Oh Captain, My Captain

I must confess that I'm a ride or die Marvel fanboy, so to give a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie a less than stellar review is somewhat painful to me. Not that I haven’t done so before; as big a fanboy as I am, I can admit when an MCU movie falls short. Movies like Avengers: Age of Ultron and both of the installments of Ant-Man were underwhelming, while Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World are among the studio’s worst offerings. Now we have the first MCU movie to have a female lead in Captain Marvel (everyone is ignoring the 2005 failure that was Elektra), and to quote Immortan Joe, it was “mediocre.”

Co-written and co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, and starring Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, a human who is a member of an elite fighting force of aliens, known as the Starforce, which consists mainly of Kree aliens. Their mission is to defeat the evil Skrulls, a race of shape shifting aliens (simple explanation: Kree are blue skinned, Skrulls are green skinned). When Danvers’ team attacks, the mission goes south, and Danvers is taken prisoner. Her mind is wiped (or probed, I’m not sure which), but she manages to except, only to crashland on Earth, during the 1990s. It is here that she meets a young Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson), and the duo go searching for clues to Danvers’ past life before he joined the Kree.

Unfortunately, Captain Marvel will forever be remembered more for its online conversatory, rather any its standalone merit as a film. The Carol Danvers character has devoted followers on the far left who see her more as a symbol of third wave feminism than a fictional character, while her haters on the far right see her as the embodiment of everything wrong with modern identity politics and overly politically correct culture. This has caused the movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes, to change its policies when it comes to audience reviews, and for YouTube to change its setting to hide more negatively charged videos towards the movie, and its star, Larson. Personally, I’m here to tell both the far left and the far right to get a grip, because this movie is nothing to have a culture war over. It’s actually quite forgettable most of the time. That being said, I feel I can’t express what I liked and disliked about the movie without going into spoilers, so I’m going to give my rating here, which is a solid three out of five stars. For anyone who wants to read any further, you have been warned.

Short Version

Pros:

• Mostly good CGI, especially with de-aging.
• Good to great performances, especially from Ben Mendelsohn.
• Great if you love ‘90s nostalgia.

Cons:

• Way too many liberties taken with the source material.
• Retconning causes problems within the franchise’s continuity.
• Is painfully mediocre overall.

Verdict: *** (three out of five stars).

Alright, so, if you’re a casual fan or moviegoer without any previous knowledge about the comic book stories set within the Marvel Universe, then this movie will be just fine to you. It’s quick, breezy, and fun at the beginning and at the end. That being said, I’m like a living encyclopedia of Marvel comic knowledge, so the liberties that this movie took really irked me. The first and foremost problem is the treatment of Nick Fury. Danvers spends most of the movie ordering him around, and undercutting him. It’s so bad, I was waiting for it to reach “Driving Miss Daisy” levels of Danvers telling Fury how to drive. But the worst part is how Fury loses his eye. For those of you who don’t know, Fury’s most distinct feature is his disfigured left eye, which he hides behind an eyepatch. In previous movies, Fury has stated that his scarred eye is the result of trusting someone who eventually turned against him. That someone is a cat. Yes, that’s right. Nick Fury, the most badass spy in the MCU, lost his eye to a cat. Okay, technically, it was an alien that took the form of a cat, but still, Fury was harmlessly playing with said alien cat, and for no apparent reason, said cat claws Fury’s eye out. Oh, and then Fury keeps the alien cat as a pet anyway, because… reasons. That’s the absolute worst part of the movie.

Moving on from there, it turns out that the Kree are the bad guys, and the Skrulls are actually intergalactic refugees. Yes, everyone on Danvers’ Starforce is evil, including her leader, Yon-Rogg (played by Jude Law), who has been manipulating her since the day they first met. The only problem with this is that the Kree have always been a chaotic neutral race of aliens, while the Skrulls has always been lawfully evil. See, the Skrulls were always meant to be a metaphor for Cold War era Soviet spies who would disguise themselves as Americans and sabotage the country from within. Here, they are an oppressed people who are just doing what they can to survive, and that’s not true to their characterization. They’re supposed to be conquerors who see Earth as their next target, but that’s not the case here.

