Captain Marvel

So this weekend, my family ventured forth from the Fortress of Ineptitude to go to the movies and dive into another adventure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain Marvel.

There’s a lot of pressure riding on this one, the first movie in the MCU starring a female lead.

Of course, we didn’t get this kind of pressure on other firsts in the MCU, did we?

There’s a lot of pressure riding on Ant Man, the first movie in the MCU starring an honorary cast member of Friends. (Paul Rudd was Phoebe’s husband on the final season of Friends.)

There’s a lot of pressure riding on Doctor Strange, the first movie in the MCU starring a British person, Benedict Cumberbatch.

There’s a lot of pressure riding on Black Panther, the first movie in the MCU starring a black person.

OK, scratch that last one. That seriously was a lot of pressure.

One year later, we’re back at it again.

On Brie Larson’s shoulders rest the fate and the future of females in film.

So how did Captain Marvel do?

Well, here we go.

Captain Marvel opens up big, on the vast vista of an alien world, Hala, home planet of the Kree.  Here we meet Brie Larson as… Vers, a Kree warrior with remarkable strength and energy powers but what she possesses in prowess and powers, she lacks in memory.  Her past is a blur, just jumbled shards of memory that flicker briefly on the periphery of her subconscious.  Vers relies on Yon-Rogg, her mentor, commander, trainer and perhaps even her friend who urges her to keep her emotions in check. It’s the same advice she gets from the Supreme Intelligence, an organic artificial intelligence who acts as the ruler of the Kree.

And everyone who’s read the comics, just keep quiet and let the movie people figure out stuff for themselves. 

Vers goes on a mission with other Kree fighters that brings them into conflict with the Skrull, a race of shape shifters the Kree have been at war with for centuries.  Vers is captured by a Skrull commander named Talos and forcibly subjected to a memory probe where we witness more flashes of memory, of a woman’s past on Earth. Vers frees herself, kicks a lot of Skrull ass and filches an escape pod that she inadvertently pilots to Earth, crashing into a Blockbuster Video store in Los Angeles. 

Welcome to Earth, circa 1995.

Her arrival attracts the attention of SHIELD and two young agents, Nick Fury and Phi Coulson. Her arrival is also tracked by a group of pursuing Skrulls.  Hell breaks loose while Vers attempts to run an attacking Skrull to ground while Nick Fury winds up killing a Skrull. It’s a shattering moment for Nick Fury who never considered threats from beyond our world. 

Vers loses her Skrull but she does recover a crystal shard, a record of the memories Talos had extracted from her. With the help of some petty theft and a cursory search of the very nascent 1990s internet, Vers finds her way to a bar  she saw from the memory crystal. Fury is no dummy as he follows the trail of petty theft and the use of a internet bar computer as he intercepts her at the bar.

Vers and Fury become best buds. Cautiously wary best buds. 

Now we’re just under half way through our movie and we’ve had a lot of action, adventure, drama and humor. It’s hard to deny this has been a rollicking film but we’ve still have some journey ahead of us before our star character gets a handle on who she really is. 

Stuff comes together as Vers finds out she was a U.S. Air Force pilot presumed dead in 1989 after testing an experimental engine designed by Dr. Wendy Lawson. Vers recognizes Lawson from the fragmented memories of her nightmares.  It seems Lawson was working in a light speed engine to help end a war, not win it.  

The trail next leads to Louisiana to have a chat with Maria Rambeau, a former pilot who was a friend of Vers from her former life.  Vers & Fury steal a Quadjet with Lawson's cat Goose stowing away.

Yes, Goose nearly steals the movie. 

Yes, Goose is more than just a cat.  

Our heroes and their cat fly to Louisiana where Maria and her daughter Monica fill in the gaps.

Vers learns her real name is Carol Danvers.

Wow, we don’t have much movie left and now we know what our lead character’s real name is? 

Then Talos shows up and our perspective on things takes a sudden shift. It seems the Skrulls are refugees searching for a new home and Lawson was a Kree renegade helping them.

Talos has some additional intel that sparks Carol’s memories of the fateful day when Dr. Lawson is mortally injured after a Kree attack led by Yon-Rogg. Oh no, what a shocking turn of events to learn that Yon-Rogg, Carol's Kree mentor, commander, trainer and friend is up to no good.

OK, the comic readers in the audience knew this already.

Lawson is revealed to be an alien (the blue blood was a clue) named Mar-Vell. Before she dies, she tells Carol her light speed engine must be destroyed to keep it out of Yon-Rogg’s hands. Carol shoots the engine which explodes and zaps Carol with alien energy. 

Plus side: she gets super powers. 

Down side: she loses her memories. 

We finally have arrived at the epic confrontation we’ve seen in the trailers: Carol bedecked in blue and red, glowing with pure power unleashed, zaps herself around space, kicking Kree ass like a total boss.

Vers has discovered Carol Danvers and her missing humanity even as she discovers the ultimate expression of her super powers. But as some wise or another once said, "With great power comes great responsibility" and even as Carol has rediscovered her human self, she must leave humankind behind to use her great powers to help the refugee Skrulls find a safe world of their own and also bring down the Kree, the Supreme Intelligence and kick everyone's war mongering ass. 

So this explains why Captain Marvel hasn't been on Earth for the last 25 years.

Not that Captain Marvel was technically on Earth in 1995. Two hours of movie go by and no one gets around to coining her super hero moniker.  Which must tick off DC Comics something fierce. DC can't call Billy Batson's alter ego Captain Marvel anymore because Marvel's using the name and even makes a film called Captain Marvel and then no one actually calls her Captain Marvel?  

By the way there is mid-credits scene with Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, and James Rhodes are monitoring the pager Nick Fury activated prior to his disintegration in Avengers: Infinity War. Then Carol Danvers shows up asking where Nick Fury is. 

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

OK, let me say that I enjoyed Captain Marvel. I want to see it again. Brie Larson's take on our cosmic ass kicker is a potent mixture of fierceness, determination, strength and humor. 

But I am a bit annoyed at the story structure that keeps Carol from the truth of her true self for most of the movie. She spends better than the first half of the movie being called Vers. It is a bit problematic that the central character of the narrative must be by default incompletely defined.

It does make for an interesting character arc as Vers/Carol peels away layer after layer about herself and her relationship with the only world she has known for 6 years. But as interesting as it is to follow that arc, the upshot is we're following a character who is not fully formed which is an awful lot to ask a movie goer.

It is to Brie Larson's credit that she still makes this character as incomplete as she is still compelling to watch. She may lack her specific memories of life on Earth but even when living fully as a Kree, she still has a wicked sense of humor and a bit of a temper. When we discover her true identity as Carol Danvers, it turns out those were traits associated with Carol. 

It's also a tad frustrating that Carol adopting the colors and expressing the full powers of her heroic persona happens so late in the movie. We've barely met (or even named) Captain Marvel before we have to say good-bye, not just to Carol at the end of the movie but to the character from the MCU, knowing she's off the table from 1995 to 2019 until she makes her appearance in Avengers: Endgame.  

I suppose it is the entertainer's goal to leave the audience wanting more. I enjoyed what we got but I wished we had more time with Carol Danvers. 

I wished we had more time with Captain Marvel.