And Why Do We Fall, Bruce?

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2019)

After the successes of Best Picture nominee "Black Panther" and "Avengers: Infinity War" (both 2018), the MCU seems to have retreated into a comedic hiatus before the anticipated "Endgame," with formulaic entries in "Ant-Man and the Wasp" (2018) and, now, "Captain Marvel." Sure, it's a somewhat amusing diversion, but I see why many fans feel it misses the mark. The underlying girl-power message calls for some unironic superhero gravitas; instead, it's a light delivery of the generic MCU origins-story formula mixed with some winking retro gags along the lines of those introduced to the franchise by "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014). Ultimately, "Captain Marvel" is more retreating than progressive and a lesser variation on superhero movies we've already seen.
There is a funny cat, though, and the 1990s references are admittedly humorous. Having Brie Larson's Carol Danvers crash land on Earth through a Blockbuster store is a fitting summation that this is a pure popcorn flick. Surely, hardly anyone will mistake this entry as a potential awards contender; the closest it's getting to the red carpet is when Vers picks up a rental copy of "The Right Stuff" (1983). Even an important aspect of the visual effects was a problem for, at least, me: the digital de-aging of Samuel L. Jackson as Fury and, more briefly, of Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson transgresses the uncanny valley. This effect isn't much of a hindrance when it's used sparingly, as done before for short stints with stars Michael Douglas, Robert Downey Jr. and Kurt Russell in the MCU--heck, the one with Downey wasn't even intended to be real within the fictional world. But, young Fury is in this one a lot, and almost every time I saw him I was either feeling that something was off--something non-human (the skin seems too inflexible or they seem to be trying to hide his face in the shadows) or I was looking for something to be wrong. Danvers firing photon blasts from her hands in outer space I can buy, but a de-aged Fury creeps me out.
The warring aliens and sci-fi stuff isn't too compelling, either. There's more Loki-esque shapeshifting, another species with elf ears (à la the Dark Elves in "Thor: The Dark World" (2013)), another species that tends to look exactly like Homo sapiens, science-y talk about light speed and universal-language modifying devices seemingly straight out of "Star Trek." Yet, more troubling is how much the plot borrows from other MCU entries and the basic origins story formula first set by "Iron Man" (2008). Like Tony Stark, Danvers receives her power during an explosion from a military conflict, realizes at some point that she was fighting wrongly in the war and that something in her past was hidden from her, so she flies around blasting energy from her hand cannons--again, like Iron Man. Her arc is also similar to that of Jane Foster in the second Thor movie in that she's baffled by her absorbed powers, and like Captain America, she spent much of her earlier life getting knocked down before coming upon superpowers.
I don't have a problem with the picture's underlying politics as, apparently, others on the Internet do, except that it's trite, and the story of Danvers here is not interesting enough to even execute that properly. Indeed, this Captain Marvel is a Mary Sue in that she's over-powering and is being set up to take the place of other, soon-to-be-retired superheroes. Moreover, the main conflict is that she's confused about how awesome she really is--an egregiously simplistic parable for women with low self esteem. Supporting this message, too, rather eye-rollingly boils down to playing songs like "I'm Just a Girl" as she kicks ass or seeming to borrow the falling-and-getting-back-up montage from a Dwyane Wade shoe commercial, among other things.
Plus, this isn't an Ant-Man movie; if it's going to be more than the female equivalent of a vehicle for Paul Rudd's affable personality, it needs gravitas. They don't need a savior allegory to fully make her over as Marvel's counterpart to Superman (besides, Stark clearly is still holding dibs on the MCU's requisite Christ figure), but I think this one missed an opportunity to have some striking heroic moments, had it only set the tone and tempo correctly. Even the fish-out-of-water joking was done better in "Wonder Woman" (2017), but there's absolutely no equivalent in "Captain Marvel" to its predecessor's No Man's Land scene. Nevertheless, "Captain Marvel" can be amusing and light entertainment, and even though she's fallen with her debut, the makers of this franchise must remember why we fall. She can pick herself up.