Film review of Captain Marvel- by Sean Chandler

After an eight month absence from the big screen, Marvel
finally returned with their first female lead film, Captain Marvel. So let’s
talk about. Captain Marvel’s the twenty first film in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe, it’s a prequel set during the 90s telling the story of a Cree warrior
hero trying to stop the shapeshifting scroll. But when she crash lands on
Earth, she realizes that her back story is way more complicated than she
realized. As we go into this, this is a spoiler free review. I’m only going to
discuss specific plot points that are shown in the trailers on Sunday. I’m
going to be dropping my spoiler filled review, which actually shot with a
couple of my YouTube buddies, which was quite a bit of fun. Tell me your
thoughts on it. Downbelow in the comments section. But as this is a spoiler
free review, keep the comment sections free of spoilers. I will delete any
spoilers that I see down there and also keep this respectful. I know there’s a
lot of controversy surrounding this film. You can disagree with the movie.
Don’t be mean to people. Let’s get started talking about the good. And probably
the best thing about this film was Nick Fury. Samuel L. Jackson is just great
in this role. And in this film, you see pretty cynical Nick Fury. We get all
the stuff that we love about him, but we see a different side to the character
and we see him turn into the Nick Fury that we know in later films. And because
his character had to be D age for the film, I was a little bit skeptical that
maybe he was going to be a smaller part of, you know, he’s a major character in
this film and it is great.

And apparently he really likes cats. Who knew? Speaking of
cats, let’s talk about Gus the cat. This was another great little character
inside of the film. Just hits all the right notes in all the right moments in
all the right ways. Another standout in the film is Ben Mendelsohn as our
scroll villain. At the beginning of the film, I thought it was going to be a
little bit more of Ben Mendelsohn doing kind of his typical smarmy villain
routine. But as the film goes along, they keep adding layers upon layers for
the character and we get something new from him. Another thing I enjoyed is
that it’s once again a new type of Marvel film. It certainly feels like it has
that MCU shine on the whole thing, but it has a different genre to. It actually
felt a lot to me, like the X Files during the middle act of the film. There’s
even a part where they go to a secret base and just the imagery of all of it
reminded me of the X Files. And while this is an origin story, it does not
follow the MCU origin template at all. It is a new story structure for the MCU.
Speaking of the story, there’s a lot of twists and turns along the way in this
film that I didn’t see coming.

The trailers do a pretty good job of not really giving away
what the story is for this film and where it’s going. So along the way, you
really do have some surprises as this is a Marvel film. You get to post credit
scenes once, just kind of a little bit fun. And one is the meat. That is a
really nice nugget right now. So I thoroughly enjoyed the first noncredit scene
in this film and is this is a Marvel film. It just has a great sense of fun.
It’s a very watchable film. And in the scheme of the Marvel films, while it has
some heavier elements to it, it’s a more lighthearted entry into the Marvel
Cinematic Universe. With that said, let’s move on to the mixed aspects of this
film. And the first thing that comes to mind is the nineties setting. Now, some
of this is a lot of fun to see. Blockbuster RadioShack pocket pagers, pinball
machines, just the aesthetic is nice for me. As someone that was growing up
during the 90s, it’s also great to see a young Coalson in the film. He’s more
of a cameo kind of sprinkled throughout the film. But as it is a prequel, it
tries to answer some questions and give us hints of where certain things came
from. Some of it’s kind of interesting in some of it is cringe inducing bad.
Also, the soundtrack to the film at times is a lot of fun as they started
playing 90s pop songs. But other times it’s distracting.

It’s like they were trying too hard to be clever and they
killed the dramatic tension of certain scenes because of their song choices.
The film also is the return of some creepy characters from Guardians of the
Galaxy, where it’s nice to see them, but they don’t really add much to the
film. They could have been replaced by anyone else. They only included them to
be like, Hey, remember them from Guardians of the Galaxy. Another big mixed
aspect of this film was Brie Larson and Captain Marvel going into the film.
There’s a lot of controversy surrounding her acting because some of the
trailers portrayed her as very stiff in the film. She’s a lot more dynamic,
vibrant and especially sassy in the film. So I don’t think the trailers
represented her particularly well. But the character in the acting always felt
kind of off to me, almost like they were at an arm’s length away. Emotionally,
I never felt like we really understood what made her tick, what was she
thinking, what was motivating her. And a lot of the film, we’re told things
about her, but they don’t really show us those things about her. Even her
powers were pretty confusing. It was very unclear what her powers are and how
powerful she is, even at the end of the film. In one final mix thing on this
film was the special and visual effects. The aging in this film is fantastic.
There was not one time for any of it looked off to me. It just looked like they
pulled it off.

D Aging Samuel L. Jackson and Colson by twenty five years,
however, some of the others. Special effects where people are flying in space
and stuff like that definitely looked cartoony at times and didn’t I didn’t
fully buy it. With that said, let’s move on to the negative. The big problem
here is the film never feels like it has a single cohesive vision. The space
stuff feels like it’s directed by one person. The Nick Fury investigation feels
like it’s directed by another. And then the whole thing feels like Kevin Figi
put his shine on it. Contrast that with Infinity War, which also hops from
space to earth and franchise to franchise. But the whole film feels like it was
put together by one creative team. The whole film has one storytelling voice in
tone. This film, it feels like scene to seeing someone different was directing.
And I suspect that’s because this film had a pretty cluttered creative team.
There’s five people credited with the story, three credited screenwriters, two
credited directors, and then, of course, Kevin Figi doing his magic on the
whole thing. Another problem with the film is the pacing in the storytelling.
It does get better as it goes along. But the first act of this film is very
clunky, exposition, heavy and has incredibly awkward dialogue that just exist
to set up the characters in tell us everything we need to know about the
universe and the rules. I hinted at this before, but this movie has a lot of
weird performances that just feel off like the people acting in scenes together
are in totally different movies.

Annette Bening in particular, who has given great
performances, does not work inside this film at all. The movie also feels like
it has the exact wrong amount of flashbacks, or at least the way it uses them
is the exact wrong way. It cuts back to these flashback weird montages through
several different glimpses of her childhood in her upbringing. But it doesn’t
just these quick glimpses. And it felt like either cut that out entirely or
picked specific scenes in the flashbacks to zoom in on. But the way it used
them, it just felt very unsatisfying and like it didn’t show us what it thought
it was showing us. And finally, as this is a prequel, one of the answers the
movie gives as to how something happened is totally unforgivable. It would have
been much better to not answer the question than to offer this as the
explanation. Real quick, before I give you my final score on this one. Tell me,
what did you think Downbelow in the comment section? We’re going to disagree.
Just remember to do it respectfully. Come back tomorrow for my ranking of the
Marvel movies and come back on Sunday for my spoiler packed review of this
movie. And if you want some more model now, click right up here after this
video. It’s a fun movie with some great Nick Fury moments, but wildly uneven
storytelling. Acting in tone. Hold it back from being upper tier marble.

It’s a B minus overall seven point five on entertainment. If
you’re a model fan, of course, you got to see it in the theater. Everyone else
you can wait for Redbox. Come back this weekend for more Captain Marvel
content. Check out that playlist right over there for more Marvel. Now, thank
you so much for watching and keep talking movies too much.