Captain Marvel

Now that I have seen Captain Marvel twice, I feel like I am in a good position to talk about it. If you know me, if I see a film multiple times, that is an indicator that I really liked it. I don't go and see EVERY movie multiple times, that's for sure. I'm not made of money. This movie warranted it. Be warned, I do my best to not give away any spoilers, but there may be things I say that give away some plot points.

With that rambling opening out of the way, let me say that I really liked this movie. The Marvel formula still holds. Since the Marvel machine has been rolling for years now, outside of Black Panther and Doctor Strange, we haven't had to deal with an origin movie for a while now. So it was almost refreshing to be introduced to a new character that wasn't embroiled in the bombastic Infinity War movie we just had. However, this movie does give context to why Nick Fury went to his pager at the end of that film.

I'll go a step further and say that I loved the non-linear way that you get Carol's origin. We are introduced to her past at the same time she is because she starts off the film with memory loss. The movie just dropped us in and sprinkled in pieces as we go along.

Let's talk specifically about what I really liked about the film. I'll start with the cast. I thought they were excellent. I'm happy that Brie Larson gets pushed into the big time with this movie and will probably be a role model for other young girls. If nothing else, I think that alone is stellar. She also carries this movie. She had the right amount of dead pan delivery for her humor, but also real emotion as she gains her memory and confidence in what she is doing. The chemistry she has with Sam Jackson's Nick Fury and Lashana Lynch's Maria Rambeau feels authentic. I could have watched the trio of them work together for another movie. All of them were that good together.

We should also really pay attention to the idea of friendship here between Brie and Maria. You can see that Maria carries the full weight of losing her friend, while Carol has no idea due to her loss of memory. Watching them find their way back to each other was the most touching part of this movie to me. What can I say, I'm a big softie.

The only knock I will say about Brie are there were some scenes where she did some weird dramatic head turns that seemed TOO much. I blame the director for not scaling that back. I know we're in a comic book movie, but the idea is to not make it feel so much like that. Sam Jackson does ham it up a bit too.

To me, the standout performance was Ben Mendelsohn as the lead Skrull, Talos. I don't know who this guy was, but he had a lot of the best lines in the film. He played right on that edge of mustache twirling villain, but once you learn the reason for why he is doing what he is doing, you see the switch and you root for the guy. I also liked that they played the Skrulls for laughs in some parts, in the subtle ways they used their body language. Some great comedic timing there. To make a larger point, I'm glad the Skrulls are in these movies now because I feel like this is a way to pave the path for the Fantastic Four. We may actually get a Kree-Skrull war in the next phase of these movies.

Like all Marvel movies, there is a lot of good humor throughout. I think this movie had more subtle touches and less jokey dialogue than we normally get. Not everyone is firing off zingers ALL the time.

I don't want to ramble on too much (too late?), but I wanted to mention a few other things that I liked because there were a couple of nice touches. I don't want to toot my own horn (I will), but there was one small cameo I noticed on my first viewing that I was quite proud of. There is a scene where Carol gets off a train and she walks by a woman with red hair and black glasses for a brief second. I saw that and was like, "Is that Kelly Sue Deconnick?!" You may be asking, "Uh, okay. Cool story, bro". The reason that is important is she is the writer that guided Captain Marvel's resurgence and was at the helm of the change from Ms. Marvel to Captain Marvel. She was able to build up a fan following and a legion of fans calling themselves the Carol Corps. So her small cameo is a cool nod to someone that honestly, made this movie possible. If Carol Danver's profile had not been raised, this would not have happened. I would also encourage you to go learn more about Deconnick.

When the movie starts, in place of the normal Marvel logo where we usually get full of images from of the characters, they were all replaced by Stan Lee. Way to tug at our heart strings right out of the gate! We also get his requisite cameo that was also nice.

Another cool moment is when Carol gets her new color scheme for her costume. During that scene, they flashed through nods to the original Captain Marvel's costume. We even get a character named, "Mar-Vell", in reference to past versions of Captain Marvel.

The things I didn't like about the movie can be classified as nitpicks at best. I've said it once, I've said it a million times. I hate CG stuntmen. You have all these actors train for the role and then they get replaced for CG replicas because you want to do something that's hyper fantastic. You don't need to because in the end, it ends up looking worse. Shots of Goose, Captain Marvel, some of the Kree and Skrulls are examples of this. There were moments where the CG was looking real iffy to me.

I wasn't a fan of how Fury lost his eye, because that question gets answered. I liked never knowing, but oh well.

My final nitpick is I didn't like how some of the Skrull reveals were done from a narrative standpoint. There are scenes early in the movie where it's telegraphed which people are skrulls. I wished we had found out the same time as our heroes did instead of being shown beforehand. I'm being very cryptic because I don't want to give away spoilers. Like I said and it is a specific storytelling choice, I just wasn't a fan of it. Now that we know who Skrulls are though, this could pave the way for some big moments in later films.

To wrap this up, I'm glad this movie was made and that it is doing well. If you didn't know, there was an active campaign by the worst of comic book fans to try and take this movie down a peg by posting fake reviews to Rotten Tomatoes to make this movie appear worse than it is. I hate to get on my soapbox here, but it shows that sexism is still alive and well, even in an industry I love. That we can't get behind a strong female character is a shame. So I hope this movie continues to do well so we can all say, "Suck it" to the naysayers. This can help lead to even more films starring strong female characters. Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel can be the first salvo in more movies to come. One day ya'll will get that Black Widow movie that you want.

The Marvel movie formula is still strong and you should go see this movie. If you have young girls, you should definitely go. I want them to feel that same joy and pride that I did when I saw last year's, Black Panther. That is a feeling to be cherished and held onto.