MIKE'S MOVIE REVIEW: CAPTAIN MARVEL
It's not often I get to do movie reviews (and since I've had this blog, I haven't done one), but I thought that since the majority of my blog concerns comics---that includes the current slate of CW shows outside of Black Lighting, as well as discussing comics in some form, I thought I'd also do my best to review the new batch of comics movies due out this 2019 calendar year...and no better place to start than Marvel's first female hero entry: Captain Marvel
First of all....I got the feels instantly when the Marvel Studios logo was shown, as we got several shots of the late Stan Lee in his various cameos from the 10 years plus of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And the simple "Thank you, Stan" before the movie got underway hit right home with me, It's still hard to believe he's gone.
This movie kicks off in 1995 on the Kree homeworld of Hala, where we meet our heroine (Brie Larson), going by the name of "Vers", having a nightmare with an older woman in it. She pays a visit to her mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), letting him know she can't sleep, and keeps seeing the same woman in her nightmares. He trains her, and tells her that she must control her emotions. She then sees the Supreme Intelligence - the ruler of the Kree - who appears to her as this woman. The Supreme Intelligence tells her to keep herself in control, an tells her to be ready for the next mission against the Skrulls---their hated enemies who are shapeshifters and want to destroy them.
We see that Vers is sarcastic, strong willed, easily loses her temper, and rambunctious. Something that doesn't sit well with the other members of her team, but Yon-Rogg sticks up for her. They're on a mission to rescue a Kree intelligence agent working behind enemy lines with the Skrulls. The mission goes bad, and Vers is captured by Talos (Ben Mendelshon) - the Skrull leader - and subjected to their memory probe. It is through this probe that they are looking for a lightspeed generator that was developed by a Dr. Lawson, and it is located on Earth. Vers manages to fight free, and escape with a podship, which tears apart upon attack, and Vers crash lands into a Blockbuster Video store in Los Angeles. She ends up attracting the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Their investigation is interrupted when the Skrulls arrive, attacking Vers, and trying to recapture her. One of the Skrulls disguises himself as Coulson, which Fury has to battle as he's giving chase to Vers, who is chasing another Skrull. Once she grapples with the Skrull, she manages to recover a crystal that has her extracted memories on it. The Skrull gets away.
Using is security clearance, Fury, on orders from Director Keller (who is really Talos), to work with Vers to find out what her mission is, head to Project Pegasus, to find out more information on the work of Dr, Lawson. Searching through the files, they not only discover the Lightspeed Engine Lawson was working on was destroyed, but that she died six years ago in a crash. Vers finds out that she was also there six years ago, as Dr. Lawson was the woman in her nightmares. It turns out, she was a USAF pilot, along with a woman named Maria Rambeau, a fellow pilot, who were working on the project with her. Fury and Vers, having been tailed by S.H.I.E.L.D. and Keller after Fury contacted them, avoid capture, as they are on orders from Keller to capture them AND the plans. Coulson catches up to them, but they escape by aircraft - a Quadjet - with a cat named "Goose", and make their way to Louisiana to find Maria Rambeau and get more answers.
Vers and Fury make it to Louisiana, and find Maria Rambeau, and discover she was an Air Force pilot named Carol Danvers. As Carol and Fury are getting more info about her past, as well as Dr. Lawson's project, Talos arrives with his crew. It turns out, however, that Talos and his group are refugees from their own homeworld that was taken over by the Kree, and that Lawson was a Kree agent working with them. They need the Lightspeed Generator to find another home. It turns out, he's got the recording of the black box that was recovered from the wreckage of the crash that happened six years ago when Lawson died. It turns out, Carol was the pilot. It forces Carol to remember the entire crash. She remembers that Lawson told her that she was trying to stop the war between the Kree and Skrulls, and that Carol needed to destroy the engine before anyone got their hands on it. Yon-Rogg ends up killing Lawson - whom we find out is a Kree named Mar-Vell - and threatens to kill Carol, but Carol destroys the engine's core, and in the process of the explosion, absorbs the engine core's energy. Carol survives the blast, but loses her memories, and is thus taken by Yon-Rogg to Hala.
