Film Review - Captain Marvel (2019)

Captain Marvel is the newest Marvel Studios film and the last one to come before Avengers: Endgame in April and this time Brie Larson stars as Carol Danvers who while chasing a Skrull (a race of shapeshifters not unlike the Founders in Star Trek Deep Space Nine) ends up on Earth in the mid 90s, while there she meets a young Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) while she also attempts to piece together the mystery of her past and how it relates to the Kree/Skrull conflict.

Captain Marvel is sadly a big big disappointment and 2019 has already had 2 of those already for me in both Glass and the Lego Movie 2 (if Endgame joins this list I’ll probably need some form of counselling) but before I delve into this I will talk about what does work and for the most part Ms Larson does what she can with the material she’s given as Carol Danvers, her sassiness reminded me an awful lot of Mel Gibson as Martin Riggs in the first Lethal Weapon film and the chemistry she shares with Mr Jackson is also reminiscent of Mel and Danny Glover’s chemistry in those films plus there are some great mid 90s references to be seen.

I also liked Ms Lanshana Lynch as Maria Rambeau as well as some of the action scenes that Carol does in the end of the film even if it reminded me of how Goku and Company became a Super Saiyan in Dragon Ball Z.

But this films first of 2 missteps in its storytelling, so much of Carol’s past and origins as a hero is shrouded in this Memento style fashion of near constant flashbacks with very little connective tissue and as a result the more I began to think about this as a structure for a superhero origin story the more I began to feel that it was a mistake to go down this path as it robs the audience of that vital connection to that character and when she does become that fully fleged hero it doesn’t land with the same emotional resonance that it does with the likes of Cap, Mr Stark, Thanos, Dr Strange and Black Panther to name as examples where all of them were very memorably introduced and had properly built story and character arcs.

The second misstep is in the filmmaking, Anna Fleck and Ryan Bowden are the directors here and they came from the independent world and they at times struggle with the transition to studio level filmmaking with their plentiful close ups in the action scenes to the general bland feel of the film, it really feels like they didn’t have the confidence in them at times to get their head around these huge action and visual effects stations and that does take time but when you consider:

- Bryan Singer on X-Men
- Joss Whedon on the Avengers
- Scott Derrickson on Doctor Strange
- James Gunn on Guardians of the Galaxy
- Jon Favreau on Iron Man
- Kenneth Branagh and Taika Watiti on Thor
- Ryan Coogler on Black Panther

And both the Russo Brothers and Joe Johnston on Captain America and later the Avengers movies these guys really felt like ideal fits for the characters they were adaptating to the screen and while some of them played to their strengths initially while getting their heads around the action and visual effects specialties they were quick learners and able to adapt on their feet to the task at hand.

Whereas with Ms Bowden and Mr Fleck you can really feel the struggle, the push and pull and the toughness of that transition and as a result this along with the storytelling device problems I began to lose interest in the movie after a while and I began to get a bit bored with it all after a while.

And so that was Captain Marvel and it feels like its been a very long time since Marvel Studios stumbled as badly as they did here and don’t get me wrong this is not a bad film at all and if you’re a fan you should see it for yourself but this is not one of their better movies in fact I would say its in some unfortunate company with the Iron Man sequels, Thor the Dark World and Avengers Age of Ultron.

Hopefully Avengers Endgame will be better and be able to live up to the huge expectations set by Infinity War and how good that film really was, 1.5 out of 5.