Carol Danvers' debut puts a fresh spin on Marvel's Phase One origin story formula.

Rating: 7/10 (9 March 2019)

"Captain Marvel" Review
(8/10)
The MCU's newest hero, Captain Marvel, has entered the fray literally swinging, with a cosmic-flavored origin story. Carol Danvers' debut puts a fresh spin on Marvel's Phase One origin story formula.
I'm just going to say this first, I'm tired of people trying to review bomb a movie and call it terrible, awful, an horrible, when they didn't see the movie. So what if Brie's comments hurt your feelings, grow up and be a man. This movie is not full of "SJW crap", this is a movie about a beloved comic character brought to life in the big screen. The movie is not full of "feminist propaganda", the movie is a MCU movie and a good one too.
Now that I'm done ranting let's get into this review. As the first first woman-led superhero epic from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain Marvel touches down at the multiplex with a lot of sexist monkeys on its back. You could carp at about how the plot is too convoluted by half, the pacing's too casual, it's retro style too flat in the light of the usual MCU fireworks. But the time that Boden and Fleck use to underscore how lives get lived between the not-always-rousing action sequences may be what keeps Captain Marvel in our memories.
By the end of Captain Marvel it becomes clear why its titular character is talked about as the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (It also becomes very clear that Thanos is about to get his purple ass handed to him in Avengers: Endgame.) Because of the source of her strength (I won't spoil it), the half-human, half-Kree warrior can pretty much take on any villain, any weapon. Captain Marvel is the MCU's first solo superhero movie with a female lead; the studio had to go big. It also had to provide an allegory for why women heroes had been held back for so long. The notion is slyly reinforced again and again.
The movie takes some time to find its footing, but once it does the action is great and the effects were actually, I would say, on par with the effects in the Avengers' movies. The movie has flare that's for sure, the soundtrack, which includes Elastica, TLC, Hole, Garbage, and a particularly tongue-in-cheek usage of No Doubt's "Just a Girl." The 1990s were nothing if not a time of riot grrrls and feminist rock and hip hop, all of which got too often discounted and discredited. Maybe codirectors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck just wanted to put some nostalgic jams in their movie, but there's no denying the film has a spirit of revisionist history.
While the message of Captain Marvel is clear, whether it will be heard or embraced is another matter. Some people will like the film, others won't. Some might find it too feminist; some may think it's not feminist enough. Some may like or dislike it for reasons that have nothing to do with its meaning, direct or implied. The beauty of being a fan of anything is that you get to make up your own (damn) mind.