Where do I begin with this film? I was a big doubter first off for this film and even Endgame the minute I watched IW and was severely disappointed to keep that description short. The few months after the film I was adamant Marvel would be in quicksand after Ant-Man and Wasp and Spider-Man: Far From Home would be the universe’s saving grace to reset the garbage the Russo’s had exposed us to and start fresh again. By the time the first trailer for Captain Marvel released I was confident in my stance that the film would be an absolute **** show. Brie’s comments a few weeks back only added to the belief in the social media reaction to her and the film was becoming icing on a pessimistic cake.
Fast forward to today I walk in to the theater with a young lady which for the purposes of this review we’ll refer to as “side piece” and I’m ready to do my usual MCU film schtick of opening night regardless of how I was feeling about the film. I had been searching for spoilers all over the place for the film in particular and stumbled across one that was being touted as legit which somewhat changed my perspective on what I would possibly be seeing. Once the actual spoiler released online, I was underwhelmed to say the least but still wanted to see how it would play out on film. I can tell you right now that I was wrong...I LOVED this film.
The reasons are numerous. From the Stan tribute at the beginning to his endearing cameo referencing a quasi cult classic from my youth there were many things that made me smile. But everything boiled down to the film taking me back to a place where time was simple and coincidentally at that same time I fell in love with comics. The 90’s. The True Lies billboard in Blockbuster, the Internet cafe. I literally clapped when I saw the Street Fighter 2: champion edition cabinet. This movie was a cheesy comic book from the 90’s from beginning to end and I think it’s a thematic narrative choice that is being overlooked mostly because no one has noticed.
Brie’s acting was overtly meant to be “machismo” in the beginning to show she could be a worthy hero in the male dominated world of heroes. It isn’t until she meets with Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau that her femininity starts to show in some surprisingly well acted scenes. By the way, Lashana Lynch is thicker than frozen peanut butter. The men in the film get some great things to do as well with the obvious standouts being Samuel L. Jackson as our jovial now stern later favorite secret spy Nick Fury and Ben Mendelson as the surprisingly comical but somewhat confusing Talos. My few gripes with the film come from the latter character who is playing a leader of the greatest alien species in the Marvel universe. The Skrulls are never to be trusted so seeing them at the dinner table with Nick Fury was um, jarring to say the least with the implication that they’re now friends with the early foundations of Gaia’s mightiest heroes. How do we get the Skrulls we’re used to after that? More discussion on that on another time.
Ultimately the film was more than I expected which wasn’t much and was probably a huge factor in why I was so surprised and liked it so much. The message it had for woman both little girls and adult women was on the nose but I personally liked it. “Side piece” gave me her perspective on the film being an occasional MCU viewer and said that the movie to her gave off a tongue in cheek vibe of male takes advantage of a woman until a better man shows her how special she truly is and called it an MCU Tyler Perry movie
very accurate assessment in my opinion. In closing I’ll leave you with a few things; I think the film will make A LOT of money because it has a lot of things in it casual audiences will like and MCU fans will like as well. Goose is the most alien thing we’ve ever seen in a Marvel movie. Like even Guardians never did anything that random. I loved how cheesy but fitting No Doubt’s “I’m Just a Girl” was in the fight scene. That’s a top 10 theme song of the 90’s. Did I mention Lashana Lynch being nice to look at?