By Brett Blake Now 10+ years into its existence, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become one of the most reliable suppliers of fun blockbuster entertainment, and that streak continues with CAPTAIN MARVEL. It’s a minor entry, no question, and not without some significant writing flaws, but it’s anchored by a breezy, fun tone and a handful of very good performances. The basic setup involves Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), a powerful amnesiac with no memory of a prior life on Earth and who now fights for the Kree, an alien race in the midst of a galactic war with the shapeshifting Skrulls, led by Talos (Ben Mendelsohn). In a skirmish with the Skrulls, Carol finds herself transported back to Earth in 1995, where she must stop the Skrulls from discovering a resource that could tip the scales in their favor in the war with the Kree, while also searching to reclaim her lost memories. Along the way, she partners with younger Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who finds himself thrust for the first time into a galactic conflict the likes of which he could have never imagined. This review is likely going to skew negative (even though I genuinely like the movie!), so I really want to stress the positive elements right up front. Tonally, as one would expect from Marvel, this is an extremely easy and enjoyable watch, and most of the moments where the cast members just get to bounce off each other are pretty uniformly good. The friendship that develops between Carol Danvers and Nick Fury is consistently entertaining. I also cannot speak highly enough of Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, the chief Skrull antagonist. Much was made a few years ago about Marvel having a “villain problem” in their movies, but I think they’ve been on an incredible run for a while now of delivering antagonists that are either effectively intimidating or nuanced and relatable enough to be interesting characters in their own right. Mendelsohn’s Talos is all of those things, and he does a pretty terrific job of emoting through a pretty elaborate and extensive amount of makeup. He delivers a fully-formed and engaging character packed with personality. The musical score is another of the film’s standout elements. It’s big, motif-driven, and incorporates electronic elements in unexpected and unique ways to add some atmospheric qualities while still incorporating very classic symphonic techniques. The score is courtesy of relative unknown (at least as far as blockbuster composers are concerned) Pinar Toprak, and her work here instantly marks her as a talent to keep an eye (and ear) on going forward. Ultimately the movie’s primary weaknesses come in two different areas: the writing (specifically as it relates to the arc and the characterization of the title role) and the execution of the action sequences. The screenplay, tinkered with by five credited writers (and who-knows-how-many uncredited writers), falls into a lot of conventional and familiar scenarios when it comes to crafting the general contours of the plot, which turns into something of a standard MacGuffin chase for its second half. The first act is curiously shaky, throwing a lot of information at the audience in a fashion that might be too much for a lot of non-comic-reading viewers. The story does settle in once Carol makes it to Earth and links up with Nick Fury, but that’s also when the real plot of “We have to find X before these bad guys get to it” kicks in, and it’s pretty bog-standard stuff. Brie Larson gives about as good a performance as I think could be expected given what was asked of her by the screenplay. There are certain elements of the performance and the movie’s conception of Carol Danvers that do not land for me (see below), but none of that seems to be Larson’s fault; she’s totally game and brings her Oscar-winning dramatic chops to a few key scenes in a pretty impactful way. She’s also not afraid to let herself look silly, which is a refreshing quality of the character... but also one that dovetails into the writing problems. On a script level, there’s a duality in Carol’s personality here that I don’t think is fully intentional (or if intentional, does not have the desired effect), and it creates an odd tension. She’s meant to be this somewhat guarded soldier whose humanity returns to her as the memories of her past return, but this transition almost seems to be taken for granted, because the script puts cheeky and sarcastic one-liners in her mouth throughout. Those sorts of touches should really only be very gradually peppered in along the way to the completion of a character arc in the third act, when her true personality can really flourish. Either you’re going for the big, transformational character arc, or you’re going for her being goofy and quirky throughout; you can’t really do both, but the movie wants both. If she has her humanity in every way but her memories, what’s the real point of her journey? I think some people are going to take all that in and lay the blame at Brie Larson’s feet (and some people will have no issues at all, which is fine!), but I genuinely believe it’s a bit of a flaw with the conception of the character on the page, not in Larson’s attempt to execute that. She’s actually a lot of fun in the looser beats, but it’s extremely debatable if having so many loose moments all throughout the story is truly the right path for her arc. Her best moments are those ones where the character is able to reconnect with her past, as well as any moments she’s together with Samuel L. Jackon’s Nick Fury; the two have a quite entertaining, buddy-cop type of dynamic, and there’s real chemistry there (though, in fairness, Jackson’s a performer who has chemistry with pretty much anybody he shares a scene with). You can sort of sense that directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who come from small-film backgrounds, are immeasurably more comfortable with the scenes of character interaction than they are with the exciting setpieces... which, unfortunately, aren’t all that exciting here. One would assume (though it’s possible one could be wrong!) Boden and Fleck didn’t have a strong vision for what the action should be, from a visual standpoint, so allowed their second unit directors and editors to take the lead there; the result of that is that the action just kind of happens, and doesn’t provide the requisite amount of invention or playfulness that we should be getting from an MCU movie. The action’s not bad, but it’s bland. Flat. It feels like the writers were finding their footing on this one, which - in fairness - is a little forgivable since this is the character’s first outing, but hopefully the next installment will build on this sometimes-rocky foundation, because there’s plenty of stuff to work with here if a more confident hand is applied. It will be very interesting to see how Carol Danvers his handled by different writers in AVENGERS: ENDGAME, which is arriving in only a few short weeks. The potential is all there.
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