The One with the Girl: Captain Marvel Review

Marvel broke new ground with The Black Panther, and then again, it didn't. While the setting and villain (the best sympathetic antagonist in all of the MCU)  had unique character and depth, the protagonist was cut from the same ilk as Tony Stark and Thor. I didn't find myself emotionally connected to any of those rich and powerful boys who find themselves in a jam. The same can be said of Brie Larson's Vers / Carol Danvers. Her presence itself breaks new ground for a female lead in a MCU film, although DC has been doing that since 2017. Other than that, her character isn't any more interesting than any other leading character, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

At the beginning of the film, Vers (pronounced "Veers") is a powerful member of the Kree, who she describes with elitist zest as "Noble Warrior Heroes". She is strong, powerful, stoic, and well, boring. She doesn't get much more interesting throughout the film, but that's not the fault of Larson. What follows is a not so compelling journey of self discovery in the classic sense. The film, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, can't figure out if it wants to be. It morphs from a sci-fi space flick, to a buddy cop movie, to a superhero movie while never fully commiting to any of those paths. The supporting characters are enjoyable, including a digitally de-aged Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury and Clark Gregg as a young Agent Coulson. The Skrull shape-shifter is played by the ever reliable Bill Medelsohn and is delightfully vibrant and eventually sympathetic. Trying to capitalize of the popularity of cute characters like Baby Groot, Boden shoehorns in a CG cuddly kitty named Goose who is taken in by the usually rough Fury.

Captain Marvel is standard Marvel fare that never rises above the fray, but it also doesn't sink below. The battles are exciting and flashy and the dialog between Danvers and Fury is clever. Unfortunately, neither reach the levels of Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok. The film goes out of its way to shove 90's nostalgia down your throat with the soundtrack and dress. Not to the point of being annoying, but to the point of being obvious, from the use of old tech to Danvers in flannel with a Nine Inch Nails shirt.

I mentioned earlier that none of these issues are necessarily bad. A female lead hero in the MCU should be ubiquitous by now and that fact that it isn't is a sad statement on how little we as a society have grown. The lack of long, drawn out exposition on Danver's struggles growing up (shown in quick flashbacks) supports the notion that a female lead doesn't need to be any different then her male counterparts. Seriously, do we even care what kind of father Howard Stark was or how Thor's childhood was? We get more background on Steve Rogers' struggles than Carol Danvers' and that's ok! With that being said, we should all look to Captain Marvel as what it truly is; another solid origin story to support another Avengers movie. It doesn't need to be anything else.