Captain Marvel

Anticipating this film, I got so caught up in wondering how Captain Marvel would relate to the upcoming events in Avengers: End Game that when Jude Law suddenly appeared on screen, I thought with a start, “Oh yeah! I forgot this movie would have a cast!”

All stand-alone Marvel projects have a supporting cast, and only a few of those characters make it into the Avengers movies. But the trailers for this film focused so heavily on Brie Larsen and de-aged Samuel L. Jackson that I basically forgot that anybody else would be in the movie.

I love the new supporting characters, though. Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Lashana Lynch, Akira Akbar, and Annette Bening are all fantastic additions as genuinely compelling new characters whose identities may be better kept secret. (I know I enjoyed discovering them each in turn.)

I’ve always liked Jude Law, and lately he seems to be enjoying a quiet career resurgence. I’d love to see this intriguing new character of his turn up again in other Marvel movies (if that’s possible).

When I saw Annette Bening, on the other hand, I cringed in horror and thought, “Oh no! My mom hates Annette Bening!” (She was already stressed out enough after searching the cineplex for my errant father (and her popcorn!)). But then when Bening made another appearance, I suddenly remembered, “Wait! It’s Susan Sarandon my mom hates! So then who hates Annette Bening?”

I never figured out the answer to that (though after some puzzling I did recall that my grandmother went to her grave harboring a lingering suspicion of Shirley MacLaine). But the answer stopped mattering because Bening is so fantastic in this (dual) role. One of her characters seems so sinister, and the other is shrouded in such mystery. She had my full attention every time she was on the screen. I loved her performance.

Meanwhile, I absolutely couldn’t believe it when Ben Mendelsohn showed up. He must have the best agent! He randomly turns up in more blockbusters than Greg Grunberg. I remember first noticing Mendelsohn in Animal Kingdom, and now he’s in everything! Everything! Rogue One, Ready Player One, this one. He’s fantastic here, playing a character with surprising and welcome complexity.

I’m not as familiar with Lashana Lynch and Akira Akbar, but they’re also great here, especially Akbar who has amazing chemistry with Brie Larsen. (She must have a gift for developing a rapport with child actors.)

Gemma Chan shines, too, in a much smaller role. I loved her character and found her last big moment memorably funny.

Other faces (and names) are familiar (or should be). Nick Fury isn’t the only MCU character in Captain Marvel whom we’ve met before. I won’t spoil anything by telling you who else appears, but if you’ve been watching Marvel Movies for the past decade, then you should recognize several people. The very presence of one of them tipped my husband off early to a major plot twist.

Actually that major plot twist is pretty easy to call. I had no idea from the Captain Marvel trailers, but once I started watching the actual movie, this twist occurred to me almost right away. And my entire family (except the three-year-old) had similarly early suspicions, though, curiously, each of us had a different reason for anticipating the twist.

But I’ll say no more about the movie’s plot.  I haven’t yet mentioned the two characters who most define Captain Marvel, a feline newcomer named Goose (remember Top Gun?), and a familiar decade known as the 1990s.

The cat is really something else! My three-year-old is not the only one marveling at his antics. Everybody loves this cat (some perhaps a little too much, not too wisely, but two well). You’re going to fall in love with him, too. He provides some of the most genuinely entertaining moments in Captain Marvel. He’s definitely the break-out star of the film.  (Runner up, Akira Akbar’s character.  If we don’t see her again in the future, I’ll be stunned.)

The 1990s makes a big impression, too. We know we’re in the past when Brie Larsen’s character (called Vers at the beginning of the film), crashes through the roof of a Blockbuster video. But just in case you somehow don’t catch this pointed signifier of the 90s, you’re also going to see pay phones, pagers, flannel, NIN shirts, 90s cars, dial-up internet, Alta Vista, a Samuel L. Jackson so young he could be working at Jurassic Park, and possibly the most 90s Stan Lee cameo ever. (That was genuinely clever. Seeing Lee these days always brings a tear to the eye, but this reference got a fond chuckle out of me, as well.)

Some of the 90s stuff is almost annoyingly obvious. (Look! Radio Shack exists!) But other things are far more clever (you-had-to-have-been-there kind of stuff.)  Late in the film we see this vintage metal lunch box. It’s a Happy Days lunchbox, and Happy Days is a show from the early 80s, but it became really trendy to buy retro lunchboxes like that in the 1990s. (They had an entire store devoted to that kind of stuff at the mall, remember? My sister and I once bought a Lone Ranger one for our Dad for his birthday.  This country was just exploding with extra money in the 90s.  We had a store in the mall for everything!)

So yes, the decade I graduated from high school is everywhere in this movie, nowhere as prominently as in the soundtrack. Garbage, Nirvana, No Doubt, TLC. I’m sure there’s more, but we get some of the most iconic songs from the most 90s of 90s artists, all showcased during critical moments and played at great length.

To me, all this 90s nostalgia felt perfectly welcome. I wouldn’t even have minded more.

Best Scene: 

This isn’t fair, but the scene that moved me the most is the Stan Lee tribute.  It killed me that my parents missed it because Mom finally set off in search of Dad and the missing popcorn.  Be sure to be in your seat when the movie starts.  Get your popcorn before you sit down, or else provide your husband with a map and/or tracking device to avoid any such mishap.  You do not want to miss the first moments of Captain Marvel.

Next best may be the moment when the protagonist squares off against her nemesis in the dessert near the end of the movie.  She’s finally realized she doesn’t need anyone’s approval to be herself.  She lives on her own terms.

Equally good is the moment with the little girl and the photographs.

Best Scene Visually:

I liked the visual design of the Supreme Intelligence, and I also love what they did with the cat.

