the good, the bad, the ugly

Rating: 2/10 (4 July 2019)

Let me begin by saying I really wanted to like Cap Marv. Right from the get-go when Fury paged her after the destruction caused by Thanos. When the trailers & posters started drifting in, the oomph meter inside me went into overdrive, cos I was really looking forward to a female superhero who would be given a BIG SPACE, and squaring off agst MCU's most powerful villain todate.
Well, what happened after movie day?
Here's the good, the bad, the ugly.
The Good:-
1. The intro credit with its tribute to Stan Lee and the 1st post credit sequence.
2. The twists were well-placed.
3. Some of the wisecracks & jokes worked.
The Bad + The Ugly.
1. Brie's Cap. She alternated betw the smirk of Cruise's Maverick in Top Gun, and Costner's emotionally detached Farmer in the Bodyguard. As a result, there was hardly any emotional attachment to her character. In fact, it was the same with most of the other pivotal characters, there was hardly any emotive connection. Only Lashana Lynch's Maria Rambeau managed to solicit some form of humanness when contemplating her loss. This to me, is the fault of both screenplay + the directors. As a result, Brie the Oscar winner stayed home, and Brie the let's-play-it-by-the-numbers showed up.
2. Consequently, if the movie was meant to send a msg about female empowerment , then it was the wrong msg. B'cos empowerment shdn't just be about looking tough or confident ala Dirty Harry; it's also about being vulnerable as a human. W Woman, Black Widow, Shuri, Okoye, Alita - conveyed this so much better.
3. Mendelsohn, Law, Hounsou were largely wasted by playing your usual average roles. Something that any daytime actor from Hallmark could have pulled off, as the script was hardly demanding upon their talents.
4. Editing was patchy. Eg, the bar room scene with Fury.
5. Dumb idea to play Just a Girl during the fight scene. Doggone distracting, dude.
5. Generic, play-by-the-numbers action scenes + SFX, none which made you go "awesome!", esp when you've come out of Infinity Wars, Wonder Woman, and yes - Alita. Car-chase/fighter jets, photon beams, kung fu... - it gave you that "been-there, done-that before" feeling. Even a glowing superhero wasn't anything new (Thor's done it). So when Capt went binary, that sense of awesomeness was hardly there. And the comment by Fury, "you know you're glowing?" - made her transformation seem lightweight.
Compare that to Wonder Woman's hand-cross beam, or the revelation of Alita's fighting prowess, where you went "wow!".
The directors + SFX team should have created a larger than life character; sadly, that didn't happen. Perhaps they need to understand that a character's cockiness doesn't translate into greatness.
This movie will still go on to make bucket-loads of money, for sure. But only on the strength of its association with the MCU, and not b'cos of the character. Sad. I sure hope she does better in the hands of the Russo brothers.