Armed With A Killer Soundtrack, 'Captain Marvel' Joyfully Finds Her Power
Starring Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Clark Gregg, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Lee Pace
Rated PG-13
Action, Sci-Fi
Run time: 2 hrs, 4 min
Directed by Anna Boden
In theaters March 8, 2019
Naturally, this movie is a big deal thanks to Brie Larson fronting the first woman-led Marvel film. I’ve never been so relieved to enjoy a movie as much as I did this one. Captain Marvel has a few disjointed moments, but it’s one of the best paced superhero movies. The battles and the exposition balance out very well for an action film and there is just the right amount of humor and happiness in this film that keeps it firmly in the lighter side of Marvel movies that we’ve been enjoying lately (Infinity War aside, of course).
Carol Danvers (or Vers, if you go by her Kree name) spends the entire movie trying to figure things out: who she is, what it all means, what her past truly held and who is telling her the truth. With Fury (and my personal favorite character, Goose the cat), she goes through quite a few stages of self-discovery, including what she can mean to the worlds around her and what may have been limiting her from the very beginning. Without giving away too much of the plot, her reckoning with her own powers and past take turns we don’t often see in an origin story. There are a few moments of frustration, anger and even some almost-tears, but there are also moments of pure, unadulterated joy as she learns how to utilize every aspect of herself.
Larson is a wonderfully fresh face to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and her interactions with an aged-down Nick Fury (Jackson) brings a whole different side to the normally gruff SHIELD leader. There is a runner involving his (surprisingly tender and adorable) interactions with Goose that never failed to bring a smile to my face. We get to understand how Fury and Coulson (a CGI aged down Clark Gregg, who I wish was used a bit more in this film) teamed up and started caring about what happens beyond earth’s atmosphere.
In the first half of the film, they switch back and forth between what could be dreams, tampered memories or flashbacks in a way that gets a bit confusing until they finally sort it all out during a scene involving a black box recording. The jumpiness seems to work itself out, and there is still plenty to enjoy as it goes on. Other than that and a few slightly deadpan line reads of standard superhero fare, this movie proves to be a solid addition to the MCU.
One of the most exciting things about learning all of this is trying to see exactly how Carol Danvers is going to factor into Endgame next month. Given there’s a time jump, what all has she been through, and how has it changed her? Like any Marvel flick, stay through the credits - it’ll all be worth it. And while Danvers is dead on when she says at one point, “I have nothing to prove to you,” it’s wonderful to know she has proven herself to be one of the heroes that will hopefully save the world in the next installment.