More Eye-Rolling Than Jaw-Dropping

Rating: 4/10 (28 April 2019)

I know I'm a little late to the game, but I figured I should watch this before I see Endgame. This movie can be summed up by something my wife said on the way home from the theatre: "I have never been told by a man that I couldn't do something because I'm a woman. Where are they getting these ideas?"
Captain Marvel is a very watchable movie. That's something you can expect from even the worst of the MCU at this point. But as the quality of films from Marvel Studios has steadily increased since 2008, I'm surprised to see a movie like this come out after the successes of Thor Ragnorak, Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Infinity War. It's like the studio took a break from heeding the lessons learned by what makes a quality superhero movie.
We're treated to some excellent CGI, some world-building and fan service side characters, a good amount of flawless de-aging technology, and some cool-looking space battles. Add to that the 90s nostalgia factor and you have the exhaustive list of everything I enjoyed about Captain Marvel.
I also thought that the explanation they came up with (or maybe pulled from the comics, I'm not a comic reader) to explain Danvers' origin and powers was creative. But the execution was a little muddy. The reveal that the Kree were the true bad guys was explained poorly at first, and although it's clearly set up to be a clear-cut revelation I was scratching my head because of the bizarre way in which it was dropped on us. It also wasn't made any clearer by the fact that we're dealing with a lot of shape-shifters in the movie, so anyone could be...anyone else.
My main gripe with the writing, the character of Captain Marvel, and yes, with Brie Larson, was that the writers and production team for some reason felt the need to crank the "men are stupid and evil" dial up to 11 at times. These moments culminate during the climax of the movie where Danvers is engaged in some sort of astral battle with the Supreme Intelligence, and she is knocked down only to get up again amidst a montage of clips showing her doing the same throughout her life. So we're watching clips of her falling as a kid on a bike and at the beach and that's supposed to somehow show us how she's powerful as a character? Those are very common scenarios that every kid has lived through. It would be underwhelming if a similar sequence played out with any other Avenger, and it's underwhelming here. It ends up coming off as though women who show any resilience are going above their expectations, which is, of course, itself pretty sexist. Unfortunately that's not too surprising as many attempts in TV and cinema to show strong women/minority characters end up succumbing to the prejudice of low expectations.
Another scene that comes to mind is the foray into her subconscious memories by the Skrulls early on in the movie. We're shown fragment after fragment of men telling Danvers she can't do this or she can't do that. You would think that she's known nothing in her life on Earth except for unbridled patriarchal rage. This is the scene in particular that elicited the aforementioned gripe from my wife. I know these movies play out in an alternate universe, and maybe I can, with enough mental gymnastics, convince myself that men are more "toxic" in that world than ours. But realistically we know deep down that what we're watching is a lame attempt at rapid-fire character development, and that the character development amounts to her identity as a strong woman in a man's world. You'd think that the first solo female hero movie in the MCU would give us a little more in reasons to be on Carol's side, but the folks at Disney seem to know that at this point in time you can create a fantasy of men oppressing women and a character derived from that dichotomy will do just fine.
Honestly, it would be easier to gloss over all of the moments and throwaway lines that lend itself to this theme, but Brie Larson exudes such a pompous and socially deaf self-importance in her public appearances and interviews that she makes it much harder to watch the movie and believe we're watching Carol Danvers embracing her role as Captain Marvel instead of Brie Larson thinking to herself how much of a savior she is.
If you haven't seen this movie yet and, like me, you're still prepping for Endgame, don't worry about seeing this first. The critical tie-ins are nonexistent. You can catch it once it comes to Netflix.