Armed with the information at hand, Talos says there's a lab in Earth orbit that's cloaked from everyone, and with modifications to the Quadjet, Carol, Maria, Fury, Talos, and Goose in tow, head to the lab where they find the Tesseract---the source of the engine's energy. Once there, they grab the Tesseract, which is eaten by Goose...who turns out to be an alien called a Flerkin, who has a pocket dimension inside of her. Carol wants Fury and Maria to head back to Earth with the Skrull refugees, including Talos' family, with the Tesseract, to keep it out of Kree hands. However, the Starforce group Carol used to be a part of (Korath, At-Lass, Bron-Char, and Minn-Erva) - led by Yon-Rogg - are captured, and Carol is rendered powerless. She is then subjected to torture at by the Supreme Intelligence, while Yon-Rogg has called upon Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), to destroy the Earth in order to find the energy source. Carol then manages to overcome the inhibitor that's been on her neck that allowed the Supreme Intelligence to control her powers, her fears and gain full control of her abilities, and battles out of the Supreme Intelligence's hold, and the final battle breaks out. Fury, Talos, and Maria fight to get back to the Quadjet, and make it off the lab, with Minn-Erva in tow, as Carol battles Yon-Rogg and the other Starforce members. She manages to defeat them, but Yon-Rogg as escaped and given pursuit of Maria, Fury, and Talos.
Back on Earth, Maria uses her piloting skills to outmaneuver and destroy Minerva, but takes damage at the hands of Yon-Rogg, who is looking to take them down and get the Tesseract. As they celebrate, Goose scratches Fury's eye. Carol gives chase, and hits Yon-Rogg's ship with a concussion blast. He goes crashing into the ground and he prepares to do battle with Carol, who merely blasts him into the mountainside. She then sees missles coming down, having been fired by Ronan and his fleet, as they had arrived from jumpspace to attack. She uses her full powers to destroy the onslaught, and some of Ronan's fighters before threatening Ronan himself, who beats a hasty retreat - but promises to be back for Carol. Carol flies back to Earth, and puts Yon-Rogg in the ship, telling him to inform the Supreme Intelligence that she is going to stop their little war. She sets the ship's coordinates for Hala, and sends Yon-Rogg on his way.
At the end, we see Carol modify Fury's pager with an upgrade, giving it the ability to signal her, should there be an emergency. She decides she's going to help the Skrulls find a new home away from Kree interference, but promises to be back. She takes off into jumpspace with the Skrulls. Later, we see Fury working on a report, his eye with a metal patch over it---apparently that's how Fury lost his eye. Coulson comes in to show him new eyes, and asks if they think there's more out there, as Fury says that whatever is out there, they need more heroes like Carol Danvers to protect the Earth while she's gone. So, their next project is something Fury is working on - when he sees a picture of Carol on the ladder of her plane, her nickname "Avenger" on it---gives Fury the idea for the name of what became known as The Avengers Initiative.
In the mid-credits scene, we see Fury's pager still paging with Carol's symbol on it, then it dies out. The Avengers that are left: Banner, Black Widow, War Machine, and Cap all are wondering who it is that Fury was trying to page. Black Widow says to try again to Bruce, and don't give up until they find out who's on the other end of that page. Just as she turns around, there's Carol, asking where Fury is at.
At the end credits scene, we see Fury's desk, where Goose gets on top of it, and spits out the Tesseract. Now we know how S.H.I.E.L.D. got ahold of it.
