yet? What are your thoughts? Log in, or create an account, and leave a comment!

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