Captain Marvel

Rating: 6/10 (17 March 2019)

This was the next entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the leading hero was called upon at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, but this is a prequel to how the whole Avengers project got started, and an origins story for the female hero, the first leading female in the series, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson). Basically in 1995, on the planet of Hala, the capital of the Kree Empire, Starforce member Vers (Room's Brie Larson) is having recurring nightmares involving an older woman (Annette Bening). Her mentor and commander Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) trains her to control her abilities while the Supreme Intelligence, an artificial intelligence and the ruler of the Kree, urges her to control her emotions. The Kree are at war with the Skrulls, a race of alien shapeshifters, Vers is captured by their commander Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) during a mission to rescue an undercover operative infiltrating a Skrull group. She is taken aboard their vessel bound for the planet Earth and subjected to a memory probe. Vers escapes and crash-lands on Earth in Los Angeles in a Blockbuster store, she is found by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Their investigation is interrupted by a Skrull attack, following the chase, Vers recovers a crystal containing her extracted memories, while Fury kills a Skrull impersonating Coulson. Talos, disguised as S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Keller (also Mendelsohn), orders Fury to work with Vers and keep an eye on her. Fury takes Vers to a U.S. Air Force base and discovers she was a pilot presumed to have died in 1989. She was testing an experimental engine designed by Dr. Wendy Lawson, Vers recognises her as the woman from her nightmares. Talos and a S.H.I.E.L.D. tries to capture them, but they escape in a cargo jet, with Lawson's cat Goose. They fly to Louisiana to meet former pilot Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), the last person to see Vers and Lawson alive. Just as Vers discovers her real name is Carol Danvers, Talos arrives at the Rambeau house, he reveals the Skrulls are refugees searching for a new home and Lawson was a renegade Kree scientist helping them. He then plays the recovered black box from Lawson's plane, prompting Danvers to remember the crash: Lawson was killed by Yon-Rogg before she could destroy the engine's energy-core, Danvers was forced to do so and absorbed the energy from the ensuing explosion, this is how she lost her memory. Danvers, Talos, Fury and Rambeau work together to locate Lawson's cloaked laboratory orbiting Earth, where Lawson hid several Skrulls including Talos' family, and the Tesseract, the source of the energy-core. Danvers is captured by Starforce and connects with the Supreme Intelligence, during their conversation she is able to access all her abilities, by removing the Kree implant that was suppressing her powers. In the subsequent battle, Fury retrieves Goose, who is revealed to be an alien with a pocket dimension inside her body and swallows the Tesseract before scratching Fury's left eye, permanently blinding it. Danvers, who earns the nickname Captain Marvel, leaves to help find a new homeworld for the Skrulls and gives Fury a modified pager to contact her in an emergency. Meanwhile, Fury drafts an initiative aimed at locating heroes like her, with abilities, he changes the name of the project after seeing a photo of Danvers in her Air Force jet, which bears the call sign "Avenger". In the mid-credits sequence, set in the present day, Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans), Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Bruce Banner aka Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and James Rhodes aka War Machine (Don Cheadle), the remaining Avengers, are monitoring the pager that Fury activated before his disintegration, Danvers appears and demands to know where Fury is. In the post-credits sequence, back in 1995, Goose jumps onto Fury's desk and regurgitates the Tesseract. Also starring Rune Temte as Bron-Char, Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva, Algenis Perez Soto as Att-Lass, Djimon Hounsou as Korath, Lee Pace as Ronan, Chuku Modu as Soh-Larr, Matthew Maher as Norex, Kenneth Mitchell as Carol's Father, Mckenna Grace as Young Carol (13 Years Old), London Fuller as Young Carol (6 Years Old), Colin Ford as Steve Danvers, Robert Kazinsky as Biker (The Don), Marilyn Brett as Older Lady on Train and Stan Lee (who sadly passed away from cancer) has a posthumous cameo as himself reading the script for his role in Mallrats, the opening Marvel Studios logo also honours his memory with clips of his cameos and on-set moment, and the words "Thank You Stan". Larson is well chosen as the feisty human-turned-alien heroine, Jackson is terrific and the younger future director of the Avengers, the verbal sparring between Larson and Jackson make for some highlights, and there is good support from Mendelsohn, Law and Bening. The references to the 1990s time period are clever, the special effects are amazing, especially to make Jackson twenty years younger, it does slow down at times for the necessary chat sequences, but there are enough small giggles, it packs a punch with the explosive and exciting fight and chase sequences, and it sets you up nicely for Avengers: Endgame, a fun superhero fantasy action adventure. Good!