"Captain Marvel" Film Review

"Captain Marvel" Film Review

Rating: 2/5

By: Nathaniel Simpson

    Captain Marvel has been set up to be the strongest hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So, it would be logical to think that due to this, she would have one of the best solo origin stories right? Well, you would be mistaken as what we receive is a bland, uneven story with a few good moments sprinkled throughout. 

    Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) has no memories, as well as no idea who she is or where she fits in. She was taken in by the Kree, and therefore trained as an elite member of their Starforce military. When she lands on Earth to avoid the evil Skrulls, she finds that they have followed her to Earth, pitting Earth as the battleground between the two alien races. 

    This movie just simply doesn't work as a superhero origin story. I think the character of Captain Marvel is horribly written, and she just comes off as a cynical, mean woman. She is very bland, which causes Larson's portrayal of her to be very boring and sleepy. It doesn't help the fact that her character doesn't have her memories as well, making this basically as a story of a lost girl who has no idea what she's doing.

    From there, the film just goes downhill even more. They don't really explain many of the elements involved in the film, leaving the viewer guessing throughout most of the runtime. They try to set this film up to coincide with the events of the last Avengers movie, but we don't get anything concerning that story until the end credits scene. Therefore, the threat of these alien races is not very large or important as we know the Earth is still doing ok over twenty years after the events of this film. At the same time, certain things happen to certain characters that we love that are very disappointing. For example, when we find out the real truth of what happened to Fury's eye at the end of the movie, we feel robbed of an actual cool event that happened that forces him to lose his eye. They try to play these things off in a comedic tone, but I truly don't think it works. 

    This just further proves my point of the fact that this film doesn't know exactly what it wants to be. It's so jarring and changes tones so fast that it could give the viewer whiplash. Then, some of the scenes move at a snail's pace, that serve no importance to the movie, followed by extremely important scenes that go by too fast, forcing the viewer to have to catch up somehow. 

    However, on the positive side of things, there are some great things about this movie. The cinematography and action sequences are beautifully shot, and the special effects are out of this world (pun intended). Also, the best thing about this movie is Samuel L. Jackson, who gives a younger portrayal of his classic Marvel character, Nick Fury. We see him as a more laid-back, nice character who is a lot of fun to watch whenever he is on the screen. 

    Overall, this is a very disappointing and unsatisfactory installment to the MCU. Even though this film had its many problems, I don't think it helped having Larson making bold statements about her and her fellow Marvel co-stars. I personally think they brought in a not-right fit for this character, which is a shame as this could have been a great role, and therefore a great movie.