Solid foundations, solid performances

Rating: 9/10 (8 March 2019)

This IS a film you CAN watch and enjoy if you know nothing about the MCU or indeed the comics, there is something for everyone here and EVERYONE will love Goose the Cat.
FIRST OFF THIS IS NOT A SJW FILM, yes there are few moments when every day issues women have to deal with crop up, including the whole smiling issue, but it is not in your face or frequent. Danvers is not one who expects equality on a plate, she gets knocked down or insulted she brushes it off. This is a strong, intelligent woman who works hard to earn respect and get what and where she wants in life, knock her down she gets back up and fights harder, refuse to pay for her to go to college she goes out, joins the Air Force and puts her self through college and appears comfortable and at ease in the company of men, no signs of the bitterness you might expect from the characters life story.
After 20 MCU movies it is impossible not to do the compare it to ALL the rest test but if you strip out the team films (inc Guardians and Civil war) this film stands amongst the best. Out strips the first two Thor movies by a mile, better than the incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2 and Ant man 1 & 2 (unless your only after a comedy). After that it becomes more debatable (other than we all ranked Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther as better) we went as a mixed age/gender group of 5 and 4 of us put it above Doctor strange, 2-1-2 complete split on Iron Man and Iron Man 3 and similarly on par with the first two Cpt. America films.
All the performances from the cast we brilliant, I can understand some criticism about the way Danvers was written but she was true to what you would expect considering her military background and the fact she could only recall the last 6yrs of her life after being brain washed into believing she was Kree. Once she puts the pieces of her life back together and embraces her humanity she is every bit and more what you would want or expect both as person and as a super human. The chemistry and friendship between Brie and Samuel shines.
Pacing and structure wise I felt a strong similarity between this and Iron Man 3 in that there is a strong into to the background, big crash (house fall down replaced with falling to Earth into a blockbusters), a buddy movie section where she tries to piece together her life and work out what is REALLY going on then a strong action packed battle at the end. It is an origin story so like most it has issues due to having to explain how she got her powers, explore the powers, small voyage of personal discovery for the main hero and explain the two alien races. There is no love interest which is a plus and instead starts a true new friendship between Danvers and Fury and a true and deep, loving friendship rekindled between Carol and her fellow female pilot Maria Rambeau.