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I gotta tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I loved the telling of Carol's story, and how she went through all the trauma of being told she wasn't good enough, she's too emotional, has a bad attitude, shouldn't be doing certain things. All these barriers placed upon her, which never allowed her to fulfill her potential. But as we see the story progress, we see that her stubborness and strong will never allowed her to quit. It was her HUMAN element that allowed her to supplant her Kree indoctrination, and unleash her full power. You wanted to root for her the whole way, and you were in awe at the things she could do. But you also were happy when she managed to reconnect with her past---especially her friend Maria and Maria's daughter Monica. They are the only real family Carol has left. I also enjoyed her and Fury's relationship grow as the movie went on. I was bummed we didn't get more Coulson, but also, I look at it to where it was just the right amount as well. Coulson was still green at the time, and hadn't worked his way up the ladder yet.
The Kree were shown to be the true villains of the story, though it's something of a deviation from the comics, as the Skrulls are USUALLY the bad guys. The Kree/Skrull War was played out epically in comics, and with the infiltration of the Skrulls into Earth later on, it's a weird twist for ME, anyway, to see the Skrulls in a positive light. But then again...I never totally found the Kree---outside of Mar-Vell, to be anything but vicious bastards themselves. The Supreme Intelligence isn't some great, wonderful being...he controls a society with mind control and inhibitors. The Starforce his shocktroopers, and then there's Ronan himself, whom we KNOW is out for his own ill-gotten gains. The change of Mar-Vell from a man to a woman for the movie was different as well. But I did enjoy Annette Bening's portrayal. She had a great mentor role for Carol, as well as a friendship. So, I had no problems with the gender change.
At first, when I saw the movies stills, I can't say I was overly impressed with the look of the Skrulls, but they grew on me more before I saw the movie. And I have NO DOUBT we will be seeing MORE of them in the MCU before it's all said and done.
Loved Maria Rambeau and Monica in this story as well...being Carol's link to Earth, and her true self. Monica is foreshadowing as well---having grown up to be the next Captain Marvel in the comics (at least in the 80's), but renamed Photon later on. Look forward to an appearance by HER either in Avengers or in the sequel to Captain Marvel.
Had to laugh that---out of ALL the things that we thought of as to HOW Fury lost his eye---the Flerkin scratched it to the point he lost it. It's comical---but also kind of pathetically sad as well. Showed that, at the time, Fury wasn't quite as badass as he is now.
The setting made me feel like I was 20-21 again. I loved the 1990's soundtrack (although I KNOW that some of you - my buddy included - were a little nitpicky about certain songs that made it onto the soundtrack of the movie. And you DO have a valid point---certain artists would NOT have been remembered by Carol at the time of their appearance, because she was off world at the time between 1989 and 1995, and those songs, while already on the radio for US...were NOT for HER. Plus, Hole's "Celebrity Skin" was released in 1998...which is 3 years AFTER the movie takes place). So I got all the nostalgia feels that came along with it. That included the flannel shirt and Nine Inch Nails shirt, which were still pretty prevalent at the time in 1995.
I thought the special effects were well done, and dug seeing Carol's powers manifest. She truly looked bad ass, and has been established as the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Universe. And for those people bitching about the whole "feminist" angle at work here...get over it. As a man, I felt no intimidation or any negative aspect of the sort with this movie. I got the same reaction here that I did when I saw Wonder Woman two years ago---a superhero who kicks ass and gets the job done---it just HAPPENS to be a woman.
Again...the Stan Lee feels. One of Stan's final MCU appearances, and of all the things he's playing - himself. The fact that he was reading the Mallrats script was absolutely hilarious. FINALLY...after 10 years, Kevin Smith makes it into a Marvel movie...in his own, weird cameo. It got the loudest chuckle in the theater from my buddy.
Overall, I dug the movie, I loved the story it told, as I've ALWAYS been a big Carol Danvers fan, and look forward to seeing her tackle Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. Brie Larson really brought that role to life, and gave her just the right amount of sass, confidence, and heroism. She is exactly how I have read Carol Danvers all these years, so she hit the mark beautifully. I high recommend it. And if you're following the MCU...it's a necessity.
What did YOU think? Give me YOUR take on it. Maybe you saw something I missed. Either way, subscribe, comment, and pass the good word around.
Next movie review: Shazam!
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