Disappointing and a slap in the face to Marvel Comics

Rating: 3/10 (11 April 2019)

Just leaving the theater after having watched Captain Marvel. I'm happy to say I didn't pay money to see this, else I would've skipped this altogether. I want to make this short and sweet, so let's get right to the point.
1. Brie Larson isn't the worst part of this movie. Yes it's a blatant attempt at being woke feminist. Yes, her range is pretty flat in this. Yes, the movie wasn't made for white dudes in their 40s lol. But, she's working with (as she aptly describes in her own words) one hand behind her back. Yes she's a typical Hollywood actress and air headed, but this movie's failure to entertain isn't really her fault.
2. The reason this movie just doesn't cut the Marvel mustard is a very simple and straightforward one: the story isn't good. And the reason it isn't good is because it's too busy making a statement. That's not on Larson, that's on the studio. Carol Danvers never had a very good story behind her in the comics, so obviously it would never make a good film, because the story wasn't there. However, what good there was with Carol has been ruined by an even worse adaptation for the screen.
A great example: the misuse of the Skrulls. One of the major and most well known enemies in Marvel comics is now flipped on its head, and are now just used to both send a minor political message and a cheap plot twist. I can see the meeting where someone raised their hand while they were trying to decide how to try and make this movie interesting, and somebody had to have said OMG let's flip the bad guys and the good guys to give it that spark. It doesn't serve to enrich the story, it's not a convincing enough heel turn, it's just...stupid. The mileage out of using the Skrulls as the evil villains they really are is just wasted. Just a disappointment and a slap in the face to anybody who actually read Marvel Comics in the past 45 years.
3. There is absolutely zero character development. Since Carol is supposed to be the leader of the second coming of Marvel's MCU, you'd think there would be legit hardships to overcome, some sort of vulnerability. Something that lets us know more about the actual person. Everything is handled in flashbacks, and the only sort of damn glimpse into Carol's life just shows one theme: you can't do anything because you're a woman. I'm sorry, but this doesn't help define you as a person. People are so much more than their gender. It's a part of them, but it's not what defines them. As another famous comic book hero once said, it's what you do that defines you. Unfortunately we don't see that with Carol, just that she's a woman. A female. And that's her main identifying character role.
Another thing that bothers me about carol's character: she's a bully, and a smart a** bully at that. I keep coming back to Tony Stark, because I feel like that's what everyone was going for here at the studio: they needed a female tony Stark. Someone who has the charisma and charm to be likeable even though they're really an a**hole.
That doesn't fit Brie Larson's acting ability, and it's a fine line to walk. Downey can do it. Larson cannot. That's not her fault, that's a compete miscast of what the character should and shouldn't be. The jokes fall flat, the eyebrow raises are awful, the sarcasm is meh, and the motivational factors to even act that way are just missing. It's just a bad character.
4. The retcon disease is strong here. Apparently whoever made this movie wasn't caught up on the past decade of marvel movies. People will want to have movie marathons of these movies later on: you'll have to stop with infinity war for anything to make sense. Captain Marvel starts with a whole new awful timeline that I'm hoping was just a dream or something. In the comics, there could be ways to work around this but this cinema, stuff has to make sense at some point somehow. The misuse of the tesseract. The continuity errors with established canon around Shield, Fury all of a sudden seems like an awful stupid and bumbling idiot now instead of a cool spy. It's a bad Reimagining of a universe that's done fairly well to build good will. I don't see this continuing too much further. People won't stand for this too long.
In summary, a movie that was obviously more preoccupied with sending a message than telling a story. As such, the story suffers for it, and to be honest it feels shoehorned in a place it doesn't belong. It's forced, and here's hoping that Carol dies fairly quickly.
PS: the absolute worst male bashing comes at a time where it's not actually spelled out. A major slap in the face to the character of Monica Rambeau, who had a good story in the comics and her father played a heartwarming role in her development into a hero. Here in this movie, there's no male presence at all, as if Monica is doing just fine without him. I'm sorry, but that's a blatant attack on an average family unit. Most people won't realize that but comic fans will, and it's the probably the biggest slap in the face without being the most obvious.
Movie gets a 3/10 because the effects are ok, there's two good action sequences, and my 1/10 would be saved for something like Ishtar. It's not that bad, just a huge disappointment when it didn't have to be.