REVIEW: ‘Captain Marvel’ fulfills her duty - for better and worse
Brie Larson stars as Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.
In interviews, actors and filmmakers sometimes talk about their duty - to a story, to a person’s life, to a moment from history. Whether the movie in question delivers on that sense of mission is another matter, but nevertheless it pervades many a Hollywood project.
Similarly, we also talk about a duty towards representation, especially in the giant blockbusters that shape our culture and provide role models for the kids (and maybe the adults) who see them. The last superhero movie to fit this description was naturally Black Panther, but there are still plenty of under-represented communities left to include in the genre. Until this year, the production company behind Black Panther had yet to make a film with a female hero in the leading role.
It’s an omission that gathered extra criticism as Scarlett Johansson’s character Black Widow gained more prominence in the series without getting her own story. But with the release of Captain Marvel, the studio aims to address that shortcoming, and even takes the step of introducing a character who will canonically be the most powerful in the Avengers pantheon. Marvel is clearly hoping that this will play just as well as (if not better than) Warner Bros.’ success with Wonder Woman, with super-producer Kevin Feige and star Brie Larson emphasizing the importance of the movie to all the young girls out there looking for an avatar on the big screen.
No one should downplay the significance of this milestone, at least within the Marvel world. But like Wonder Woman and even Black Panther, it’s important to weigh the cultural role of the movie differently than its artistic role. Is Captain Marvel merely a series of boxes being checked, as if an H.R. rep were ensuring that everyone received equal consideration for the box-office domination job? Or is there more going on in this origin story?
Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, the leader of a group of Skrulls.
Captain Marvel opens with our protagonist, known as Vers (pronounced Veers, played by Larson) waking up on an alien planet called Hala. It’s the homeworld of a race called the Kree, a hyper-advanced spacefaring empire who are at war with a race of shape-shifting space goblins called Skrulls. Vers is an elite warrior with the Starforce, a black ops squad who undertake covert missions against the Skrulls. Vers, however, can only remember her six years with the Starforce, and nothing before she was saved from a nearly fatal accident by her commander Yon-Rogg (Jude Law).
When she’s captured by Skrulls during a mission, Vers begins to realize that her past and some technology sought by the Skrulls may be linked. Her investigation brings her to Earth in the year 1995, leading her to team up with a younger Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), earlier in his S.H.I.E.L.D. career, and eventually towards revelations about her past and decisions about her future with the Kree.
It’s nothing we haven’t seen before in many other Marvel origin tales - which is perhaps the unintentional point. If Captain America or Thor can have a “just fine” debut, then a female superhero can too. All the tropes are here, down to the sequence where an adversary taunts Captain Marvel until she unlocks her true powers. The film is also distractingly talk-heavy at times. It dumps exposition in the second act while teasing us with threads that might have been worth exploring in more detail, like Vers’ relationship with her father or with the men she encountered in the military.
Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau, Danvers’ wingwoman in the U.S. Air Force.
What this adds up to is a final conflict that doesn’t feel quite as dramatic as it might if Carol Danvers had a more deeply held stake in the proceedings. For a film that spends a lot of time on having characters criticize Danvers for being too emotional, we don’t get enough context for her emotions in the climax - moments that spur her onward - other than brief flashes of her previous life. Compare that to the kind of righteous fury exhibited by Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman at the end of her first solo film, and you see the difference. We’re not just wowed by the character’s superpowers, but we’re experiencing the sort of common ground that can’t come from having the character’s motivations belaboured to us via dialogue.
On the macro level though, we still have a major release from one of the most lucrative film franchises putting a woman in the lead role. It shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it is in [insert current year], but yet here we are. Women and girls who go to see Captain Marvel may see something very different from what I see.
There are hints that as familiar as the story structure is in Captain Marvel, something about Danvers’ characterization - a mix of self-assured humour and dedication - could make her follow-up solo films into true standouts, maybe on the order of Thor: Ragnarok. But until that time, we’re left with an origin story that feels like it’s standing guard, and not charging into battle.
Captain Marvel gets two and a half stars out of four.
Stray thoughts
The Goose the cat scenes reminded me of a frequent complaint of Roger Ebert: Goose is good enough that you want the movie to be about him instead.
Is it just me, or is Ben Mendelsohn stealing scenes while also buried in Skrull makeup?
Lee Pace didn’t get to do nearly enough bellowing as Ronan the Accuser.