*Minor Spoilers
Captain Marvel has been Marvel’s first major female superhero movie entry in the MCU since its inception back with the original Iron Man movie. There have been female characters sprinkled in, but none have taken the center of attention for an entire movie. This was an important step for Marvel to take after all of this time, especially following DC’s own Wonder Woman which had be received incredibly well by both critics (including me) and fans alike.
The thing that had kept me the most optimistic about Captain Marvel were the trailers that showed a more serious attitude that piqued my interest and held my attention. Something no Marvel movie has been able to do during this third phase since Black Panther and before that, it probably takes us all the way back to phase two of the MCU. Personally, I have found that Marvel movies have taken a huge hit in quality and so I have become incredibly unimpressed by them. Sure, they’re flashy, but the depth of them has never been very deep in recent years. And Captain Marvel is no different. In fact, Captain Marvel is probably one of the shallowest Marvel movies I’ve seen in a long time. The movie was rooted with no tension and an uninteresting lead with hardly a personality other than a shell of every other Marvel hero. There was nothing for Captain Marvel to call her own, from her own character’s personality, to even the visuals and music, everything felt borrowed but not in a well thought out way.
The movie was full of wasted potential. Every time something of interest was brought up, it was immediately knocked back down and forgotten about, never really touching the depth that could have made this movie great. The concept of this movie was there. A real introduction to the Kree, a warrior race, within the movie universe; an interesting villain regarding another race, the shapeshifting Skrull; and the makings of an interesting female hero. Every part of this potential was squandered. The Kree were hardly touched in what they were and could do, giving the audience hardly any idea of who they really were and what their capabilities were unless you were a fan of the comics or had watched Agents of Shield. The Skrull were neutered and hardly all that interesting after the first act. And Captain Marvel became more of a forced “symbol” throughout than an actual person. Upon Captain Marvel’s reunion with somebody so important from her past, all I could sense was that it was forced and awkward. Nothing ever felt “real” throughout. This could be in part due to the movie being all over the place. It couldn’t decide what it wanted to be: An epic space adventure, a buddy cop movie, or a superhero flick. Nothing stuck and it made the movie feel altogether uninteresting.
The script was one of the worst parts of the movie. Mix that together with a shallow story and underdeveloped characters and you would have Captain Marvel. The script felt awkward and forced, constantly. If I wasn’t feeling like the script could use a lot of work, it was a rarity during the movie. Everything was patched together with shoddy dialogue and a forced dynamic between people just to get a couple of laughs or funny moments that weren’t actually funny. By far the worst part regarding characters was that of Captain Marvel and her Kree captain. It seems as though the captain cares about her in some way, but these ideas are only slightly alluded to. I could definitely make a guess, though it would be plagued with uncertainties and questionable motives. Yet another moment where the potential was there, but it was simply wasted or thrown to the wayside.
Altogether, the movie felt like it was ill-prepared, a cash grab, or rushed job to make it out before the next Avengers movie. This character could’ve been so interesting and yet that opportunity has now been passed by without giving us anything other than some generic hero that will be forgettable in the next month or so. If it weren’t for her obvious part in the next Avengers film, she may be forgotten completely. Overall, everything about the story, script, and characters was a huge disappointment for such an important moment as Marvel’s first big woman superhero movie in the MCU. I went in with low expectations and I still somehow found myself disappointed.
Now after talking about all of these negatives, I will say that the movie was action packed with some cool sequences and wasn’t bad enough for me to want to walk out of the movie. The movie was just completely average with less than stellar characters and dialogue, keeping it rather low on the list of what makes a good movie. I can’t say it was the worst, but I can say that the longer I’d think about the movie, the less I liked it. It was as if I had any moment to think about it, I would find more things that were wrong with it. And this isn’t even considering the ridiculous decision surrounding Nick Furry’s eye and the continuity errors for the MCU as a whole found in this movie. This only furthers my theory that Marvel has thrown developing characters to the wayside in favor of a more comedic approach to superheroes, forgetting the depth and experience needed to make a character interesting and believable. Aside from Black Panthers or Guardians of the Galaxy, I can’t think of any newer heroes that showed major growth or development that weren’t involved with phase 1 or 2.
The acting of this movie was disappointing as well, receiving one of the lesser performances I have seen by Brie Larson, an actress that I respect and know can do much better. In all honesty, her performance was just bad, though I find it not to be necessarily on her but instead on the bad script and no direction. She was trying so hard to be funny and witty like Tony Stark, but it didn’t fit her character at all and was too constant. The others in the movie did pretty well, but considering Brie was the main person to pay attention to this time around, it was surprising the performance was so lackluster. I found myself incredibly disappointed in this. The role felt like they could’ve stuck any generic person in there and I think that’s where the problem was. The direction, too, was bad. It felt like no direction was given to the actors and the everchanging dynamic of the movie led me to believe that there just wasn’t anything going on here. A disappointing affair to be sure.
As for the design, the visuals looked really nice, but for the most part it felt borrowed. As did the audio. I can’t tell how many times it felt like a copy and paste job from Disney’s other properties like Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy. This is another negative even if generally the visuals still looked really nice. The design overall just felt like something was missing.
My enjoyment of this film really downgraded after I saw it. It went from being OK to possibly something worse. I never felt satisfied with the movie and felt like I was just watching some moving pictures versus an actual movie with depth and excitement. Hell, the main character was so overpowered there was never one tense moment throughout. She’d just start to glow and then boom, everything was better. It led to a boring film and a boring character with little to no growth throughout.
My biggest disappointments for this movie come from the fact that it had a ridiculous amount of potential that if they even developed one of those lines, the movie could’ve upped its game ten-fold. Here’s to hoping that the next one is more interesting and shows something more of its characters.
| STORY, SCRIPT, CHARACTERS | Out of 35 | 16 |
| ACTING | Out of 20 | 12 |
| DIRECTION | out of 15 | 8 |
| DESIGN (SOUND AND VISUAL) | Out of 15 | 11 |
| OVERALL ENJOYMENT | Out of 15 | 9 |
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