Captain Marvel (Movie Review)

Captain Marvel is a character I grew up with, but it was the original MALE Captain Marvel. This was one of the first comics I ever bought:

Of course the Captain Marvel of this movie started out as Ms. Marvel and I really enjoyed her character mainly as seen in the Avengers comics:

She kinda faded out of my memory in the early 1980s when Rogue, who was a villain at the time, stole her powers and then she was kidnapped and impregnated by some other dimensional being (Immortus?) and I lost track of her after that.

Over time she seems to have dropped the "Ms." moniker and become "Captain" and has become a symbol of SJW feminism in the current Marvel lineup, which I'm not a fan of.

I lean to the right but think of myself more as an independent. A lot of right leaning youtubers and bloggers have already savaged this movie and have been trying to sabotage it for the better part of a year.  They're still going on about how it's a failure financially when its not. And they are angry.

 Actually, its own LEFTIE stars have tried to sabotage it as well! Brie Larson has been calling out white privilege and straight white men for well over a year now. And all the leftie blogs and media types have squarely drawn their battlelines to accuse those that don't like this movie of being racist sexist pigs.

It doesn't seem like the right OR the left can view this movie unbiased. So that's what I'M going to try to do. Look at it through a balanced lens.

First of all, Disney needs to put a leash on its stars, writers, directors, etc that serve as the public faces of their movies. They are constantly antagonizing and alienating their customer base. I found all the Baizuo comments by Brie Larson to be very annoying. But not enough to keep me from seeing the movie. But I'm sure there are thousands, if not millions, that WILL boycott the movie because of its SJW themes etc.

To start out, this is one of the "Meh" Marvel movies. It feels more like an Iron Man 2 or the second Thor movie. Or even the first Captain America. I didn't think the early Marvel movies were that good. It wasn't until Winter Soldier that I watched a really well made Marvel movie. Ever since then, they've been on an upward trend, or at least an equality in quality.

What's BAD about this movie? There's really only ONE glaring weakness in the movie: Brie Larson. She has all the acting range of a placid pond.  I don't ever really remember seeing her "act" in this movie. I've heard of wooden acting. Her performance was PETRIFIED WOODEN. It reminded me a lot of Alden Ehrenreich's total snoozefest in Solo, A Star Wars Story. In fact if these two actors mated they would probably produce a mannequin (They'd probably be too lethargic to have sex). Larson has zero charisma, zero acting chops. Sadly, I think Marvel is grooming her to take the lead role from Captain America in the Avengers franchise. That would be a disaster. She just seems like a woman waiting at a bus stop.

What did I LIKE about this movie? Well, basically, everything except Brie Larson!

The Kree Empire has been at war with the shape shifting Skrulls. A Kree warrior named Vers (Larson) holds the key to shifting the balance of power in that war. Vers, in a familiar anime trope, has lost all her memories of who she is or where she came from. She does have dreams of her former life on Earth. And its the knowledge in her head, in her lost memories, that both the Kree and Skrulls are after.

I enjoyed the story. While I already knew the major plot beats of Captain Marvel's origin, it interested me to see how the writers of the movie were going to hit those beats. So I liked the unraveling of the mystery and revelations and surprises. Again, the only thing holding back the story was Brie Larson. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe is so foundationally sound, you can have a bad performance in the midst of it. The momentum of the lore and the size and scope of the mythos fills in all the dead space. But I think if Captain Marvel is now going to be the flagpole of the Marvel Universe, with a gigantic bright spotlight, it's going to be a bumpy road moving forward.

The visual effects were very well done. Samuel L. Jackson looked about as young as he did in Pulp Fiction, which I'm sure took a lot of work. There was nothing creepy or weird about him like there was with Jeff Bridges in the Tron reboot. If you knew nothing about Jackson and had never seen him in a movie you would say he looked about 35years old or so. He also played Nick Fury with a really light touch and a lot more innocent spunk which was refreshing. I didn't want a younger Nick Fury who acted just like the older grizzled version. Jude Law also did a good job playing Ver's superior in Star Force, the Kree special forces unit she serves in. All the explosions and lasers and spaceships were up to the usual high grade level as in all Marvel movies.

The movie is definitely worth seeing. Would I buy it when it comes out on video? Probably not. Unless its like $7.99. Would I rent it from Redbox to see it again? Probably not. But I guess if you want to keep up on the overarching plotlines of the Marvel Universe movies you should go see it. It's not a horrible movie. It's not a good movie. It was "decent". With a stronger actress in the lead, it could have been really something.

My Grade: B