Little building to final conflict

Rating: 5/10 (8 March 2019)

Note: There are no spoilers within, but there are hints to the flow of the movie that may reveal more than you'd surmise from trailers.
The movie is formulaic Marvel, but it misses the mark on a lot of key points.
While the movie is building during the first act, you're introduced to all the major characters in the movie so you won't have a last minute 'surprise' character show up and flip everything on its head. Nothing that would set off red flags for me happened during the first act, other than some baffling and illogical actions some established characters make that are outside of their normal character history.
Samuel Jackson holds together every scene with enough charm as a young version of Nick Fury but lacks the commanding, confident nature he has later on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline. Perhaps something between Captain Marvel (in 1995) and Iron Man (in 2008) is when he becomes more assertive and dominant. Nick Fury plays the role of sidekick in this film and provides little use to Captain Marvel except to lead her around at points and just tag along.
Brie Larson's portrayal of Captain Marvel is a bit fun when she is just playing the role of Carol Danvers, fighter pilot, but as soon as she takes on the role of Captain Marvel, she becomes wooden and what I can only describe as putting on "I'm super serious" face. The charisma disappears shortly into the second act as she begins to really use her powers and she loses her limited personality when in any situation that isn't 100% lighthearted. I really enjoyed Brie Larson in Room (2015) but in this she seems like just not quite the right fit for the role or not utilized to her full potential. Her character's backstory is 2 dimensional with little substance other than, "When life knocks you down, get back up."
Conversely, Lashana Lynch, who plays a friend of Carol Danvers, comes across as much more likeable, with more humanity. Her portrayal of 'the friend left not knowing' comes across as quite sincere, and she has more of an emotional stake in the second act than what happens to Danvers throughout.
Other actors: Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson has limited appearance in the film, but solidly represents his already-established character as loyal to Fury and willing to do 'the right thing' when put in a conflicting situation. He comes across as impressionable, vulnerable, but morally grounded and has a lot of room to grow for future movies.
Jude Law is an excellent choice to play Yon-Rogg and comes across very well as a mentor. Ben Mendelsohn as Talos is well done as well, with a lot of screen presence although after act one he has a character shift that doesn't explain the actions taken in act one. This is less the actor's fault and I believe more a problem with the weak plot.
The plot itself is one of the weakest of the Marvel movies. I can only describe it as akin to a Star Trek episode rather than a full movie. It consists of mostly "a bad guy is coming, how can we stop him?" with no layered subplots, no significant choices that have to be made other than following a linear path and less to do with character building and more to do with a demonstration of "these are what powers Captain Marvel can suddenly discover in various scenes"
The end of the movie was uninteresting, anticlimactic and so devoid of any conflict, it is like if you drove a steamroller over a tomato. Captain Marvel becomes so powerful by the end of the movie that she figuratively punches her way through any immovable object, any indestructible thing with no resistance you have to roll your eyes and ask yourself if you missed where the movie's climax was supposed to be. Somewhere in act 2 maybe?
Also, the CGI effects on Marvel flying around were atrocious. Like the character model's face looked like it was made of playdough. Animal animations for Goose the cat were jarringly bad. The glowy energy blasts and trails were overused and every scene with them were lit up like someone shining a 1000 watt bulb in your eyes.
The story is weak, the characters and their motivations are hollow and have no substance, the 3rd act of the movie falls apart with no antagonist or final conflict that matters, and everything boils down to "Lets make this character so overpowered and hype up Marvel's strength so much that absolutely nothing can stop her" and that removes any sense of danger to her and any doubt as to the outcome of any battle or the movie.