Captain Marvel is the superhero movie we all needed as little girls.
The feature kicks off with a set of characters we’ve never seen before. We’re thrown into the alien world of Hala and Verse (Brie Larson) is training to become a noble Kree warrior. The intro scene is cinematic and enticing, pulling us right into Verse’s unique story. Soon, we learn that Verse is an amnesiac who was once a test pilot on Earth and she must head back there to take down the Skrull Talos.
Compared to Avengers, Thor: Ragnarock or Captain America: Civil War, Captain Marvel is not particularly mind-blowing. If you compare it to the origin movies of Thor and Captain America though, it shapes up to be an impressive entrance into the Marvel world. Brie Larson is fantastic as the eponymous superhero and her introduction has us excited to see what role she will have to play in the highly anticipated Avengers: Endgame.
As the first Marvel female superhero, Larson is everything we could possibly want. She is strong, fierce and a little less polished than Wonder Woman. This definitely makes her more relatable and little girls in need of a strong female character need not look further. Larson’s performance was compelling on all accounts and the only thing lacking was more epic kickboxing scenes, because these were great. It also felt like she deserved more of the film’s many funny lines, which Iron Man and Thor received in abundance in their debut movies.
Samuel L. Jackson also gave his usual top class performance and looked surprisingly close to how he looked in Pulp Fiction with the help of Hollywood technology. It was great to learn more about Nick Fury and find out just how he came to inherit that iconic eye-patch. And of course, another character favorite is the heroic cat.
Finally, Captain Marvel shares some valuable messages, including the important lesson of perseverance. No matter how many times she fails, she always gets back up and fights the fight. In this way, Captain Marvel is the superhero we all needed when we were little girls.
Overall, sure, Captain Marvel could have been better but Marvel origin stories are rarely perfect. The movie’s main purpose was to hype us for the Avengers finale by introducing a new powerful character. It definitely succeeded on this account and provided us with the strong female-led stand-alone superhero movie that Marvel was missing.
3.5/5
