MARVEL'S WONDER WOMAN?
How's that for a badass poster?
Now the 21st film in the MCU, this movie introduces us to the hero who will supposedly save the Avengers in the upcoming Endgame.
This movie acts as an origin story as well as retcon piece for Marvel as they go back to the 90's to tell the story of ambitious and feisty fighter pilot Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) and her adventures as the titular character after obtaining her Kree powers.
What I liked about Captain Marvel was how it threw away the conventional origin story style of storytelling and instead focused on telling Carol's story in the present, utilising well-timed and well-paced flashbacks every now and then to piece her character arc together.
As the MCU's long-awaited and first female-led movie, it's no surprise that comparisons will constantly be drawn to the DCEU's massively successful Wonder Woman (2017) so bear with me on that.
With Wonder Woman, they went for the conventional but it worked a treat, with the only problems the film faced all occurring in the CGI-heavy and pretty lame final boss fight with lame Ares.
Captain Marvel doesn't have that issue in the final third - rather, its issues were scattered all over the movie.
For one, the whole first maybe 20-odd minutes were an absolutely breathless and hectic hyperactively-edited mash-up of confusing action sequences and half-arsed world building which seemed as though they just recycled rejected world designs from the Guardians of the Galaxy universe and plonked it in this movie because they needed a random planet for shit to take place on.
Even the fonts used in the new location graphics looked similar.
The pacing does mercifully slow down to a breathable level once Carol reaches Earth but the problems don't end there.
The overall tone of the movie especially in certain fight scenes is also too similar to that of Guardians in how their trademark is to make use of totally random classic music to go with the action, making the scene very light-hearted and fun.
It works when the movie made is deliberately meant to be light-hearted and fun like Guardians and Thor: Ragnarok (2017), but this movie was just so confused with what it wanted to be.
From serious origin story about a super-powerful character to a goofy and fun adventure movie - it just couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
Another thing that didn't work for it was all the 90's nostalgia they tried to show. Sorry folks, it just doesn't work as well as 80's nostalgia does.
While Wonder Woman only struggled in the final third with a sub-par climax to the movie, Captain Marvel suffered from just too much sub-parity all over in terms of memorable action sequences (there's really only like two in the movie) and interesting new characters.
Even the climax of the film sort of ends pretty swiftly.
Perhaps the reason for all of this is because the stakes aren't that high, given that this movie serves as a prequel to the rest of the MCU and you kind of already know how certain things are going to end up.
Just wished the action could've been better choreographed and designed.
On the point of already knowing what happens next, this movie was a golden opportunity for the MCU to retcon certain plot holes (if any) that may have slipped through the cracks in earlier films since this movie is set in the past.
For certain events, the retconned stuff worked but for other, less story-related things however, it felt super cheap and annoying - almost to the level of terrible retconning work seen in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).
I would've been fine if the filmmakers just decided to gloss over it rather than address an issue that wasn't even an issue to begin with, like Han Solo's stupid golden dice.
Moving on to the cast, and I have to say that Oscar-winner Brie Larson is an excellent choice as the titular character.
She embodies the feisty, confident and tough-yet-vulnerable character, and I wished they would've included more scenes where she was just Carol and how she dealt with her abilities and insecurities.
That's another area in which Wonder Woman did it better - showing their character's vulnerability. With that movie, she was portrayed as being extremely naive and expecting everything in the world to be perfect and idealistic, and when she feels the pain of losing someone she loves out of a great act of love and sacrifice, it unleashes her full power.
With Captain Marvel, they never really show many weaknesses to her character nor any struggles with using her power apart from controlling it - which is such a common trope in movies where heroes are so OP.
What I'm basically saying from all this is that this movie feels extremely formulaic, but not in a storytelling way - in a Marvel kind of way.
I had this same very issue with Doctor Strange (2016), which I described as basically Iron Man (2008) but with magic instead of technology.
I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a young Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) with some absolutely incredible CGI work to de-age him. He looks so real it's uncanny.
It's the MCU's best de-aging work so far, and these guys are a big fan of the effect having used it to de-age people like Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) in earlier movies.
The rest of the cast were all right but mainly forgettable due to them simply not being in the movie much at all, which is a shame because this movie does boast a pretty sick cast with the likes of Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Gemma Chan and Annette Bening all appearing.
As a feminist movie, it doesn't fall into the trap where the message of equality becomes lost in the empowerment of their female characters and becomes really blatant and in-your-face that it ruins the movie for you. A prime example of that is the horrid all-female Ghostbusters remake which got so lost with its message and took it too far, and no surprises there when the movie turned out to be absolutely woeful.
On the technical side, the visuals are all excellent as you'd expect from an MCU film. I did also like the costume design a lot, and am a huge fan of Captain Marvel's costume.
The music by Pinar Toprak falls into the Marvel realm of musical mediocrity, however, with a very uninspired and confused soundtrack that once again left me forgetting if the character even had a theme or consistent motif.
All in all, Captain Marvel did a good job of setting up a crucial new character in the MCU and to give us a glimpse of what she's capable of doing.
However, the movie is clunky, the action is forgettable and confusing and overall, it just feels like a very formulaic MCU film with heavy influences from the Guardians universe.
It works as a feminist piece though, and its message of empowerment and equality shine throughout the movie.
Do stick around for the mid-credits scene - it's a good one.
Can't wait for Avengers: Endgame now.
