MCU gambles on an obscure character again but doubles down on setting the story in the recent past, probably to match the soundtrack filled with overplayed crap better. Cynical jab aside, Marvel succeeded again in making an excellent film centered around a lesser-known superhero while interweaving her into the growing, larger story arc we’ll see in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame.
Marvel rewinds the clock back to those salad days called the mid Nineties. Nick Fury had two eyes, superheroes on Earth operated in the shadows (Ant-Man, Black Panther) and the Kree Empire was at war with the shape-changing Skrull. Enter Kree soldier Vers, an anxious warrior with a memory gap. Before there’s much exploration on this, she is assigned a mission to defeat some pesky Skrulls hiding out on a backwater planet. Obviously things goes badly and it leads to Vers getting stranded on Earth in a rather Nineties manner (crashing out of the sky into a Blockbuster Video). However, the Skrulls’ starship suffered the same fate (but into the Pacific Ocean) so while she is awaiting rescue, she decides to hunt down the survivors hiding out amongst the Terrans. Earth isn’t completely oblivious as SHIELD is dispatched to investigate. Within several days, Vers and Fury discover how their past assumptions are wrong and it’s up to them to save the day, the world and everything else. Stay to the very end of course.
For starters, Marvel‘s opening brought tears to my eyes as they modified their logo montage to show nothing but Stan Lee’s cameos, thanking him for all he did. I’m glad Somara and I got to meet him briefly as a wedding gift to ourselves. I may be a bigger DC fan with the print comics yet I will always be grateful to what he contributed, raising the bar on storytelling. And before my artist friends pounce on me, I know Stan didn’t do it alone. Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita and others had immense involvement because comic books are worthless without great art. By the way, not everyone will get the inside joke for Stan’s cameo plus it won’t be his last, Endgame‘s principle shooting was done before he passed away.
Another thing I was pleased about was the movie not bludgeoning me over the head about the Nineties as others do with the Seventies or Eighties. A few elements couldn’t help in their obviousness: Internet cafes, Blockbuster Video and “slow” computers; they were ubiquitous then. It may be a matter of opinion but for me, anything more subtle than the overrated The Wedding Singer and I’m good. There are additional nods to other characters from previous films you need to pay attention to. The writers did an impressive job working in all the different incarnations of Captain Marvel over the last 40 years.
Last point I do want to make. Allegedly, numerous Incels got their tighty whiteys in knots from day one with Marvel (I use the qualifier “allegedly” due to me having a life and nothing bothering with diehard troll hangouts: reedit namely). I really liked Wonder Woman, I buy comics with female stars (Shade the Changing Woman, Spider-Gwen, Rat Queens and Star Wars: Doctor Aphra) and I don’t feel threatened by “women” shows (Pen15, Disenchantment, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (90s)). I may roll my eyes at overused tropes (attractive computer hackers, lesbian/bi-sexual/LUG whatevers and manic pixie dream girls) but it doesn’t mean I’m against women characters being the focus. Brie Larson did very well as the stoic, focused warrior. Her Oscar® doesn’t matter to me, sometimes the award can be the kiss of death (Mira Sorvino, F Murray Abraham) and at my age, I’ve learned to state “no opinion” if I’m not familiar with the person’s past work, or in Larson’s case, I wasn’t paying attention (Scott Pilgrim) or I forgot (Kong: Skull Island). I did run into an Incel before the release and my polite rebuttal to him was “vote with your money.” After he mentioned how date rapist Kavanaugh was railroaded, I had to flee to avoid his toxicity stained my clothes.
Soapbox over.
To repeat. Captain Marvel (Marvel), really great, a worthy addition to the MCU and I can’t wait to see what her role will be in the upcoming Avengers.
(New) Alamo Extras: Infomercial for Saturday Morning Greatest Hits, Trailers for Supergirl, Toy Story and Pulp Fiction; Ads for Blockbuster, Capri Sun and pagers; Plugs for TV shows: Friends, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Rugrats and Fresh Prince; a Nirvana video; a history/explanation about the DC and Marvel Captain Marvel characters (not completely accurate); Brie Larson’s past work: her music videos from the Aughts (I want to get her record now, she was better than most training-bra music of her time), being in a Jenny Lewis video, United States of Tara and the evil ex-girlfriend dubbed over by Metric in Scott Pilgrim.