"My name is Carol"

Rating: 4/10 (8 March 2019)

Captain Marvel is not as preachy as it could have been, but it definitely has its share of on-the-nose moments. From a biker getting his comeuppance after daring to ask for a smile, to an incredibly ham-fisted girl power mini-montage during the climax, this film wants you to know that women are resilient. Of course nobody disagrees with this, but the film seems to think it's a message that needs promotion.
When it's not taking digs at the perceived oppression of first world women at the hands of the patriarchy, it's telling a fairly predictable cookie-cutter story with an obvious twist, replete with a plethora of irksome "90s kids" references. I laughed a couple of times, and yes one of those times involved the cat, but it's far from enough for this movie to earn its place among its fellows in the MCU.
This movie's action is fairly monotonous and unexciting, which, in my view, is perhaps its greatest failing. It feels like it wants to have badarse moments, but isn't quite sure what constitutes such a thing. There are plenty of flashy special effects and the characters move around a lot, but I never felt emotionally connected to the fight scenes.
The worst case of this is what can only be described as a bad parody of a scene from The Matrix, in which Captain Marvel indignantly rebukes her enemy with the line "My name is Carol" before initiating her counterattack. Far from provoking the excitement I imagine the writers expecting, this scene just made me cringe into laughter.