The third and final liberty that was taken was how Danvers got her powers. See, in the comics, Danvers inherited her powers and name from a male, alien superhero named Captain Mar-Vell. Here, her powers are gained from being hit with energy from an alien aircraft. Also, Mar-Vell is a woman in the movie, played by Annette Bening. I think why Marvel felt they could get away with all these changes is because the Carol Danvers version of Captain Marvel isn’t really known for anything besides two stories in the comics. The first is about her being upset at the Avengers because they allowed her to be kidnapped and impregnated by an alien, and the second is about her permanently losing her powers to Rogue of the X-Men. I would assume the filmmakers figured since she didn’t have any noteworthy stories in the comics, they were free to make stuff up as they went along. I can understand that mindset, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

The story liberties aren’t the only thing that I find irksome, it’s all the retconning that this movie does as well. Not only is Fury’s eye loss humiliating, but the story messes up how the Tesseract (the magic McGiffin device from the first Captain America and Avengers movies) is found. It was originally revealed that the Tesseract crashed into the ocean along with Steve Rogers, until it was eventually found by Tony Stark’s father, Howard Stark, who then gave it to Fury’s agency, SHIELD. In this movie, the Tesseract was in the protection of the Skrulls, and was the real reason why the Kree were out to get them. Wait, so does that mean the Skrulls somehow stole the Tesseract from SHIELD? Or did one of the Skrulls masquerade as Howard Stark when he found it in the ocean? See how this doesn’t make sense?

Another annoyance is that the Avengers are named after Danvers. In case of another alien invasion, Fury came up with the plan of “The Avenger Initiative” where he would assemble a team of heroes to fight off said alien invasion. Danvers turned out to be a test pilot in the Air Force, and her call sign was “Avenger.” This is only a minor detail, but still, it changes the entire setup of the Avengers team, which were named after the concept of “If we can’t save the Earth… we’re going to avenge it.” Also, in the very first MCU movie, Iron Man, SHIELD didn’t have an official name yet, however, in this movie, they have a full name and logo. Way to ruin all the continuity!

I’ve complained for long enough, so I’ll get into the better aspects of the movie. Samuel L. Jackson is good as Nick Fury, playing a less hardened version of the character (even if he’s being mistreated). Clark Gregg makes his long awaited return to the MCU movies as a young Phil Coulson, and he’s charming as always, even if he’s barely in this movie. It should be noted that at one point, a Skrull disguises himself as Coulson and causes a car crash with Fury in the car, which should have been the proper way for Fury to lose his eye, but whatever. Ben Mendelsohn plays Talos, the leader of the Skrulls, who also takes the disguise of SHIELD Director Keller. Mendelsohn’s performance is the best in the movie, and you can easily see why he’s quickly replacing Hugo Weaving as Hollywood’s go-to Australian actor to play every villain role in every movie ever. Jude Law falls prey to the usual MCU trope of the underwritten villain, Gemma Chan is underutilized as Starforce member, Minn-Erva, and the cast is rounded out by the charming Lashana Lynch as Danvers’ best friend, Maria Rambeau. Frankly, I think the movie missed a perfect opportunity to have Danvers and Rambeau be lesbian lovers, which would have really shocked moviegoers if the production managed to keep that plotpoint under wraps, not to mention how truly culturally significant it would be. Hey, I’m sure that interracial, lesbian couples want to see on screen representation for themselves, too.

I did love the pre-credits tribute to the late, great Stan Lee, and his clever cameo appearance (even though it creates a paradox). The film’s CGI is pretty good, especially the de-aging effects used on Samuel L. Jackson. The effects are a bit more questionable with Clark Gregg’s de-aging though. The third act is mostly lots of CGI created explosions, as is the norm for most MCU movies, and comic book movies in general. Some of the humor falls flat, while other times it’s good for a chuckle, like most of the ‘90s references. Some of the songs played in the background are a bit on the nose, like No Doubt’s “Just A Girl” playing while Danvers is in a fight. The action sequences are just okay. The most interesting fight is when Danvers is escaping from the Skrulls, but her hands are bound, so she's unable to use her powers against them; other than that, she defeats everyone with ease afterwards. As for Larson in the role of Danvers, I didn’t find her to be anything special. Personally, I was hoping for Katee Sackhoff to get the role, as she can play a tough as nails, tomboyish fighter pilot in her sleep, but that wasn’t my call to make.

To be honest, Captain Marvel is just a middle of the road flick. It’s not great, it’s not terrible, it’s just there. In fact, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the best parts of the movie. I wouldn’t say it’s in the bottom five of the worst MCU movies, but they could have done much better. At least it’s certainly superior compared to unwatchable trash like Elektra and Halle Berry’s Catwoman, but it doesn't touch 2017's Wonder Woman. If you’re a die-hard Marvel fan, by all means, see it in theaters, but do so at matinee prices. Otherwise, wait for physical disk or on demand rentals. That concludes this fanpicked review. And remember, when it comes to the media that you consume, be like Indiana Jones, and chose wisely.