Film Review: Captain Marvel

I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of the character Carol Danvers. I don’t dislike her, she’s just always been one of the Marvel heroes who never really captured my imagination, so I didn’t go into this movie as hyped as I was about seeing Thor, Spidey or Captain America on the big screen.

But this is how I went into Guardians of the Galaxy too, and just like that movie this one won me over on the strength of its charm, humour and characters. Brie Larson plays the title character and does so with real likeability, her Carol is strong willed, funny and a bad ass.

We are introduced to Carol as a soldier in the Kree forces, known as Vers and having lost most of her memories. Vers’ earliest memory is of being injured in a crash and seeing a mysterious woman killed by a Skrull agent. The Skrull being the Kree’s enemy, a race of shapeshifting aliens who have been infiltrating and disrupting life on several planets in the Kree empire.

Vers boasts superior powers, able to fire energy blasts from her hands but she is not able to fully control them and her emotions interfere with her fighting ability. Her commanding officer, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) has attempted to train her to control these powers and leads the team that Vers is a member of. During a mission to bring in an exposed spy, Vers’ team do battle with the Skrulls and she is captured.

While held prisoner they dig in Carol’s memories, revealing images of a childhood and places she doesn’t remember. Featuring prominently is Lawson (Annette Bening) the woman from her memories, and the Skrull are intent on finding her. Carol escapes and ends up on the planet from her memories, which is Earth in 1995.

The Skrull follow her looking for Lawson, and fearing that Yon-Rogg and the team will arrive too late, Carol sets off to find her first. This means that her paths cross with Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), at this point a low level SHIELD agent. Initially sceptical, Fury is convinced when he encounters, and kills, one of the Skrull. The duo decide to work together, as Skrull infiltrators have made Fury look like a traitor.

The duo dig into Lawson’s work and discover that Carol worked with her as a pilot, and has been presumed dead on Earth for six years. Can Carol work out what happened around the accident that saw her “die”? And will she like what she finds? There appear to be secrets and different sides to stories she is unaware of and it will shake the life she has with the Kree.

I really enjoyed this movie, especially how it fits with the rest of the MCU, being set before and showing the start of Nick Fury’s associations with super powered individuals and alien life. It also includes appearances from characters who appear in later movies, like Lee Pace’s Ronan the Accuser, later seen as the big bad in Guardians. It’s interesting to see the background and the film finishes with an idea of how Ronan ends up where he does.

The ’90s setting is used pretty well, giving us an opportunity to see a world without superheroes for the first time since Iron Man, and not going too heavy on the nostalgia. There’s a ’90s heavy soundtrack and nods to Blockbuster Video and the grunge era, but it never becomes just nostalgia, and I quite liked the jokes about how bad ’90s tech was- slow loading speeds and the fact that Fury keeps in touch with his SHIELD buddies with a two way pager, which we’ve already seen in the end credits of Infinity War.

The music gives it a distinct feel to the rest of the MCU and the setting allows us to see the normally cool and collected Fury out of his element. Rendered youthful by the magic of CGI, Samuel L Jackson plays the character well, there’s the toughness underneath but previously unseen innocence, confusion and struggle. Fury is normally in charge and the most informed, but here he’s lost and trying to find his footing in a changing world.

There’s plenty of humour from this, with Fury realising how small mankind’s place in the universe is and the relationship between Carol and Fury is central to the film. Having felt like an outsider among the Kree and told to control her emotions, Fury is a large part in helping her to embrace her humanity and they spar well verbally.

The plot has some nice twists and developments, and doesn’t go exactly where I expected it to, even if one revelation is a bit redundant as the audience will have twigged what really happened by then. However, the plot works and the story of Carol Danvers rediscovering who she is, shaking off the constraints that have been imposed on her and rising to make a stand is a solid arc and an engaging one.

The character she most reminded me of was Chris Evans’ Captain America, in that both are heroes before they get their powers and have to reflect and adapt as the ideals and organisations they stood for are shown to be flawed and corrupt.

It slots well into the MCU timeline, adding more background and depth to existing characters like Fury and Ronan, but more importantly introducing a powerful, and likeable new hero to the ranks. I really warmed to the character of Carol and her spirit, and Larson does well capturing the character’s vibe and journey.

The action sequences and special effects are top drawer, as is to be expected, and the visuals of the Marvel cosmic universe continue to impress. The introduction and use of the Skrulls is cool, and I like how they took a different approach to the alien race.

The final big action sequence where Carol embraces her new powers fully is really cool and a visual treat, and I liked that even in her fights they keep the sense of Carol having fun and being someone who thrives off action, adventure and adrenaline.

I can’t wait to see more of Captain Marvel in action, and the ending which shows her finally linking upwith the Avengers has pushed my excitement for Endgame to even greater heights.

Oh, and Goose the cat is awesome.

Finally, I can’t not mention Stan Lee. This is the first MCU movie to come out since Stan the Man’s death and it starts with a brief homage during the Marvel logo, which actually moved me. His cameo appearance here where he plays himself reading a Mallrats script on a train, is given a strange emotional quality. I don’t know if he’d already filmed his cameos for Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, but if this is the last proper cameo (I imagine we’ll still get little nods to Lee in future MCU movies), then it’s a really nice one to finish on.

All in all, a cracking addition to the MCU with a great heroine, a funny, action packed script and some nice touches throughout. I loved it.

Verdict: 8.5/10.

Any thoughts? You know what to do. BETEO.