Captain Marvel - Review

The two words I would use to describe this movie are bland and boring. Those are two of the worst words you could have associated with your movie because in reality, what is the art of film meant to do? It is meant to either entertain or inform people. Captain Marvel fails at both. Go down the line of elements that make a movie worth watching. In my eyes, the three most important are the characters, story, and emotion. Captain Marvel was unable to provide any of those, or at least provide any of those elements as interesting, intriguing or likable.

Now I should mention that there is much controversy surrounding this movie about it having a female lead. If I am being completely honest with you, I don't care about any of it. I don't care who is the lead character of the movie I am watching. Whether or not they are a man or a woman or even transgender, whether they are gay or straight, what colour of skin they have, I don't care about any of it. I just want to connect with a character enough so that I am willing to go through the adventure with them.

Carol Danvers is not an interesting or charismatic character. Brie Larson has done some great work in the past, especially for her Oscar-winning performance in Room, but here, you could have replaced her with a cardboard cut out and she would have had the same level of personality. I'm not saying that every superhero needs to be super witty like Chris Pratt or Paul Rudd to lead a superhero movie, I'm saying that a character in a movie like this just needs to have an ounce of likability in order for the audience to invest in their story. With Carol Danvers, her personality was so stiff outside of a couple of cocky one-liners. We also don't get to know enough about her in order for us to care. The story has similar elements to The Bourne Identity with the lead character having a past that they don't remember and they start to fit the pieces together throughout the story. At least Matt Damon's performance was sympathetic and you actually believed the emotions he was portraying on screen. Brie Larson just seems to have a blank expression on her face throughout the entire thing. I don't necessarily blame Brie Larson for this, I blame the direction of the movie.

Speaking of direction, this movie is just very bland. Everything from the cinematography, to the pacing of the story, to the action sequences, this was an ugly looking boring movie. If you look at almost every single Marvel movie, yes they have a similar tone but they all have a certain style to them. Thor Ragnorok, Captain America: The First Avenger, Guardians of the Galaxy, these are just a few movies in the MCU who all have their distinct style and voice. The style and the voice of Captain Marvel can be known as the one without anything unique or any originality, even in the slightest. The only thing that sets this film apart from the other films in the franchise is that there is a woman as our main protagonist.

As for the story, I'm still trying to comprehend what actually happened in the movie. Brie Larson is a Cree (a race of aliens) who are on the hunt for another group of Aliens and this hunt brings her to earth and on earth, she discovers her past. That's about it. People have told me that this is a new form of filmmaking where the lead character does whatever she wants and the story follows along with her. First of all, I don't get it and secondly, if that were the case, then the story would still be pretty forgettable because she doesn't actually do much, or at least anything exciting or that has any stakes worth getting invested in.

The only times where I would get more invested into what was happening on screen was when Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelson appeared and they just started talking. Both of those actors have a great deal of charisma and it seems like no matter what movie either of those two are in, they always give a captivating performance. However, because both of them are so likable, charismatic and were able to make us laugh, it only highlights even more how the rest of the movie failed to do so. Great for Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelson, bad for Captain Marvel as a movie.

Speaking of things that slightly kept me interested was the fact that this movie took place in the '90s. Now I have no problem with movies, especially those in the superhero genre taking place in older time periods. Doing that can give your movie a unique voice, a certain style and it can even be used as a story element (I'm looking at you X-Men) Here, having this story take place in the '90s did nothing for the actual story, it was only good for a couple of moments where you could at the screen and say, "Oh look! I remember those!" Seeing a Gameboy on screen, hearing Nirvana and No Doubt play over scenes (neither of them worked in the context of their given scenes) doesn't benefit from the story, or lack thereof in this case, and acts only as a distraction.

Simply put, Captain Marvel is a movie that failed to entertain me. Again, I could care less about the 'agenda' that a certain movie is trying to push forward, I, like many other rational individuals out there want to watch a superhero movie to be entertained and inspired. Instead, I got a movie going experience that I am forgetting with every passing minute.