Spoilers The Marvels (Spoilers)

[DeviousQuail]

Just saw this. Pardon the stream of consciousness. Should you see it in theaters? I think so.

The movie was fun. It had a silliness to it that would feel at home in a GotG movie. Unlike GotG 3, The Marvels doesn't have the same heart to balance that silliness. That's to be expected. This isn't the capstone to a trilogy after all. However, this movie feels like it blasts through some scenes in the second and third acts that needed a bit more time and weight. Amongst recent MCU movies it's not on GotG 3s level. I think it's better than Quantumania and Love & Thunder. Ymmv.

The best parts were anytime the three leads were hanging out together. I enjoyed their comedic chemistry. The action scenes early in the movie were darn near perfect. The switching loses some of it's fun later on. Not enough for me to dislike it though. The outlandish* parts including

Spoiler: Spoilers

the water planet singing and Goose having babies who save Saber by eating people

were terrific. I will say that the hidden bits above probably won't be everyone's cup of tea. I cannot stress enough the silliness of this movie.

*pun intended

The fine/meh bits: the story isn't great. This is not going to sit alongside the high points of the MCU in that regard. It has enough to get people where they need to be and explain why they're there. You want better, but sometimes that's what you get. Nick Fury, Saber, and the Khans have their own little B-plot. It's okay for exposition, but not interesting on it's own. Also, a lot of apologizing that had a bit of a PSA on how to say sorry vibe to them. Not bad, but not as weighty as you'd hope.

The worst part is the villain. The actress was fine, but as a villain she'll be forgotten soon. Just a boring revenge story. Very little room to grow and she fails to be menacing enough when she's not using her powers. Also, the teeth thing was a choice I wouldn't make twice. Captain Marvel's power fluctuates a lot too. Sometimes the villain makes that happen but at other times it just doesn't feel like she's hitting as hard as we know she can.

Spoiler: What's Next?

A lot as it turns out. Kamala is trying to be the new Fury, getting a young avengers squad together. Nice to see Kate Bishop again. We have a cameo with Valkyrie who seems closer with Danvers than I remember them being in their previous 5 seconds of screen time together. I think it makes sense, but it suggests more off screen growth and that's the most boring growth. Say hello again to Binary and welcome to the MCU Beast. That's a good mid credit scene.

Finally, it feels like things are moving again in the MCU. Watching the Loki S2 finale and this in two days was the shot in the arm they needed. For this movie particularly people across Earth and space are connecting with each other. This is what they've needed to do for a while so it's nice to see that happening. More of that and more from all three leads please.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The actress was fine, but as a villain she'll be forgotten soon.

Marvel going to 2 for 2 on Kree villains played by notably good actors who they utterly waste then? Ronan the Accuser was notably the weakest part of GotG1, despite Lee Pace.

welcome to the MCU Beast

Spoiler

Presumably temp-Beast because Kelsey Grammar, god bless 'im, is 68 and too old for any longer-term X-men plans, which would inevitably involve younger X-men.

 

[Stalker0]

Saw it last night myself. Here's the skinny.

The Quick Summary: Its a fun popcorn kind of movie, and if that's what your in the market for, its fun and I enjoyed it. I think its a notable improvement from the first Captain Marvel.

The Good

• The story fixes a lot of the perceived issues with Captain Marvel herself. This version is a lot more human, more expressive, with real concerns, drives, and pains. She has seen some real consequences of her actions and has lost some of that arrogance from her first couple of appearances. Bree Larson got to be unchained a bit and brought out a character who is still trying to find her old self (stolen by the Kree), and so you can see moments where the others pull emotions out of her that she at first glance doesn't want to be bothered with but inside so desperately wants to express. Again this Captain Marvel is a lot more relatable and interesting than what we have gotten before.
  
  
• Girl Power without Woke Power. This was a woman focused movie that was just "matter of fact" about it. It was women supporting each other, learning to grow into their own power, and doing what needed to be done in the face of great adversity. There was no "messaging" in this movie, it was never "down with the patriarchy". But on the other hand it wasn't "women substituted in men's role". These women supported each other with hugs and play in a way that you would never see 3 male superheroes doing....and it was perfect. Nothing felt forced in the way this movie went on.
  
  
• Ms Marvel is always a delight to me, though I recognize she is not everyone's cup of tea. I love the character, I love the actress, and I thought her parts were very well done.
  
  
• They balanced Carol's power in the narrative well to me. Your immediate problem with Captain Marvel is....how do you ensure she doesn't just win? And I think they struck a good balance in the movie, on the one hand when she is nerfed...its because it made narrative sense and wasn't just "well she's just weirdly weak right now". On the other hand they didn't just pull her out of her own movie to prevent her from winning (similar to how they had to handle her in IW/Endgame).
  
  
• This villain gets more rationale and justification to her actions in 3 minutes of screentime than most marvel villains get in their entire movie. You get her, and from her perspective, Captain Marvel is a natural disaster, a monster that destroyed her people and her home (and even Carol has to deal with the idea that she might be right). If she didn't specifically go with the revenge angle and target planets Carol cares about...you could really see her point of view. In fact there is even a very small and subtle scene that shows that this villain doesn't have ego, she is 100% willing to die to save her world.