Then again, I’m quite partial to a particular sequence of looking for information since it reminds me of the time my friend and I were accidentally locked inside the basement of the library.  The lights went off, off, off, and the shelves began to narrow, narrow, narrow.  We barely escaped with our lives!

Best Use of Music:

I was a huge fan of the way they used the song “I’m Just a Girl,” but my husband cited that as the one thing in the movie that felt off to him.  I found it appropriate for multiple reasons.  One is that action scenes in movies about male heroes are often accompanied by intense heavy metal so pounding you can practically hear the testosterone, so this song seemed appropriate for a female hero to me.  I also think it emphasizes her humanity and flippant sense of humor which she now feels comfortable embracing.  Once I explained these things, my husband noted, “I may have to watch the scene again.”

Best Action Sequence:

I was actually incredibly impressed by the action scenes in this film.  At one moment near the end, Brie Larsen’s character is following someone, but only one of them is inside the plane.  

“How in the world did they choreograph and film this sequence?” I found myself wondering.  It must be a mix of the actress, the stunt performer, CGI, practical effects, and who knows what else.  I literally don’t understand the logistics of conceiving of and choreographing and filming action scenes that must be broken into so many pieces for both practical and story-driven reasons.  The action looks seamless but so many steps must have been taken to make the motion appear continuous and fluid.

The big, partially aerial fight/flight scene at the end is the best part of the movie.  (Weirdly, it also reminded me of the corny 90s action film Broken Arrow, though I have no idea if that was intentional.)

The Negatives:

This is a Marvel movie.  You’ve seen one before.  We saw about twenty last year, and a new one is coming to theaters (literally) next month.

I love a good popcorn flick as much as the next person, but I am starting to feel a bit of Marvel fatigue.  By the time the new Marvel Land is finished at Disney’s California Adventure, I’ll probably be first in line just so I can heckle the costumed cast members.  (That’s never going to draw enough crowds away from Star Wars Land in the other park.  Late risers like me are never going to get to go to Disneyland ever again!)

Anyway, this movie is incredibly solid, but in terms of plot and action set pieces, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.  A Marvel movie co-directed by a woman, about an incredibly powerful female hero with an African American female best friend who actually does key stuff is groundbreaking in those aspects, but it would feel more groundbreaking if the Marvel formula weren’t so familiar.

After the movie, my husband, our older son, and I discussed why Marvel is able to crank out thousands of solid movies when DC can’t even make one. My husband observed that most Marvel heroes interact in the real world while DC’s heroes are all remarkably fantastical except Batman (and that’s why he believes only the Batman movies are good). Personally, I think we can thank Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan for the good Batman movies (which I don’t even include when I think of “the DC movies.”)

I loved a lot of DC heroes when I was about four or five. I even read the children’s versions of their comics. So when I watch a DC movie, I always ask myself, “Would a five-year-old me have loved this?” I’ve found the only way to enjoy the movies is to imagine that I’m still five. These films pretend to be dark and edgy, but actually they’re so rigidly black/white that it is the child in us who adores them.

Our son said he’s baffled that so many of his classmates liked Aquaman better than Wonder Woman. He just doesn’t see it.

I can totally get the love for the off-the-wall sea trip Aquaman. (Our son chortled when I said it found a lot of ways to use water. I suppose that did sound like a diplomatic insult. But I meant it sincerely. If Amber Heard and Jason Momoa had any chemistry whatsoever, many of that movie’s most glaring problems would disappear.)

My husband said that he personally likes Captain Marvel better than Wonder Woman, and there I must disagree.  Anyone who saw me at five doing action poses in my Wonder Woman Underoos would get it instantly.  Captain Marvel makes no major missteps, but Wonder Woman does justice to Wonder Woman.

That is the one strength of the DC movies.  The characters make a huge impression.  They’re really big.  In fact, DC’s new movies are really just showcases for their larger-than-life heroes.  (Did I like Suicide Squad?  Sure I love Harley Quinn.  Wait, that movie had a plot?)  Marvel movies are all intricately, carefully plotted.  But the story is bigger than the heroes.  In DC, the heroes are bigger than the story.  (And when they try to get clever with the plotting, they end up with a big mess that’s difficult to follow.)

So that’s really my only major critique of Captain Marvel.  It is too familiar, too safe.  In terms of humor, especially, it always goes for the guaranteed chuckle rather than the risky laugh.  In general, it takes absolutely no risks.  Then again, maybe letting a female co-writer/co-director give us a female hero poised to become the new face of the MCU is risk enough.  (Of course, Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games ticked two of those boxes just recently.)  

My husband has been irritated for a while that Brie Larsen’s gotten such backlash from a bunch of jerks online for wanting to do more interviews with female reporters of color.  “She’s not even doing fewer interviews with white men,” he clarified.  “She’s just adding additional interviews.”  The backlash against this perfectly reasonable move by Larsen makes him so enraged.  And after seeing the movie, I find that her decision makes even more sense given that two female African American characters play such an integral role in the plot.

So maybe socially Captain Marvel is taking a heroic risk (though in the current social climate, I’m not sure I’d call it a risk).  But it’s definitely taking a firm stand.  In terms of plot and execution, though, Captain Marvel plays it extremely safe.  It’s a Marvel movie.  We’re probably spoiled by having so many of such quality, but this is just one more.

Overall:

“What was your favorite part in Captain Marvel?” I asked my three-year-old just now.

“Only the kitty parts,” he replied and added with a shudder, “Even the last kitty part.”

Even if you only like “the kitty parts,” you should have a satisfying movie experience.  (That cat is going to win an Oscar!)

Captain Marvel is fun for the entire family, but if you go, be sure you are in your seat paying attention the moment the movie starts.  You don’t want to miss the opening credits.