Captain Marvel movie review

Here's what you need to know; there's a lot that Carol Danvers doesn't know about herself, a past she feels she had that she struggles to remember while she trains to be a Kree warrior and fights to end the Skrull menace. But when a mission goes wrong and she crash lands on Earth, everything she believes is thrown into question, as she makes unlikely allies and learns that not everything she's been told about herself is true.
Yep, I watched Captain Marvel, of course I did, all that shit I talked about Ghostbusters in 2016 and I still watched that, because I'm strange like that, and love films too much not to give it a go, and after all the controversy surrounding this film, I just had to see for myself if any of it was worth it, and if the film was as bad as I feared it was. Well, I'll give it this, it's not as bad as Ghostbusters, not that that's saying much.

I'll also give it this, the film's tribute to Stan Lee was absolutely amazing, it was a genuinely funny and sweet thing that they did and I can't even spoil it, it was good. And while we're on the topic of things that I liked; let's talk about the good in this film before we descend into a rant. Samuel L. Jackson as a younger Nick Fury was awesome, but of course he was, it's Samuel L. mother-fucking Jackson, but what was even more insane than that is the de-aging they did on him, since this film is set in the 90's and Jackson isn't exactly looking youthful anymore. It's insane to look at, it's completely seamless and if you told someone who wasn't the wiser that this film came out in 1995, I don't think they'd doubt you. Well, maybe they would once they saw the flashy special effects and horrifically blatant political messaging, but let's not get hasty. I also really liked Ben Mendelson, who plays the film's red herring villain; the leader of a pack of shape shifting aliens called Skrulls. Like with Samuel L. Jackson, you know you're going to have a good time just because it's Ben Mendelson and he's awesome, he was awesome in Rogue One, he was great in Ready Player One, he was even great in Robin Hood, and that film was trash. So is it any wonder that when you cake him make up and have him play the leader of an alien invasion force, he kicks arse in that role. Jude Law was also very good as Danvers' mentor and commander, but his character is ruined when it is tied so heavily into the film's overarching themes and messaging, and don't worry, that's coming. I also liked some of the film's action sequences, some of them; there's an awesome dogfight near the film's finale, as well as a pretty sweet chase sequence as Danvers pursues a Skrull on a train. Then there's the finale; where Danvers unlocks her true power and goes super-saiyen, and starts literally punching spaceships to death, and my issue with this sequence is something I shall now try to explain; because it ties back into the film's political messaging, as well as Kevin Feige's words that Captain Marvel is the most powerful MCU hero. But the problem is that this sheer power feels completely unearned by the end of the film, a problem that might entirely be me because I'm putting two and two together like I normally do, but it's within the film's messaging that she's granted this power, and that is at the core of the problem.

Now let's go for some small fry problems first; retconning, Captain Marvel does some retconning, and some of it really doesn't work. The two worst offenders with regards to retconning involve Nick Fury's eye and the naming of the Avengers Initiative, both of which get really stupid explanations. First, Fury's eye getting taken out by a cat, yep, Nick Fury loses his eye because of a cat, which is obviously played off for a joke, if only it was funny that something as significant to the character became the butt of a lame gag. And his naming the Avengers Initiative after Carol Danvers' jet, which I would probably find cooler if she at all deserved that, but she didn't do anything to deserve it in this film. And since Samuel L. Jackson's de-aging was so cool and well done, some of the other visual effects weren't as good; some of the visual effects on the cat and on the finale are a bit less polished than they could be, but A, that's something I'd notice easier than a normal person because I'm an autistic film buff, most people wouldn't notice or care, and B, this isn't the first Marvel film to have so-so visual effects. And the film also pulls a lot from the MCU, bringing in a bunch of recognizable characters like Coulson, Ronan and Korath, as well as having its McGuffin revealed to be the Tesseract. But then the film ruins Ronan by having him show up in the film's finale and dropping bombs on Earth, only to gaze in awe at Captain Marvel and then run scared, because apparently Ronan, who dared to challenge Thanos and wielded the Power Stone, is scared of one glowing woman, at least he has the excuse of needing to live so that the Guardians can turn him to dust later. On that note, this film leans heavily into the Cosmic side of the MCU, which is something I like because that side of the MCU really appeals to me. Spaceships and laser blasters and futuristic alien dystopias, check, check and check, I do like that about the film as well. When she lands on Earth though, things take a turn, the film tries for a fish out of water scenario, with Carol having no knowledge of Earth or its people, but it isn't played up as much as it could have been, and even when it is, it isn't even close to as cute and funny as when Wonder Woman sees London for the first time, or, and you'll hate me for this, when Alita leaves Ido's clinic and sees Iron City for the first time. After landing, she finds a cop and asks him for directions, and it's supposed to the funny, but it just isn't, it's awkward.

