Captain Marvel (2019)

Marvel Comic fans should enjoy the superhero origin tale of Captain Marvel directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. And our daughters now have another female superhero in addition to Wonder Woman to look up to and emulate. Wow, two women fighters for justice alongside a screen full of male super dudes! Do women not make up 50% of the population of the super hero universe?

Brie Larson shows that she has the Right Stuff to suit up and rocket off into the universe to save it. The audience loved it when she crashes through the roof of a Blockbuster Video store (it’s in the mid 90s) and picks up a VHS tape to look at, and we see by the cover that it is that 1983 male macho movie. (It would be another 33 years before Hidden Figures would credit a group of women computers who made the NASA missions possible!)

When we first see Captain Marvel, she is known as Vers, a Kree soldier with some super powers being trained by Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) to control her emotions to become a better fighter. He tells her that numerous times. (How many women have had to endure that male judgment of their temperament through the years!) The Krees are at war with the shape-shifting Krulls against whom Vers is to be deployed. Vers has been troubled by dreams involving an older woman.

After being captured by the Krulls and escaping, Vers plummets through the Blockbuster, afterward  becoming hooked up with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson made youth via a computer). The Krulls also show up, led by Talos (Ben Mendelsohn). They are searching for Dr Wendy Lawson (Annette Bening) to secure an all-important piece of tech she invented. Vers begins to regain her memory. Six years earlier she had been an ace Air Force pilot named Carol Danvers serving under Dr. Lawson. Her BFF then was Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), and soon they are back together again.

There are numerous fight scenes, with Carol’s power becoming increasingly strong. There is also a twist as to who are the good and who the bad guys, plus the insertion of a cat named Goose who attaches to Fury and is the cause of his need for an eye patch. The cat almost steals the scenes its in, and also proves to be more than just a cat.

If you know a Marvel Comics fan, do go with him/her. The script does little explaining, and some of the scenes and flashbacks are confusing. (Confession—I went to the film’s synopsis on IMDB to sort out some of the happenings.) As I’ve written many times here, I am not a fan of the superhero genre, preferring instead the small-budget indie films grounded in reality, but I’ve nonetheless enjoyed the Marvels series, and this one as well. In addition, it takes on significance as being the one Marvel film featuring a woman as the central character (Marvel is two years behind DC Comic’s Wonder Woman.) I am looking forward to seeing more of Brie’s Captain Marvel in the next Avengers film.

 This review will be in the March issue of VP along with a set of questions for reflection and/or discussion. If you have found reviews on this site helpful, please consider purchasing a subscription or individual issue in The Store.