Marvel May - Captain Marvel (2019)

          Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, after Warner Bros. and DC had success with Wonder Woman in 2017, it was only a matter of time before Marvel released their own mainstream superhero film led by a woman. And in March of 2019, we got that film: Captain Marvel. 

            The movie focuses on Vers, a warrior who lost her memory and was taken in by the Kree, and joins StarForce, led by her mentor Yon-Rogg. After a conversation with the Supreme Intelligence, a Kree A.I. that controls the Kree homeworld, Vers and StarForce head to a planet, where the populace has been infiltrated, and replaced, by a race of shape shifters known as Skrulls. The Skrulls capture Vers, and go through her dormant memories of her past, looking for one individual specifically: Dr. Wendy Lawson. The Skrull leader, Talos, sets course for Earth, and Vers escapes confinement, crashing onto the planet Earth, landing inside a Blockbuster Video store in the year 1995. 

            Local authorities are called in, as is S.H.I.E.L.D, and Agent Nick Fury investigates the crash, as well as a break in at the nearby RadioShack. Vers runs off, with S.H.I.E.L.D. in pursuit, as the Skrulls have now infiltrated Earth's populace and taken on human form. Fury reasons with Vers, and the two agree to work together. Yon-Rogg, meanwhile, gathers his crew and begins to head towards Earth, looking to wipe out the Skrulls for good. Vers and Fury, meanwhile, track down Maria Rambeau, and her young daughter Monica, who reveal that Vers, who'd been suspecting she had a life on Earth, is in fact human, and her name is Carol Danvers. Carol, Maria, and Fury listen to a flight recorder, and it's revealed that Dr. Lawson was a Kree, Mar-Vell, who wanted to help the Skrulls as opposed to eliminating them the way the other Kree did, and Yon-Rogg attacked the two of them, shooting the power core of an experimental aircraft, pouring all of its energy into Carol, giving her her powers. 

        Knowing what she now knows, Carol decides to continue Mar-Vell's work, and decides to help the Skrulls, taking Talos, along with Maria and Fury, to Mar-Vell's ship, orbiting the Earth. On the ship are a number of other Skrulls, including Talos' wife Soren. And the energy source that Mar-Vell was experimenting with? The Tesseract. Anyway, StarForce attacks, Carol unleashes her full powers, and Yon-Rogg is defeated. Fury gets his eye scratched out by a cat, which turns out to be an alien called a Flerken. Carol decides to help lead Talos and the Skrulls to find a new home, leaving Earth behind, but giving Fury a high-tech pager for just in case. Fury, back in his S.H.I.E.L.D. office, puts together a project pitch, based on a belief that more superpowers individuals like Carol could exist, and takes her old Air Force call sign to name the project: the Avengers Initiative. 

       A mid-credits scene, set after Infinity War, sees the Avengers trying to piece together what's going on, and figure out who Fury tried to signal, for Natasha Romanoff to turn around and see Carol, who asks where Fury is. A post-credits scene in 1995 has the Flerken spit out the Tesseract onto Fury's desk, having swallowed it during the fight in space. 

        Captain Marvel was a fun movie. Not a perfect movie, as the story was lacking just a little bit, but it was fun nonetheless. Brie Larson, Lashawna Lynch, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Clark Gregg, and Samuel L. Jackson were all terrific in this movie. This movie, which was dedicated to the memory of Stan Lee, also contains my personal favorite Stan Lee cameo, as it's Stan, sitting on a bus, rehearsing one of his lines for his appearance in Mallrats, which is my all-time favorite Kevin Smith film. 

            I also really liked the subversion in this movie, as in the comics, Skrulls we're traditionally bad guys and Kree were good guys, but in the movie that was reversed. This particular group of Skrulls were good guys, and Yon-Rogg, a Kree, of StarForce was the bad guy. Now, I can't talk about this movie without discussing the slight bit of controversy that surrounded the film back in 2019. During a press tour for the movie, Brie Larson, who plays Carol Danvers, suggested that there should be a more diverse group of film critics attending these press tours than the same group of "middle aged white guys" that are part of it. This led to an uproar if Marvel fans, acting like babies, calling to boycott the movie, and even review bombing it on websites like Rotten Tomatoes, just because of Brie's comments. This plan backfired, as critics enjoyed the film, and Larson's performance, and it made over a billion dollars worldwide at the box office.  

          I, myself, find that it was just okay. Brie Larson was okay, the story was okay, and the directing by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck was okay. The thing I really liked about the movie was the fact that it was set in the year 1995. With projects like It, Stranger Things, and Wonder Woman 1984 all being set in the eighties, it's refreshing to see a mainstream superhero film set in the nineties. Overall, not among the best of Phase Three, I'm giving Captain Marvel a rating of 4/5. 

        As for the future of Captain Marvel's story? Well, a now adult Monica Rambeau, played by Teyonah Parris, was heavily featured in the Disney+ series WandaVision, we're getting a Disney+ series called Ms. Marvel starring Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, and both Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani will be reprising their Disney+ roles in an upcoming Captain Marvel sequel film titled The Marvels, which will see the return of Brie Larson as Carol Danvers. That film hits theaters November 11, 2022. 

          This is Chuck signing off. Join me this Saturday as we wrap up Phase Three with Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home.