We deserve a better movie

Rating: 1/10 (1 April 2019)

Just like Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a major part of my childhood. I've been a cultish follower of the MCU ever since my dad introduced it to me. The experience of watching Tony Stark tinker his way out of a cave and end up divulging, "I am Iron Man" to an entire audience of reporters jumpstarted a major aspect of my life. As a girl growing up watching these movies, I was looking forward to the long-awaited female lead, and I had such high hopes for this movie. The reality of it fell flat, and I fear my honest reviews fall on deaf ears as most people hear it as a complaint on the feminist aspects of the movie and a direct reflection of Brie Larson. We deserve a better movie.
While Brie Larson has no acting abilities whatsoever (I firmly believe her success in Room was solely due to the fact that her face and voice are regularly void of all emotion so the role was not much of a stretch) she was not the only issue. The directing and the storytelling were terrible and I can't believe Kevin Feige let Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck massacre this story and the characters within it. What happened to Fury, the stoic, steadfast leader of SHIELD? Why did they make him out to be so disingenuous and happy-go-lucky? This is Nick Fury, the war-hardened soldier we all know and love, experiencing his first glimpse of alien life on Earth, and they turned him into a barely affable fool who failed to bring any realistic comic relief in a movie marinated in attempts at comic relief. His scenes with the cat were ridiculous, and some of the choices he made seemed far-fetched and unrealistic. Why did he bring a woman he barely knew into a secure, top secret, facility? He had no reason to trust her. She had done nothing for him. They had no relationship. And I thought the main goal of the movie would be to develop that relationship and rapport between him and Captain Marvel. What was their story? How did they meet? Why did he have her pager? Why did he wait so long to use it? While a few of these questions were answered, the relationship was forced and the rapport was stale and never developed. The Guardians of the Galaxy developed a quick, one-movie relationship because they went through hell and back together within a short period of time. They were arrested and imprisoned together, they escaped together, they get blown up on Knowhere together, attacked by Ronin and Ravagers together, and end up banding together to hold an infinity stone. Of course they have an amazing relationship after one movie. This movie did not provide an opportunity for Captain Marvel and Nick Fury to develop the relationship that was so desperately needed. Instead, it played pretend and failed, because the audience isn't stupid.
This movie came across as a slapstick parody of the MCU. After rewatching all the movies in preparation for Endgame, I realized it made a mockery of the success Marvel had spent ten years developing. It was as if the directors attempted to poorly imitate Taika Waititi's success in Thor: Ragnorak. And despite the fact that Brie Larson spent her entire press tour bashing men, she spent the entire movie trying to copy the successful acts of Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Pratt. There's a reason Tony Stark and Peter Quill are likeable; they're played by likeable actors who can pull of the hilarious one-liners and quips. Brie Larson doesn't have the likeability or the acting capability to pull that off. She was a poor choice for the movie. The entire character of Captain Marvel was a toss up between a stoic, unflappable Kree soldier and a jovial knockoff of well-loved MCU characters. You never knew which one you were going to get. Would she be joking and laughing in this scene? Or would she be serious and dispassionate? That kind of jostling made the movie into a failed juggling act; the tone was all over the place, making it hard to follow the plot. Who's bad? Who's good? And why are they laughing all of a sudden?
Captain Marvel, the character, was presented with no flaws while the movie was riddled with them. Ronin the Accuser, the Kree leader who'd spent years enacting mass genocide, threatened to unseat Thanos, and held an infinity stone in his hand, turned away when he saw Captain Marvel? I can suspend my disbelief, but not that much, and not like that. The movie had no true villain, no true plot, and was used as a vessel to force the audience into liking Brie Larson and her Captain Marvel presentation and it failed spectacularly. This movie was supposed to pay homage to Stan Lee, not Brie Larson's painful acting career. The reason characters like Thor, Tony Stark, and Captain America are so well loved is because they have flaws. They draw empathetic responses from the audience because the audience can relate to their struggles. There was nothing relatable about Brie Larson's Captain Marvel. She made a historic comic book character into a snobbish b*tch with magic hands. The audience cheered when they saw Thor and Captain America in Infinity War. Captain Marvel will never illicit such a response; if anything, she'll be booed.
It was a testament to how poor the acting, directing, and editing was that I consider this movie to be one of the worst movies I have ever paid money to see. It's an embarrassment to the Marvel Universe, and I will be severely disappointed if Brie Larson and her inhuman, emotionless vacuum of a character swoops in and saves the day in Endgame. I've invested too much time and money into this franchise to watch her single-handedly destroy it. I hope they kill her off.