The latest MCU film is back after several delays and date changes. With the ongoing strike promotion of the film has been limited to trailers and the rumor mill coming out from the director themselves and others who have been casting some doubt on the success of the upcoming female lead superhero film, but let’s cut through all the talk and let’s talk about the movie itself.
Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. However, unintended consequences see her shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with two other superheroes to form the Marvels.
Review
Superhero movies are wearing thin on the movie-going public whether you are a fan of Marvel or not. After what seems like a decade of escalating universe-ending stakes, we are now at a point of resetting and in desperate need of small, contained, casual popcorn flicks to go to the movies to see. Something that doesn’t really require 20+ movies and 15 years of viewing knowledge to be caught up on to enjoy. The Marvels partially ticks a few of these boxes and comes in with a tight runtime of under 2 hours that keeps things moving quickly and succinctly.
Here, we bring together Carol Danvers (Captian Marvel), Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel), and Monica Rambeau (Wandavision) for a team-up superhero film that is focused on a redemption arc for Danvers who is still reeling from the events that lead to her to destroy the Supreme Intelligence on Hala and the fall out as a result of it. As expected the awkward team-up was exactly what we would expect from the 3. One is still mad that she never came back after all those years, while the other is fangirling over her idol. Together they have to fight a radical Kree who is bent on restoring Hala and the expense of everything Danvers loves.
The film has plenty of funny moments that make the film feel very much in the Guardians Of The Galaxy space, but the movie itself feels much more contained in the broader scheme of things and this is a good thing. We need smaller stories that focus on character growth and that we have fun with versus needing a degree in quantum mechanics to understand all the lore. Goose is also awesome doing what Goose does best, and that is all we will say.
Now the film is far from perfect with a goofy sequence on a planet where their spoken language is sung and not spoken, which felt very out of place but also very much on brand for the campy nature of the film. The villain was frankly terrible and cliche. There isn’t really a point at which you care about, or even think of her as a threat. In the end, the events of the film don’t appear to have much effect on the next phase of the MCU, at least until the final few scenes and post-credit scene.
As with any Marvel film, stay all the way through the credits. The Marvels may not be the best MCU film to come out it’s the most fun, campy, casual, and ends up as a solid addition to the franchise that helps to tie together some loose threads from newer shows into the core superhero base.
The Marvels hits theaters on November 10th.
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