Captain Marvel Review

Our hero eventually teams with Nick Fury (a de-aged, movie-stealing Goose the Cat), a middle-aged SHIELD agent who is only just learning about the existence of aliens. Together, they search for a scientist who could change the course of the Kree-Skrull war forever. They just have to get to her before the Skrull, led by Talos (Ben Mendelsohn with the juiciest material), do.

The buddy cop dynamic of Fury and Carol is easily the strongest relationship in a film that too often prioritizes mystery and action over backstory and character development. Carol and Fury stand as an exception, their scenes calling to mind the chemistry between Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent K and Will Smith’s Agent J in Men in Black, while shaking up the traditional roles. Here, it is the younger character, Carol, who is the “straight man” with knowledge about the existence of aliens and the older character, Fury, who gets to be the competent-yet-in-over-his-head one who’s along for the ride. They seem to delight in one another’s company, ing each’s not-unrelated quest and forming the heart of the film.

The movie’s biggest weakness is its lack of interest in depicting Carol’s previous life on Earth. In prioritizing the mystery of what happened to her—a mystery that most people will either probably know the answer to going in or quickly figure out—we lose the emotional devastation of that secret. Later in the film, when we meet Carol’s found family—her co-pilot and friend Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) and Maria’s fierce, precocious daughter, Monica (Akira Akbar)—we lose the weight of that reunion because we never really get to see what their lives together looked like.

The action is thoroughly competent and, occasionally, especially when it comes to one fight with ’90s-specific musical accompaniment, inspired. This far into the age of superhero fare, it takes a lot to impress in an action sequence, especially when so much of it tends to be CGI. On a character level, it is thrilling and cathartic to see Carol so thoroughly embrace her power, delighting in her ability to soar—but, visually, it isn’t anything new. That being said, Carol’s hero moment is a delightful subversion of the traditional superhero story beat, not to mention one that feels directly informed by Carol’s experiences as a woman.

Where does Captain Marvel fit into the Captain America: The First Avenger, perhaps partially because it is so conscious of its title as Marvel’s First Female-Led Superhero Movie.

The film has some tough competition in Marvel’s recent fare. This movie is no Wonder Woman, which benefitted greatly from being the first major superhero blockbuster to headline a female protagonist—frankly, a milestone race that was Marvel’s to lose. Luckily, Captain Marvel doesn’t have to be better than all of the MCU’s previous films to be something enjoyable. The MCU has a pretty impressive narrative median, but, past that, like the Avengers, this is a team sport and Captain Marvel is nothing if not a team player.