Ok, that's the smaller problems out of the way, now let's get to some bigger fish, like Carol's friendship with one of her old pilot friends. This is something that every reviewer I've seen has brought up, the lack of chemistry between the two, but it's absolutely true, the film really wants you to care about the sisterhood of these who, but it just isn't there, I never once bought that they were so close before she disappeared. She did have a bit more chemistry with Fury though, but I think that's a lot more to do with Samuel L. Jackson than anything else. That's because Brie Larson's character, Carol Danvers, is about as charismatic and likable as a headstone. There's actually a scene in the film where someone, a cartoonish motorcyclist meat head, no less, tells her to smile, and I bet you that that was a reshoot. But all the memes of how bored she looks in the trailers are true, there's no energy or sense of joy coming off her at all, she's really boring to watch, and without that sense of joy, or any sense of passion, when she has one of her many speeches, it comes across less like a victorious gesture and more like pompous self-importance. So the film's title character is a bore fest, someone who doesn't look like they're having any fun at all, and then they're surrounded by the likes of Ben Mendelson and Samuel L. Jackson, which only makes the problem worse. A big part of why she's so unlikable though is her ark, because there isn't one, there genuinely isn't any kind of meaningful character growth in this film for Carol Danvers, a glaring issue that's beautifully summed up in a pair of scenes, one at the beginning, one at the end, where she fights with Jude Law. In the first fight, Law challenges her to beat him in a one-on-one without using her magic fire hands, and she gets her arse kicked by him, only to use her fire hands anyway to get the upper hand. In the second fight, Law challenges her once again to a one-on-one fight where she can't use her fire hands, in order to prove that she really has become the best version of herself, and she doesn't even give him the chance, she blasts him with the fire hands mid-sentence.

This is, obviously played for laughs, but it shows Danvers' lack of growth, she hasn't become better, she hasn't changed, and when she says "I don't need to prove anything to you," she's wrong, not because she owes him anything, but because she needs to prove to the audience that she's a better person now, and she doesn't. After all, why would you need to prove that you've become a stronger person when you're already the strongest person in the universe. And that is the biggest problem with her character; she's so incredibly powerful, and as a result, she doesn't need to get better, to grow, because as Law demonstrates, why would you need to be a better fighter when you're invulnerable and can shoot fire from your hands. That lack of growth makes her powers feel unearned too as she hasn't done anything to prove her worth to the audience; because she was already perfect, she was just being held back from her true power by the Patriarchy. I said the word, I said it, and you know what that means, buckle up, folks, it's rant time. This entire film is one giant feminist metaphor, it's about Carol Danvers standing up to the Patriarchy and kicking its butt because she's a strong woman. And to a feminist or even a normie, that wouldn't sound like too big an issue, but the issue here is, as usual, in its implication and execution. There's a scene in this film where we see flashbacks of her previous life, and I swear to god, it's on par with that Gillette Toxic Masculinity ad, it really is that bad; with men, who are all white as well, saying that she'll never be good enough; that they'll never let her fly and that "it's called a cockpit for a reason," I shit you not, someone says that to her in the film, and it's about as unnatural and juvenile as it sounds. There's something so artificial and blatantly ideological about this scene, to the point that, again, it feels like that Gillette ad, and Jude Law telling her to control her emotions and that she's not as strong as she thinks is clearly a part of that as well, the implication that she'll never be strong because she's a woman. So what does the film do to prove these cartoonish exaggerated patriarchs wrong, well, it shows her standing up, and that's it. She gets knocked down, but then she gets back up, but like her fighting with Jude Law, this doesn't show any kind of growth.

She gets back up but there is no indication that she overcomes any of those obstacles; that she makes the jump to the other rope, or that she wins the go-cart race, showing that would have meant that she had improved, become a better version of herself, but that never happens because, again, she was already perfect. Carol Danvers never needed to improve or develop because she was always powerful, she just had to stand up to her oppression, to break the chains and set herself free, what a wonderfully blatant piece of political messaging. And like I said before, this power feels unearned because she never proves her worth. She never shows Jude Law that she has become the best, she just already is the best because she simply is, and because she finally stood up to sexism and became a true hero. It's here that we get back to her being able to punch spaceships to death, something Thor did in Infinity War. The difference however is that Thor earned that power; in order to get that power, he had to restart the forge, he had to take the full force of a star, and what did Danvers have to do, well, she just had to rip an inhibiter out of her neck because she already had that power. This is another one of those times where a film's political messaging is its own worst enemy; we're supposed to believe that Danvers is strong because she's a strong woman and she stood up to the Patriarchy, but the delivery of that is so awkward and ham-fisted that it completely breaks the illusion, and the vessel of that message is a character who is so dull and boring that people are unironically saying that they liked the cat more. A character who's so perfect and without fault and yet never leaves an impression on the audience, never gives you a reason to like her, it's just expected that you do, because feminism and standing up to oppression, literally, over and over again. It's a bizarre thing when the least likable thing in your film is the title character, even more so when it's a Marvel movie, but Captain Marvel is an uncharismatic character with immense power that she never earned because she's perfect, but we're just supposed to accept it because she's perfect, and that she's never challenged in any meaningful way because nothing is a challenge to her, and I think you know why that is, it's because she's perfect.

I'm just supposed to take your word for that?
Captain Marvel is, in some ways, not as bad as I thought it would be; I really liked its villains and Nick Fury was awesome, I also really enjoyed the film's cosmic elements and a handful of its action sequences. But there are things about this film that I absolutely cannot stand, like Nick Fury getting his eye scratched out by a cat, and the film's main character being a boring, dull, unlikable, uncharismatic vessel for a poisonous and terribly executed political message. Carol Danvers is a complete failure of a character and she tanks this movie almost single handedly, which isn't to say that the film needed to be bad or could only have been bad, it's just to say that it is bad, and I don't want to watch it again, which is very rare for me. I enjoyed Captain Marvel far less than I should have, but more than I thought I would, like that matters, and I wouldn't recommend it.