The beginning of Marvel's downfall

Rating: 4/10 (28 March 2019)

It says a lot about a blockbuster film when your best actor is a CGI cat. Captain Marvel is your stereotypical, run-of-the-mill superhero flick without any of the humour usually seen in the genre. A tired cast plod through the obvious and clunky script, forcing quips and one-liners throughout that don't really make any sense. Brie Larson (Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers) is the primary culprit; whilst its not entirely her fault (directing will have forced a lot of creative decision on her), I feel a more suited actress could have done the part slightly more justice. Jude Law (Yon-Rogg) also seemed out of his depth, whilst Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury) had unfortunately signed on for the long haul.
Marvel do their best to shoe-horn in every potential Top Gun reference and callback to previous films; this can be a refreshing sight for the more avid fan, but the sheer numerousness of in-jokes and references to other movies makes it a chore having to remember them all. Overall, this film feels purely like a stop gap to fill in any potholes still existing in the Marvel universe - where the Tesseract came from, how everyone will survive the Avengers finale, and why Fury is missing an eye.
However, arguably the most irksome problem is the film's reluctance to either make Captain Marvel the all-powerful being she's been made out to be, or just an average fighter struggling against mediocre enemies. One minute Larson's character is being holdback by civilians on a train, and the next she's flying headfirst through a spaceship, destroying everything she touches... As Marvel's answer to Thanos goes, this all feels like a get-out-of-jail-free card that nobody wanted, nor asked for.