Captain Marvel is a new kind of movie for Marvel Studios. It’s the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to feature a female lead, taking another step forward for representation after the release of Black Panther.
Other films in the MCU have featured important female characters. Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) has appeared in over a half-dozen of the 21 released MCU films and was one of the “Original Six” heroes to star in 2012’s The Avengers.
And while S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill and Ant-Man counterpart Wasp (played by Canadian actresses Cobie Smulders and Evangeline Lilly, respectively) have also appeared in action-heavy roles in the series, neither character has served as the main protagonist of an MCU film.
Twenty-one films into the Marvel Studios canon, a female-led picture was certainly overdue. And while Captain Marvel brings some moments of novelty to the landscape of superhero films, it feels in many ways like one of the earlier MCU origin story movie.
It’s uneven, somewhat weakly written, and it drags a bit, but it’s still a fun ride.
Brie Larson takes centre-stage as Carol Danvers, the titular Captain Marvel who purports herself as a “noble warrior hero” in an alien military unit called “Starforce,” led by Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). Larson’s performance has been put under a microscope from the moment that the first trailer for the film dropped last September, as has the film’s overtly-stated feminist message.
Online trolls have taken offence to both of these elements, specifically targeting the film’s Rotten Tomatoes page and lowering its fan score to 28 per cent “Fresh” before the film was even released.
That low of a score is unwarranted, both for Larson’s performance and the overall quality of the film. Larson does a fine job—nothing more, nothing less—as Captain Marvel, with most of her shortcomings likely a product of the inconsistent script, which suffers from pacing issues and an overabundance of cringe-inducing lines.
Larson is a terrific actress but she has little to work with here and it shows. She is suitably heroic in the lead role, but her line deliveries tend to fall flat.
Captain Marvel’s narrative structure is rather unusual in the context of the MCU, in that it starts after Larson’s hero has already acquired her powers—although it is unclear how or why this happened. The film’s directors, MCU rookies Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, leave it to the audience to put together the pieces of her origin story while Danvers, an amnesiac, does the same.
A consequence of this structure is that the film’s pacing feels disjointed, with the first act feeling incredibly rushed and expository at times and the middle sometimes slowing to a crawl.
On Earth, Danvers interacts with Nick Fury and Phil Coulson (Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg, respectively), two pre-existing MCU characters who have been very impressively de-aged by 20 years with CGI for the entire film, which takes place in 1995.
The biggest issue with Captain Marvel is that it lacks gravitas and flair. Recent MCU offerings like Thor: Ragnarok and Doctor Strange felt like moments of progress for the series, in that they offered uniqueness, visual style, and true emotional heft.
Captain Marvel, on the other hand, feels somewhat like it’s going through the motions. Its action scenes are cookie-cutter at best and its worst lines are spoken by its best actors.
Ultimately, while Captain Marvel is trying to be a first for female representation, it instead feels more like a twenty-first for the MCU.
