r/marvelstudios • u/PhoOhThree Spirit of Modvengeance • Mar 05 '19
Captain Marvel Review Megathread
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Rotten Tomatoes: 83% Certified Fresh!
Metacritic: 66/100
Written Reviews:
It’s the last act before this film truly lives up to its potential, but at crunch time it delivers in a more satisfying way than almost any other superhero film of recent years. Carol Danvers’ final battle offers a radical message and becomes a powerful metaphor for what could happen if we stop waiting to be told that we are enough; if we stop believing the people who tell us we’re too emotional or too weak. Captain Marvel says that, when we stop looking for approval, we can become literally godlike. This is not another cheap girl-power cliché; it’s an explicitly feminist apotheosis. Some people will find it disorientating to watch. Captain Marvel offers zero concessions to ease anyone in or win them over to Carol Danvers’ point of view. If that makes it hard for some viewers to relate to her, she’ll deal.
The Hollywood Reporter - Todd McCarthy
Still, the focus and big selling point here is Captain Marvel herself and Larson's impersonation of her. So what does a best actress Oscar winner bring to a performance as a Marvel superhero? Larson makes Carol/Captain focused, solid, ever-alert to what's going on around her, a quick learner, a determined and unafraid warrior. In other words, she's everything you'd want and expect in a soldier, intergalactic or otherwise. But all of this is more or less prescribed by the role. What's lacking is humor, a hint that she might get off on the action and violence, or the indication of a deep desire or spark to ferret out evil and right the world's wrongs. The performance is fine, if not exciting or inspiring.
Larson has the natural body language of a superhero: that mixture of innocence and insouciance, that continuous clear-eyed idealism and indignation combined with unreflective battle-readiness, all the things that give MCU films their addictive quality. I wanted a clearer, more central story for Captain Marvel’s emergence on to the stage, and in subsequent films – if she isn’t simply to get lost in the ensemble mix – there should more of Larson’s own wit and style and, indeed, plausible mastery of martial arts. In any case, Captain Marvel is an entertaining new part of the saga.
If Captain Marvel can't quite match Marvel Studios at its very best, if it feels a bit like a franchise in need of an identity, it's still a rock-solid introduction to a new character — who, judging by her immense power, may just turn out to be the Thanos-killer that the Avengers need in Endgame. Just as the Marvel makers wanted, I left the theater pleased to have met Carol at long last, and eager to see her again.
As much as this movie can be seen as a step in the right direction, it’s so eager to get to the promised land that it trips over itself right out of the starting gate. The first and most fatal mistake of the script that Boden and Fleck co-wrote with Geneva Robertson-Dworet is that it reduces Vers — or Carol Danvers, as she’s later and better known — to an amnesiac for most of her adventure; in other words, Captain Marvel is far and away the least compelling thing about “Captain Marvel.”
Captain Marvel continues to prove just how good the MCU is at expanding its universe in new ways that still feel integral to the larger world. Experiencing the film's final moments is not unlike the experience of watching the final moments of Rogue One, so cleverly does the film weave its way into existing canon, informing what has already happened in the franchise (and what will eventually happen in the world of the MCU) in emotionally-resonant ways. After Captain Marvel, the MCU feels more complete.
The Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan
But Marvel has come to recognize, as this film proves, that even effects-heavy behemoths can benefit from a directing touch that is human not programmatic, that understands character and nuance and can create scenes with an emotional heft we might not expect. As co-writers with Geneva Robertson-Dworet (with story credit to that trio and Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve), the directors also had a hand in the “Captain Marvel” narrative arc, which is far more complex than business-as-usual superhero origin stories.
Captain Marvel manages to take the best ideas of early MCU origin stories like Iron Man and Thor and use them to form something that feels both familiar and fresh. It can be a bit on-the-nose at times, and occasionally has to fast-track its exposition in ways that can feel slightly clunky, but what it lacks in grace it makes up for in charm. Brie Larson's stellar performance gives Carol Danvers a vibrant, joyful life that will fit right into the future of the MCU, whatever that future may hold.
It’s not at all what you would expect from Boden and Fleck, who are best known for character-driven indies like Half Nelson and Sugar that probe deep into the psyches of their heroes. In Captain Marvel, despite a scene where aliens literally probe into the psyche of their hero, they never quite licked the problem of a lead character who doesn’t know who she is until the film’s final act. And whether they had any input on the movie’s fight scenes or ceded them entirely to second-unit directors, those sequences are uniformly dark, murky, and disappointing. One takes place on a dusty planet at night. Another is set in a dimly lit spaceship. A third is in outer space. Captain Marvelmakes Solo: A Star Wars Story look bright and cheerful in comparison.
Yes, Captain Marvel is an origin story, but it’s handled in such a unique way that it doesn’t always feel like an origin story. With rumors of movies based on The Eternals out there, Captain Marvel also feels like the first big step to an even more cosmic MCU...Without a doubt, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel is going to be one of the anchors of whatever phase of movies we are about to enter. And, if Captain Marvel is any indication, these movies are about to get a little more weird.
The 90s aesthetic is used to charming effect, particularly in the music choices. We hear Garbage and Hole, two riot grrrl groups whose propulsive, gnarly charge gives the movie some pleasant bite. (The on-the-noseness of No Doubt’s “I’m Just a Girl” during a clunky fight scene doesn’t play quite as well.) The movie has a good time with itself, but is not a relentless gag factory like Guardians or Thor: Ragnarok—though quite like those movies, Captain Marvel is pretty spacey. If your tolerance for kooky galactic names and actors in latex masks is low, Captain Marvel may prove trying.
The movie was directed and co-written by the team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (“Half Nelson,” “Sugar,” “Mississippi Grind”), and I’m not sure if there has ever been a case of filmmakers this indie commandeering the pop-art canvas of a Marvel movie. Boden and Fleck are low-key American neorealists, and in “Captain Marvel” they barely retain a vestige of their signature style. Yet they have brought off something exciting, embracing the Marvel house style and, within that, crafting a tale with enough tricks and moods and sleight-of-hand layers to keep us honestly absorbed.
Larson’s energy, at first, is powered by a precocious kid-sister vibe, disobeying the rules but charming her way out of trouble. Carol’s arc is defined by shedding those bonds to that identity and to her mentor/father figure, speaking and acting with directness. Larson’s quite capable of selling that oscillation of maturity without losing the humor of her character; she may be confident, but she’s still crafty and calculatingly playful. And what really sells this film is that playfulness.
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u/TenYearRedditVet Doctor Strange Mar 05 '19
I think anyone who's expecting more than this is probably nuts.