The Bad

• There is some tonal whiplash in this movie. Again its meant to be a more lighthearted, popcorn esque romp which is fine, but there are a few really serious moments that are hard to shift from. The most prominent is when the Skulll refugees lose their home and many of them die in the evacuation. We go from that to basically a disney singalong in the span of 10 minutes. And the disney singalong actually worked in plot and was quite fun...but yeah literally right after we just watching people dying is a bit toooo much. I feel like this is the kind of movie where they should have saved everyone, yes the skrulls lose their home, but everyone makes it out....keeping more with the tone this movie was trying to set.
  
  
• It doesn't integrate well with Secret Invasion. The Nick Fury we saw in SI doesn't seem to be the same Fury we get in this movie, and a LOT happened to Fury in SI. Further, the idea that Asgard is taking on more skrull refugees, at a time when Earth has declared total war on them....without even a mention of that....is a problem. I honestly think it was due to all the scheduling changes and reshoots for both productions that it got lost in the shuffle.
  
  
• While the screentime the villain gets is well used, it is painfully little. By the end I don't even know if they ever said her name. She really never comes across as menacing and will likely enter the club of completely forgettable marvel villains.
  
  
• The movie is too short. That's a surprising critique as I feel so many marvel properties push past their expiration date. But yeah I really wanted more in this movie. They hit all the checkboxes, but nothing has time to breathe. I wanted more time with the villain, more time with the main trio dealing with their relationships and interactions. I was buying what they were selling, and I wanted to buy more.
  
  
• The one "so incompetent its almost murder" moment in the movie is when the swaps start happening, and Carol is trying to force a swap with Ms Marvel....so she flies high into the sky and then releases a burst of power. And it works....and now Ms Marvel (who cannot fly) starts plummeting to the ground. Of course they save her....barely...but it was such a weirdly hotheaded moment for Carol. It actually felt like the OG Carol, not this new carol that we then see has learned some restraint, humility, and care from her decades of experience.

 

[RangerWickett]

It was really fun.

 

[DeviousQuail]

I forgot to add the flying into the sun bit to revive Hala's star. From a story perspective its good that she realizes she played a part in this and needs to step up and fix things. The how part of that raises a lot of questions that are best left alone. Or maybe she had the Quantum bands on to help her? I really don't know.

As @Stalker0 said, a much better version of Danvers. Couldn't agree more.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The story fixes a lot of the perceived issues with Captain Marvel herself. This version is a lot more human, more expressive, with real concerns, drives, and pains. She has seen some real consequences of her actions and has lost some of that arrogance from her first couple of appearances. Bree Larson got to be unchained a bit and brought out a character who is still trying to find her old self (stolen by the Kree), and so you can see moments where the others pull emotions out of her that she at first glance doesn't want to be bothered with but inside so desperately wants to express. Again this Captain Marvel is a lot more relatable and interesting than what we have gotten before.

This sounds good but does she keep her swagger? One thing I definitely liked about Larson's portrayal of Captain Marvel, and which matches up with Carol Danvers in comics and in the recent Midnight Suns video game, was that Marvel definitely had swagger, had a degree of "I got this, stay out of my way" comparable to powerful male heroes, and it just was pretty fun. Hopefully that didn't entirely go away.

 

[Cadence]

It was fun. The water world didn't do it for me. I guess it's good if

Spoiler: Mid credit scene

Binary is already around, especially with Kang being a thing. Will spare us the pain of Avengers 200 except in flashback.

Of course that ties into

Spoiler: More mid credit spoiler

Avengers Annual 10 that had Spider-woman.

And I guess also

Spoiler: Still more

the brood and Shira and starjammers if we want to go all in on related things.

 

[DeviousQuail]

This sounds good but does she keep her swagger? One thing I definitely liked about Larson's portrayal of Captain Marvel, and which matches up with Carol Danvers in comics and in the recent Midnight Suns video game, was that Marvel definitely had swagger, had a degree of "I got this, stay out of my way" comparable to powerful male heroes, and it just was pretty fun. Hopefully that didn't entirely go away.

It doesn't go away. She learns to be part of a team again, but she's still her.

 

[RangerWickett]

Carol has a lot of small moments of frustration because she gets entangled with the other two, and so when she is confident she could whup ass, she sometimes ends up swapping places and so can't hit her stride.

In the first movie I don't recall that much real, y'know, swagger. I'd say she had a more self-confident amusement, like all the ass-kicking is just in a day's work. But she wasn't really trying to show off or demoralize anyone. Only once she showed up in front of Ronan's ship in full glow-up did it seem like she was swaggering.

 

[ReshiIRE]

It doesn't integrate well with Secret Invasion. The Nick Fury we saw in SI doesn't seem to be the same Fury we get in this movie, and a LOT happened to Fury in SI. Further, the idea that Asgard is taking on more skrull refugees, at a time when Earth has declared total war on them....without even a mention of that....is a problem. I honestly think it was due to all the scheduling changes and reshoots for both productions that it got lost in the shuffle.

On the hand, this is technically a fair complaint.

On the other, Secret Invasion was apparently so naughty word horrible, that pretending it's not canon or happened in a different universe would be extremely beneficial; so it may not be fair to hold against the film.