Skrull Island

Rating: 8/10 (12 March 2019)

The 21st film of the Marvel Cinematic universe marks the debut of new and powerful character in what is a good addition to the series, although a little short of some of the series highest points.
Vers (Brie Larson) is a member of a Kree special ops team led by Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). The Kree are at war with the Skurlls, a race with the ability to physically change their appearance to mimic anyone else. When a rescue mission becomes an ambush, Vers ends up crash landing on Earth and discovers a Skrull plot involving an earth scientist (Anette Benning). Ignoring protocol and continuing her investigation, Vers meets Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) a midlevel agent of SHIELD and together they discover that Vers links to Earth might be more than she imagined.
That top line generally sums up "Captain Marvel" for me. It's good, really good. It ought to be as Marvel have made 21 decent films in a row, so they've got the tone, effects and story beats down. Just the one effect, Coulson's de-aging, doesn't quite ring true, I'm not sure if it's the hair, or if there just isn't as much footage of Clark Gregg from around that time in his life, as there is of Samuel L Jackson (as a reference if nothing else), but it never quite crosses the uncanny valley for me, everything else is spot on. The story is good enough, performances are too and the chemistry between Brie Larson and Jackson is excellent. One area where "Captain Marvel" is the best in the MCU in my opinion is musically. I'm a 90's child so there were some great memories and some of my favourite songs in here.
The only negatives are that it suffers in comparison to the series highspots, including the most recent few like "Ragnorok" , "Spider-man: Homecoming" and "Infinity War". It's not as funny as the first two (although Ben Mendelson is giving it a go and I hope that we see his character again in subsequent sequels) or as weighty as the third... (Indeed it can't be, as you know that at least half the cast of this film are going to reappear in subsequent ones in the timeline, so the stakes aren't there).
It's a good time though and I look forward to where the sequels, as well as her joining The Avengers, will take us.