Just a Girl - The MCU Captain Marvel Review

Rating: 6/10 (12 March 2019)

This super-hero movie landed with a lot of internet flotsam in its wake. It's been assailed, even before it opened, as a movie with a feminist agenda, by what I would imagine are American right-wing Trump Trolls. "Keep politics out of the movies" seems to be their battle-cry, against the theme of inclusion and representation. You see, this is the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film headlined by a female super-hero. And sure, Wonder Woman was a pretty big hit, but Diana is an Amazon, virtually a demigod. This incarnation of Carol Danvers is presented as "Just a Girl" (using the No Doubt hit song from 1995's Tragic Kingdom album) that gained cosmic-class powers from an accident with alien technology.
Casting Brie Larson was a pretty smart move. She's pretty, but not too pretty or even statuesque like Gal Gadot. She's not that tall, or that muscular, and she's got unruly hair. Watching her fight Jude Law's Yon-Rogg and get her ass kicked repeatedly underscores that she gets by on stubbornness and determination, despite being only human, and just a girl. That resonates with young women and little girls, who finally have a super-hero that they can point to and say "that's me!" When she finally reconnects with her human and unlocks her full potential, she lights up like the sun and the audience cheers. That's powerful stuff.
The movie itself is structurally uneven. It's a buddy-cop, road trip film co-starring digitally de-aged Sam Jackson's Nick Fury, before he became Director of Shield. Fury accompanies an amnesiac Danvers in her journey back through time and place, digging through her past until she puts two and two together. This is complicated by having to set up the complex Kree-Skrull War from the comics. For the purposes of this movie it's simplified into a double-twist, leaning on Jude Law and Ben Mendelsohn to bring their overqualified resumes to bear. Captain Marvel lacks the superlative pacing of the cream of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the absence of a discernible villain or threat saps momentum from the story. Fortunately Larson, Jackson, Mendelsohn and newcomer Lashana Lynch bring character to the proceedings, preventing the movie from becoming boring until the last twenty minutes when the hero gets to blow things up.
Overall, Captain Marvel is an average entry in the now 21-film MCU anthology, but it will punch far above its weight class with female viewers.