Captain Marvel

When I went to see this movie, I was like curious George. Does Marvel really plan on saving the entire superhero universe with one female heroine that has emerged out of nowhere? Brie Larson didn’t feel right to me even on posters. She looked awfully... plastic. But was I wrong! Captain Marvel is a wonderful movie. It has a bit of everything and it’s in fact a beginning of the term “Marvel”. While watching it I didn’t feel like I was watching a superheroine, it felt more like a decent sci-fi. This was due to the great effects which not only looked as if they were from Star Wars – they probably do have something in common with Star Wars since they were supplied by the same studio. Add in some emotions, jokes and allusions, which the creators will serve you indirectly or only in form of a look of one of the characters, plus some plot twists which are very well made in this movie. Even concerning Brie, half-way through the movie I was sure that there couldn’t be a better superheroine. Marvel has justly beat DC once again. My relationship with Marvel has been formed gradually but it is all the more intense now... Captain Marvel is almost a genius insertion between two Avengers movies. It couldn’t have been planned better. (27/03/2019)

The second blockbuster of the year and the first Marvel movie. This appetizer before the upcoming Avengers is a typical origin story that is good by default, but doesn't exactly bust your balls. On the plus side, Brie Larson is a great actress and a very strong hero, so she pulls the film off just fine, and when the excellent Samuel L. Jackson and Jude Law follow suit, things are more or less taken care of. Captain Marvel has a decent retro vibe, solid action (although the fights are shot a bit chaotically), working humour thanks to Samuel, and a rather interesting plot twist in the second half. At times the film feels like Star Wars in Marvel mode, but it's thankfully bearable. Enjoyable cinematic entertainment and a big plus for the cat, perhaps the biggest surprise of the film. 75% (08/03/2019)

Another fine Marvel picture that fills in the gaps. Danvers borrow from Wonder Woman and doesn't excessively shove women’s superiority down your throat. Brie Larson is fine and her playing the rascal and flirting with Fury was entertaining (Sam Jackson really enjoyed himself)… but space battles alone aren’t enough. I liked the villain and some of the unexpected twists that unsurprisingly closely follow today’s trends. Great music. And what a fox. (07/03/2019)

Captain Marvel is a film that, like its protagonist, seeks its true identity and is not very successful in doing so. In its better moments, it is a fast-paced buddy movie with a digitally facelifted Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson in a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, thus rather an extended episode of The X-Files (but without the mystery). In worse moments, it is a sterile space/soap opera (but without a sufficiently detached view). The overarching “detective” framework, in which Vers searches for who she really was/is, has an original exposition (Carol is a more or less “burnt-out” superhero from the beginning; she only fulfils a role that is not her own), though the development remains very predictable. In addition to that, it does not raise enough questions that would maintain our curiosity (which is even truer of the second of the two origin stories, following the inception of the Avengers). Its rhythm, characterisations and (towards the end) CGI are grating. The story arc is mediocre, the environment is nondescript and, with the exception of some surprising background music, the action scenes are generic. The emancipation storyline approaches naivety and literalness (when the heroine has to stand on her own two feet, then she stands on her own two feet, in several consecutive shots, culminating for the sake of certainty with the declaration “I don't have to prove anything to you” – for its unforcedness, the scene in which Brie Larson walks through a video rental shop among VHS tapes with 1980s hypermasculine action heroes is far more telling). The problem lies in the fact that, in its old-school simplicity, Captain Marvel is not as consistent as the formally and stylistically much cleaner Wonder Woman. Other than Brie Larson, the film’s main value added, thanks to which it is not (by a slim margin) the weakest Marvel movie, comprises an orange cat and the cameo of Stan Lee reading the Mallrats screenplay. 65% (06/03/2019)

Captain Marvel is a nice chill-out movie without the great drama of The Avengers, which it doesn’t really need. The only character whose emotions are explored in depth is the protagonist; everyone else is either there to provide comic relief or a villain with a surprising plan. The setting in Los Angeles (and the surrounding desert) in the 1990s enables a lot of cool jokes and establishes the overall lighthearted mood of the movie (Samuel is immortal!). This was what I liked best about Captain Marvel. Plus Brie Larson. The movie benefits from casting her and not a sexpot like Amber Heard. Larson is more approachable, natural and cute. (09/03/2019)