Painfully Dull And Annoyingly Over-Hyped. Brute force does not a superhero make.

Rating: 1/10 (11 March 2019)

I actually fell asleep in the movie theater at one point! And I'm a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and went into watching this with the usual great anticipation and hope. This one disappoints. It, unlike most of the MCU (or X-Men or even Fantastic 4) movies, lacks the "magic" that makes a superhero movie work (an interesting character, intelligent writing, humor, joy, an interesting, original story). It starts off with the main character on an alien planet with her powers already - before we even know who she is, have any relationship with her, and should care why she is there. There is no character development, she is just dropped in our laps, and as the person I was with said - who is new to this character - she thought there was a big backstory available somewhere else. The desperately needed plot that proceeds is uninteresting, and ends up suddenly being centered around aliens on Earth we know even less about. There is no emotional center to the movie, no sense of a character arc or drama or stakes that matters. Just a lot of POW WHAM moments, that then get bigger, and we are expected to accept that as drama and "the story". The jokes are infantile, Jude Law's character is a cardboard villain, and Brie Larsen was poorly cast in this Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel role as she exhibits no characterization; she takes no joy in being Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, her Carol Danvers is painfully dull and seems to have no significant personal character herself, to genuinely be a dull person, who then becomes a dull superhero, but that she can glow and punch the movie makers force on the audience as the reason we are supposed to gormless-ly cheer her. Brute force does not a superhero make. This is why I actually momentarily fell asleep in the movie theater at one point. Unlike Iron Man, Black Widow, Black Panther, Bruce Banner, she has no * character story *. She is cardboard superhero that one would expect from someone who did not know how to make superhero movies, certainly not the gateway character to the next Phase in the MCU franchise. A further issue is that this character - never famous like the Hulk, etc from the comics because she isn't as originally interesting a character (not a dramatic character, not a scientist, not funny, not a strong personal character, not a person with a dramatic story or backstory, etc) - still had a character that was well fleshed out in the comic books. And could have been made with her existing material into something even better for the movie. Instead, the 5 (!) writers on the movie went with cliches, dropped the comic book base content and origin story and made a convoluted plot that just crashes and flops worse than the place crash in the movie. I have never been so disappointed in an MCU film. It's a shame, because this character certainly could have been great if handled by a better writer(s). It bodes badly for the MCU next Phase. What. a. dull, mindless, weak, lackluster, incompetent, over hyped, mis-made junk pile of a movie. : /