A Stepping Stone Movie

Rating: 4/10 (12 March 2019)

First of all: This movie will be enjoyable for great parts of the audience because it does contain scenes that are visually appealing, it does contain scenes that are comedic, and ensure laughter in the cinema, and it does contain scenes that are fun to watch. Even for someone like me, who wouldn't list this movie among Marvel's best, the movie did have enjoyable moments and I did go out of the cinema, knowing that I hadn't completely wasted my money.
One might say, that this movie contains everything other superhero movies do too. And to some extent I would agree with this statement, since it does contain fight scenes, scenes of emotion, and scenes of comedy. However the fight scenes consist of standard choreography, and cinematography and the scenes of nostalgia and emotion, because a tone that would provide for such scenes wasn't set, fail to be heartwarming. A theme of sisterhood, as it is present between Brie Larson's character and one of her past friends, doesn't work because the audience wasn't prepared for emotional depth due to the severe lack of character development, not just with Carol Denvers, but with most of the other characters. Therefore, scenes that are supposed to be heartwarming, seem generic and staged.
I disagree with the argument that the lack of emotional depth is due to the great power that Carol has, since emotional depth doesn't always have to be created through external struggles, but can be created through internal struggles. However, because of the absence of complex character developments or arcs, the characters stay unbelievable and unrelatable while the incoherence of theme add on to the movie seeming as though it is unsure of what it wants to be.
A character like Captain Marvel has to earn its place in the Marvel Universe. Characters such as Captain America or Iron Man earned their role over multiple films in multiple years. With this movie Marvel seems as though they want to force Captain Marvel into a position by simply saying: "Look how extremely powerful she is." which is non sensical, since it doesn't create bonds between the character and the audience. Something has yet to reasonably set up the character for a prime role in future Marvel movies.
Captain Marvel, for me, is nothing but a "filler" film which is supposed to lead on to other Marvel films featuring Captain Marvel. It is everything but concerned with character development or a coherent theme and therefore doesn't stand alone as a great story, but a product in the form of a story that had to be told in order to sell more stories in the future.