A review of the new superhero movie”Captain Marvel”

Following the great success of the first female titular role for a super-hero movie (“Wonder Woman”), thanks to the owners of of DC Comics franchise, it was inevitable that we would have a female super-hero fronting a work from the Marvel Cinematic Universe – another first – and it’s a pity that the two will never appear together.

“Captain Marvel” is both directed and co-written by a female/male team – Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck – who come to this blockbuster from an indie background but stick largely to the conventions of the genre although with fewer special effects. It is a double origin movie, both explaining how a one-time occupant of Earth (known here as C53) and the planet Hala of the technically-advanced Kree came to acquire her extraordinary powers and how the special law enforcement agency SHIELD recruited the first of a team that was to become the Avengers. 

Brie Larsen – who won an Academy Award for “Room” – is excellent in the eponymous role, having built up her physical strength for the part and being equally capable of martial arts and sharp quips before discovering that she can both fling energy bolts from her hands and fly in the sky and through space. With powers so great, she is set to have a special role in the next Avengers movie.

Meanwhile we see Nick Fury as we’ve not seen him before, with both eyes intact, and the actor who plays him, Samuel L Jackson, digitally de-aged to fit the setting in 1995 (the cue for some nice visual jokes). Something special in this superhero movie – perhaps inspired by characters in “Guardians Of The Galaxy” – is that we even have a cat with special powers. It’s called Goose and is played by no fewer than four feline stars.

Sadly this is the last movie in which the recently-deceased Stan Lee will have a cameo and the film opens with a quick recap of his earlier appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

The plot is rather convoluted but that’s nothing new in a super-hero movie and it’s best just to go with the flow. Be sure to wait for the mid-credits and end-credits scenes. This is going to be a big success which is good both for the enhancement of women in movie roles and for the forthcoming climax in the Avengers storyline.


 




XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>