I hate to dismiss other folks’ opinions out of hand, but I can’t shake the feeling that the people hating on this flick are reviewing something that’s not actually the movie on the screen. Like, they got annoyed with one or two other Marvel Studios pictures in the last couple of years and are carrying that into this one, or they’ve internalized that “oh no, trouble at Marvel!” Variety article that was going around a week or two ago. What’s on the screen is a fun and touching story of bonding and regrets, making up for mistakes and lost time, with a first-rate cast and some truly terrific action.
Oh, and cats. Lots and lots of cats.
Jumping off from the tease at the end of the Disney+ MS. MARVEL series, high-flying cosmic superhero Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, (Brie Larson, given a lot more to work with since Carol now has most of her memories back and a few extra decades of living under her belt) is in the middle of investigating an irregularity with the jump point system that links the planets of the known cosmos when something teleports her into the bedroom of teen superhero Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, (the delightful Iman Vellani) — and Kamala into the spacesuit that a moment earlier was worn by S.W.O.R.D. scientist Captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), who was investigating another jump point anomaly near Earth — and Monica into the middle of Carol’s investigation which pits her against of a band of angry Kree soldiers. Their interactions with these anomalies, as well as the fact that the source of the problem is also related to the bracelet that gave Kamala HER powers, has snarled their superpowers together — so now they’re a team until they can sort out this crisis, much to the frustration of everyone except superhero fangirl Kamala. The interactions of our three heroines and the warming and evolving of their relationships forms the core of the movie, and their chemistry is why so much of it works. That, and the rapid-fire teleporting fight scenes are something else — rarely if ever hard-to-follow (it helps that the three heroines are so visually distinct), and a whole lot of fun to watch.
Villain Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) might sort of get short shrift, but when I first heard that in other reviews I was expecting something like how poor Christopher Eccleston was utterly wasted in THOR: THE DARK WORLD; Dar-Benn’s motivations are clear, and she gets plenty of room to snarl and throw Carol, Monica, and Kamala around various locales. Not a top-flight Marvel villain like Killmonger or the High Evolutionary, but she’s got a good look and gets some decent monologuing going. Solid mid-tier foe, I’d say.
And of course, Sam Jackson as Nick Fury is also here, back in “put-upon director” mode. Another complaint I don’t get: folks saying there’s not enough of him. He’s in the movie plenty! Yeah, a lot of it is him playing off of Kamala’s family (a highlight of the MS. MARVEL series, and they get a surprising amount to do here — keep an eye on them during the first big teleporting fight sequence, a lot of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it laughs there), but honestly that’s all pretty terrific. I guess I *can* understand wanting a bit more of him, but the flick’s only an hour and forty-five minutes long — and yet, it doesn’t feel short! I could imagine a longer cut of this, but it’s nice to see a solid, lean hero flick these days, especially one where none of the gags or bits outstay their welcome — and there’s more than a few fun gags and bits, I tell ya; it’s much funnier than I was expecting. A fine companion piece, actually, to this past summer’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 — both spacefaring, planet-hopping quest adventures in the Marvel Universe that might have spectacular space battles and massive brawls with dozens of sci-fi goons, and at the end of the day, they’re both about The True Power of Friendship overcoming utterly horrific bullshit. Not quite up to the level of James Gunn’s Marvel swan song, sure, but a good breezy solid blast on its own terms that leaves you wanting more. I dug it. Would gladly pop back out for a second go-round over the weekend.
(Yes, there’s also big silly Marvel continuity linking bits at the end. The first one is VERY funny, and the second one is operating on levels of Marvel nerd-dom that … well, *I* understood the layers of references there, and I guess for everyone else, that’s what YouTube explainer videos are for.)