Captain Marvel Review

Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back once again with a new movie review. Captain Marvel is the newest (or maybe not so new considering when this movie takes place) hero to grace the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and oh boy, for me personally, this movie had an uphill battle to fight. Nothing in the trailers made the movie must see for me. Well, besides this:

This is just great...

On top of that, all the online bickering surrounding this movie, whether it was people thinking this was "SJW Propaganda", or the people that thought you were a misogynist if you weren't excited for this movie really soured it for me. But, I finally went to see it and that's what brings us here. Let's dive into Captain Marvel!

The year is 1995; and a woman simply known as Vers finds herself in the middle of an intergalatic war between her people the Kree and the shapshifting aliens known as The Skrulls. After a mission gone wrong Vers crash lands on Earth, a planet she used to call home as U.S. Air Force Pilot Carol Danvers. With the help of a young Nick Fury, Carol (who, for simplicity's sake I'm going to address as such for the rest of the review) must uncover the secrets of her past, while also gathering the tools necessary to put an end to the Kree/Skrull War.

If you are a fan of the MCU, you'll get a kick out of seeing the callbacks and tie-ins to previous films. This way this film fits into the MCU both past and present makes for a fun little Easter Egg hunt for people that have been on board this ride for this long.

Speaking of fun let's talk about the villains of the film, The Skrulls. From their concept alone, I love them: these shapeshifting aliens running amok and taking the form of anyone. It leads to a lot of misdirection where you can't trust anything or anyone; and I do believe the film does this effectively. My favorite of the group is the leader Talos, who, while not the intimidating figure I'd believe he would be, managed to leave an impression on me with just how laid back he was and what the film does with him. He's not a top 5 or even top 10 MCU villain, but he works for this film.

And while I'm the train of fun characters, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about young Nick Fury, who honestly is the backbone of the film. This isn't the hard-edged, cryptic, no-nonsense Fury that we see in say Winter Soldier, but rather a much more lighthearted and fun version that plays as a great counteract to the more straight-laced Carol; and Samuel L. Jackson's (unsurprisingly) great performance helps makes for arguably Fury's best appearance in any MCU movie.

It's kind of weird that I've talked about Captain Marvel this far in the review without bringing up the title character herself. That's because for me, Carol's at her strongest in the film when she's bouncing off of the characters on Earth, specifically Fury. But those moments when she's on her own and reflecting on her scatterbrained memories and the sort feels flat to me; and its through no fault of Brie Larson, I think she's doing the best with the material she's working with, it's just that the material she has in those moments aren't as strong as the stuff when she's on Earth. And to be perfectly fair to her, the character in the third act of the film is much more entertaining on her own than she is in the first two-thirds of it.

And I feel as though my problems with Carol's character plays into a bigger problem with the film as a whole and that's that the big moment in the story doesn't have the weight that it should have; and I feel that lies in the fact that there isn't enough time spent with Carol and Jude Law's character or the entire Kree Empire for that fact. There's enough time spent to understand it, but not really fully invest in it or Carol's connection to it if it makes any sense.

To compare it, in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 when Peter meets Ego, the movie takes several scenes for them to bond, allowing the audience to better sympathize with Peter in regards to this connection he's made. Which also makes the reveal that Ego was the one who killed Peter's mom that much more shocking and heartbreaking.

While it doesn't fly as high, or far, or fast as the promotional material would like for you to believe, Captain Marvel does deliver a very satisfactory film that will keep you entertained; and while I had some gripes about it, I am excited for the future of Carol Danvers and where she goes from here. I just hope that now we've established her, the character can truly soar in future appearances. But that's all from yours truly folks.Til Next time, I'm The Shaman of Animation.

Take Care...