6.5/10.
Now the 21st film in the MCU, this movie introduces us to the hero who will supposedly save the Avengers in the upcoming Endgame.
This movie acts as an origin story as well as retcon piece for Marvel as they go back to the 90's to tell the story of ambitious and feisty fighter pilot Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) and her adventures as the titular character after obtaining her Kree powers.
What I liked about Captain Marvel was how it threw away the conventional origin story style of storytelling and instead focused on telling Carol's story in the present, utilising well-timed and well-paced flashbacks every now and then to piece her character arc together.
As the MCU's long-awaited and first female-led movie, it's no surprise that comparisons will constantly be drawn to the DCEU's massively successful Wonder Woman (2017) so bear with me on that.
With Wonder Woman, they went for the conventional but it worked a treat, with the only problems the film faced all occurring in the CGI-heavy and pretty lame final boss fight with lame Ares.
Captain Marvel doesn't have that issue in the final third - rather, its issues were scattered all over the movie.
For one, the whole first maybe 20-odd minutes were an absolutely breathless and hectic hyperactively-edited mash-up of confusing action sequences and half-arsed world building which seemed as though they just recycled rejected world designs from the Guardians of the Galaxy universe and plonked it in this movie because they needed a random planet for shit to take place on.
Even the fonts used in the new location graphics looked similar.
The pacing does mercifully slow down to a breathable level once Carol reaches Earth but the problems don't end there.
The overall tone of the movie especially in certain fight scenes is also too similar to that of Guardians in how their trademark is to make use of totally random classic music to go with the action, making the scene very light-hearted and fun.
It works when the movie made is deliberately meant to be light-hearted and fun like Guardians and Thor: Ragnarok (2017), but this movie was just so confused with what it wanted to be.
From serious origin story about a super-powerful character to a goofy and fun adventure movie - it just couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
Another thing that didn't work for it was all the 90's nostalgia they tried to show. Sorry folks, it just doesn't work as well as 80's nostalgia does.
While Wonder Woman only struggled in the final third with a sub-par climax to the movie, Captain Marvel suffered from just too much sub-parity all over in terms of memorable action sequences (there's really only like two in the movie) and interesting new characters.
Even the climax of the film sort of ends pretty swiftly.
Perhaps the reason for all of this is because the stakes aren't that high, given that this movie serves as a prequel to the rest of the MCU and you kind of already know how certain things are going to end up.
Just wished the action could've been better choreographed and designed.
On the point of already knowing what happens next, this movie was a golden opportunity for the MCU to retcon certain plot holes (if any) that may have slipped through the cracks in earlier films since this movie is set in the past.
For certain events, the retconned stuff worked but for other, less story-related things however, it felt super cheap and annoying - almost to the level of terrible retconning work seen in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).
I would've been fine if the filmmakers just decided to gloss over it rather than address an issue that wasn't even an issue to begin with, like Han Solo's stupid golden dice.
Moving on to the cast, and I have to say that Oscar-winner Brie Larson is an excellent choice as the titular character.
She embodies the feisty, confident and tough-yet-vulnerable character, and I wished they would've included more scenes where she was just Carol and how she dealt with her abilities and insecurities.
That's another area in which Wonder Woman did it better - showing their character's vulnerability. With that movie, she was portrayed as being extremely naive and expecting everything in the world to be perfect and idealistic, and when she feels the pain of losing someone she loves out of a great act of love and sacrifice, it unleashes her full power.
With Captain Marvel, they never really show many weaknesses to her character nor any struggles with using her power apart from controlling it - which is such a common trope in movies where heroes are so OP.
What I'm basically saying from all this is that this movie feels extremely formulaic, but not in a storytelling way - in a Marvel kind of way.
I had this same very issue with Doctor Strange (2016), which I described as basically Iron Man (2008) but with magic instead of technology.
I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a young Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) with some absolutely incredible CGI work to de-age him. He looks so real it's uncanny.
It's the MCU's best de-aging work so far, and these guys are a big fan of the effect having used it to de-age people like Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) in earlier movies.
The rest of the cast were all right but mainly forgettable due to them simply not being in the movie much at all, which is a shame because this movie does boast a pretty sick cast with the likes of Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Gemma Chan and Annette Bening all appearing.
As a feminist movie, it doesn't fall into the trap where the message of equality becomes lost in the empowerment of their female characters and becomes really blatant and in-your-face that it ruins the movie for you. A prime example of that is the horrid all-female Ghostbusters remake which got so lost with its message and took it too far, and no surprises there when the movie turned out to be absolutely woeful.
On the technical side, the visuals are all excellent as you'd expect from an MCU film. I did also like the costume design a lot, and am a huge fan of Captain Marvel's costume.
The music by Pinar Toprak falls into the Marvel realm of musical mediocrity, however, with a very uninspired and confused soundtrack that once again left me forgetting if the character even had a theme or consistent motif.
All in all, Captain Marvel did a good job of setting up a crucial new character in the MCU and to give us a glimpse of what she's capable of doing.
However, the movie is clunky, the action is forgettable and confusing and overall, it just feels like a very formulaic MCU film with heavy influences from the Guardians universe.
It works as a feminist piece though, and its message of empowerment and equality shine throughout the movie.
Do stick around for the mid-credits scene - it's a good one.
Can't wait for Avengers: Endgame now.
6.5/10.
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