Captain Marvel

 

From the new Marvel Studios intro that features Stan Lee and some of his cameos from other Marvel films, Captain Marvel is a worthy addition to the roster of great superhero movies we have come to expect from Marvel. Through the use of it's well worn formula and a little bit of time travel, Marvel has brought Carol Danvers into the MCU and set her up as one of Earth's most powerful defenders.

 

Set in the 1990s we meet a younger Nick Fury who has his eyes opened to a larger Universe and new threats he couldn't even imagine until the day he met a Kree Soldier who fell from the sky. The relationship between the two of them has all the comedy you would expect from a cop buddy picture from the 90s. We also finally learn how Fury lost his eye in the first place. This is a quiet little origin story of Captain Marvel who surprisingly fits quite neatly into the MCU and in retrospect we see how important she is as she inspires the creation of the Avengers.

 

The movie plays like a buddy cop movie with space warriors. It's kinda a thankless job to be in a film like this which should not be compared to its bigger and louder older brother, The Infinity Gauntlet. That movie came after ten years of universe building. Captain Marvel has the feel of the first Iron Man or Thor movies. This is just the appetizer that starts the meal which will be the NEXT phase of the MCU. I like the way this movie overlaps with the end of the LAST phase.

 

This movie is just here to fill in some of the holes in the entire Marvel movie saga. We learn more about Nick Fury and the FIRST hero he met that inspired the Avengers Initiative. We see how the Tesseract got to Earth and became the focus of attention in Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok before it caught the attention of Thanos who sent the alien army to Earth and they did battle in the first Avengers movie. If you can keep it all straight in your head it all makes perfect sense. I have expectations for this character knowing her comic book origins and I thought it did justice to her. We can't have enough strong female heroes to ever satisfy me and Captain Marvel's time has come.

 

I can forgive alot of this movie. Bree Larson is certainly charming and cute and thoughtful and brave and funny but we won't really get a good sense of her until we see her around all those other Avengers. Except for the action sequences, the movie is more thoughtful and driven and for that you need a good actress to portray those complicated emotions around identity and loyalty. Larsen is very good in those moments. It's the comedy that she has to work on. Of course next to Samuel L. Jackson it's hard to compete. Fury is the combination of all the characters Jackson has ever played. He's Shaft if Shaft was a super spy. It was nice to see that character given a little more of a back story too.

 

The Skrulls were also interesting when you learn a little bit of truth about them. The way that the movie creates a situation where smart humans can spot a Skrull if they ask the right kind of questions because the duplicates only have the short term memory of the person they have copied. But you have to finesse it or they will know that you are onto them, you dig?  

 

I actually hope some of them find their way into ENDGAME. A shape shifter can come in handy when you are fighting an intergalactic war.

 

From the after credit scene we KNOW that Carol arrives on Earth after being in space since the 1990s She was the last person that Fury contacted before he was 'raptured' by Thanos. When she finds the Avengers at their lowest she had already been in space nearly 20 years. She is a hardened war veteran by the time she shows up in Avengers Endgame. She will throw a whole new element into the team dynamic. I for one am excited to see how the rag tag group of survivors defeat the Mad Titan and bring back all those they have lost. I want to see how Carol deals with a defeated Captain America who is just wallowing in his loss. After seeing her powers at full display I am happy Captain Marvel will be with us because the job can't be done without her. This film does a good job showing us why we should care about her.

 

 

I think if people go into this one with lower expectations then you will get into the story and the comedy and the heart. Try to ignore the trolls who have trashed this film online and trust me. You can wait to see this one and it will play just fine on TV. There are a few surprises in the movie and it does at times seem like a throwback to a simpler time before the stakes for any superhero movie weren't so enormously high.

 

Captain Marvel is deliberately made to be watched FIRST before IRON MAN when you eventually go mental and have to watch ALL the MCU in order from beginning to ENDGAME. If you are a purist like me you will like this one. If you are a hater just to be an asshole then you won't and you will find all kinds of stupid reasons why you are right and I am wrong. I tire of those kind of discussions. I don't dance for the amusement of the Hillbilly anymore. Movie reviews are almost irrelevant to me at this point. I will trust my own sense of cool and this movie was cool. Not flashy cool but comfy cool. And right now that is cool enough for me.

 

 

 

In the end the movie just serves as the beginning of a much larger story involving Captain Marvel and the rest of the Avengers who will need her experience and power to defeat Thanos and also end the Kree/Scrull war. It was nice to see a smaller story after all the character loaded films we have become accustomed to. Its still got cutting edge effects and the battle in space is terrific. But after 20 movies there are only so many different ways that you can show air vehicles battling each other through desert canyons or super powered soldiers fight each other with energy powers and energy weapons. We have kinda seen it all before and Captain Marvel doesn't reinvent the wheel. It's solid. It gets the job done. Tween girls will love it because Carol is who they should all aspire to be. She's a good role model.

 

Goose the cat is awesome. There was not enough of Goose the cat. I could watch a whole series of shorts just based on his adventures with his buddy, Nick Fury. He really is a Flerkin cat and it's cool to see him figure so predominately with the Captain Marvel action figure. This one is a star in the making. Maybe he controls the Infinity Gauntlet in the end and FINALLY Hollywood will call and I will give them my idea for a PET AVENGERS movie with Goose the Cat as the leader. It would be HUGE. The merchandising alone would give me all the f-you money I would ever need.