Captain Mary Sue

Rating: 3/10 (26 September 2019)

So first off, and most importantly: if you are looking for a film in which you can see lots of little girls lie down in sand and then stand up in slow motion, then yes, this is the film for you. Ditto if you want to hear an incredibly ill-placed Gwen Stefani song about girl power played over a pivotal dramatic battle scene.
On the other hand, if you are wanting to see a film with engrossing, likeable characters you care about on a plausible adventure you can have fun watching, you are bang out of luck, my friend.
Having said that, although Captain Marvel is, without any shadow of a doubt, a bad film, it's actually not quite as irredeemable as I'd been bracing myself for, and there *are* parts that feel much like your average Marvel movie in happier days. The main flaws are, as every other review on this site will have already told you, the thoroughly wooden unlikeability of Brie Larson's character, and the shoehorning of crass feminist/SJW politics into the story where there is simply no need. As has happened in the comics in recent years, the character Captain Marvel is presented as a perfect paragon of popularity but at no point does she ever behave like someone the audience would actually like in real life: she acts bitter-faced and snarky with everyone she meets, never caring for others (except certain 'victim groups' to make a political point) or displaying any real warmth or humanity. She is never shown to be trying to help or befriend anyone she meets, and yet everyone either likes and respects her immediately, or else is easily crushed by her. She never has to learn that there are flaws in herself - she's not a cowardly or money-hungry character that eventually learns there are things more important than herself that push her to overcome her weakness or greed - she simply learns that others have been 'holding her back'.
At one point in the film she gains enormous powers just by contemplating how splendid she is, and then later on closes her eyes while falling and, with a smug smile, discovers she can fly. No further explanation for these astoundingly miraculous events is ever forthcoming. We just come to accept that she can do EVERYTHING. She starts out flawless and ends the same way. This is boring.
I should also add that what the filmmakers did to Samuel L. Jackson's character is a crime, too. His Nick Fury in this film bears no relation to the one he plays in every other film. This is simply a different person altogether, present only for light relief and positive skin pigmentation representation.
As with the Star Wars franchise and other current films, excellence and originality have been replaced by mediocrity and hollow virtue signalling, with writers, directors, actors, characters and storylines being selected for arbitrary surface characteristics and political allegiances rather than merit and magic. This whole period is going to be considered a shameful stain on the history of the art of cinema in generations to come, and Captain Marvel a prime example.