Much better than expected, and the problems weren't what I thought they'd be

Rating: 6/10 (9 March 2019)

I'll admit to not being excited about this movie. But it won't be the first time I've not expected to like a Marvel movie and been proved wrong... and this is no exception. I came out of the theatre feeling as though, by and large, I enjoyed what I'd seen. Contrary to expectations, this film didn't put an agenda over story... thought that's not to say the agenda didn't rear its ugly head once or twice... or ten or fifteen times.
The thing holding me back from loving this movie however is the real problem, the character arc of Captain Marvel.
All good/satisfying character arcs can be broken down to three essential ingredients that need to be explored throughout the course of the story:
1 - A challenge that is beyond the character's current ability level
2 - The journey that character must go through to EARN (I can't stress this word enough) the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to overcome that challenge
3 - A conclusion where the character shows the hard won results of step 2 to either overcome the challenge, or at the least put in a damn close effort that is far beyond what the character could have done in step 1.
Captain Marvel had the first ingredient well and truly covered. The movie starts with Carol Danvers needing to overcome memory loss, not knowing how to use her powers, and needing to find the necessary strength to overcome what will eventually stand in her way. So far so good.
The problem comes with the next step which is the most important as without it the third ingredient will never work. The journey she went through to get from step 1 to 3 continually gave her what she needed rather than make her earn it. There are flash backs to struggles that happened before the main narrative, but you never see Carol go through try fail cycles or struggle as all good characters do in order to grow. Instead she just moves through the story and lets the plot simply lavish gifts upon her to overcome the problems from step one.
The frustrating thing is that this could have been fixed with just a few scenes. Show her struggling to control her powers, let her fail a few times with disastrous results, show us the cost of not overcoming her problems that drives her to fight harder. Tony Stark struggled in a cave under gunpoint with a serious injury and no resources, then had to take a hard look at his life and his legacy and overcome that along with some serious mental trauma before finally we had Iron Man, and that was why that character works.
Carol Danvers is competent at the start and only gets stronger as and when the story needs her too which makes it impossible to create stakes and give us viewers a character to get behind.
Other than that this movie was actually pretty good. The supporting cast was great, the concept pretty solid, the CGI out of this world, and despite a few cringeworthy retcons, it works within the larger MCU.
So overall, it wasn't the politics or Brie Larson's off screen comments that loses the stars from this review, but fundamental storytelling. Oh, and one other thing...
Even if you're trying to make a light hearted movie and having fun, your superhero should never bee whooping in excitement and joy as they kill people. By this I don't mean cheering in success at surviving the day or winning a battle, I mean the whoops of fun that might associated with a child playing. Seeing Captain Marvel do it as she destroys countless spaceships and takes countless lives took me right out of the movie.
Overall, this was pretty good and worth a watch, but there's definitely room for improvement.