[rating=7.00]
The problems inherent in Captain Marvel are not problems inherent in the movie itself, but in the studio that produced it. Marvel Studios has had an astounding, record smashing run over the last 11 years; they’ve become one of the most powerful forces in Hollywood, forcing other studios to reconsider their release dates and plans for fear of being lost amidst the next billion-dollar smash unleashed on the world by the reigning titans of the box office.
Along the way to dominance, Marvel Studios hit upon a sure-fire formula for crowd-pleasing action that never fails to entice and delight. That formula has become stale and predictable, rarely allowing for deviation from the standards and practices of the MCU at large and leading to a trio of movies released every year that never feel substantially different from the trio of films that were released the year before.
Occasionally they break the mold, like they did with last year’s Shakespearean-heighted stunner (and Best Picture nominee) Black Panther or with the shockingly delightful Thor: Ragnarok in 2017. Both of those movies allowed their directors (Ryan Coogler and Taika Waititi, respectively) to play with the formula and tweak expectations just enough to feel fresh and memorable. They broke their own molds and, in the process, become something greater.
Captain Marvel, meanwhile, is a return to formula. The result is a movie that ought to have been great and is, instead, just fine. “Pretty good” might seem like a solid endorsement—and I guess it is—but the bar has been set so high that it’s hard to know what we’re meant to expect anymore. Compounding this is the fact that finally—FINALLY!!!—Marvel has made a movie that puts a female hero front and center. And while that should have led to a movie that broke molds and set new standards for the MCU, it instead just feels episodic and rote.
None of this lands on the shoulders of star Brie Larson who, as Captain Marvel, owns her character harder than any other performer currently working in the MCU. There’s not a moment she wastes in her performance as Carol Danvers, member of an elite Kree fighting force who discovers that there might be more to her life and powers than she has been led to believe. Hers is a performance full of nuance and meaning, and Larson’s respect for both her character and her status as Marvel’s first female leading lady is tangible.
Perhaps it has something to do with the movie’s five story by credits. There is, at times, an incohesive feeling to Captain Marvel, as if it never really knows what kind of movie it wants to be. Is it fun and goofy like Guardians of the Galaxy? Is it serious and stark like The Winter Soldier? It never quite picks a lane, choosing instead to barrel down the middle without committing to any particular tone or narrative premise.
While never crossing the line into bad, this does result in a movie that, overall, feels more like it’s trying to check boxes than accomplish anything meaningful. Sure, it’s certainly meaningful that we finally have a female Marvel hero, and the film often does a wonderful job at exploring what that means. At one point, Danvers is told she ought to smile more; at another she’s allowed to confront an abuser with the powerful line “I don’t need to prove anything to you.” Its message of empowerment is important, but it too often feels as though it’s pulling its punches and not trying to rock any boats that, quite frankly, need fucking rocking.
Considering the 11 years it’s taken Marvel Studios to give us a female led film, Captain Marvel needed to be more than just fine. It needed to be more than just the next episode in the MCU franchise. It needed to be epoch changing. What it didn’t need was to feel like a two-hour flashback that exists only to explain the pager seen in the stinger of Infinity War. It didn’t need to be narratively indistinguishable from the 20 movies that came before it. Given what we know Marvel to be capable, for Captain Marvel to be “fine” or “pretty good” feels insulting.
Captain Marvel is now playing in theaters everywhere.
