Posted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Marvel Studios, Movies, TV | Tagged: captain marvel, marvel, ms marvel, Review, the marvels

The Marvels Review: A Delightful If A Bit Messy Return To Form

The Marvels is a callback to when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was putting out some pretty good movies where not every aspect of them worked, but it's still a very enjoyable experience.

The Marvels feels like a return to form for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it is a film focused on telling the story of its three leading ladies and not future endeavors, and those three ladies are all a ton of fun to watch.

Director: Nia DaCosta
Summary: Carol Danvers gets her powers entangled with those of Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau, forcing them to work together to save the universe.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had an ongoing problem with nearly all of the movies that have been released post-Avengers: Endgame, and that is that they seem much more focused on teasing what is to come rather than telling a decent story. Even if the film tells one story, like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, there are characters like Adam Warlock's whose place in the narrative feels perfunctory and like it only exists because he'll be important later. The genius of the early MCU was that you didn't have to watch all of the movies to understand what was going on, but all of the Easter eggs and hints made you want to, and that is the kind of film that The Marvels feels like.

While it is a film with a slight barrier to entry in terms of who Monica (Teyonah Parris) and Kamala (Iman Vellani) are, the film does walk that very thin line of telling you enough but not overloading you with too much information. It's one of the things that many people were worried about with this film, and while it does make the first act and some of the second act a bit messy, it's the kind of messy that is familiar because it's the same messy we see at the beginning the Avengers.

The thing that very much helps is that Kamala and Monica are both absolutely delightful from the moment you see them on screen, with Kamala being the standout. Vellani was already great in this role in the TV show, but getting to see full-blown fangirl Kamala, which is only about two steps away from full-blown fangirl Iman, is just infectious. Nothing about her is even a little cringy because she has some big Peter Parker energy in the best way. Monica is so interesting to watch because this is a fully grown woman trying to be a badass Captain and a person with powers while also being a little girl who is very sad that her Aunt Carol (Brie Larson) wasn't around.

One of the criticisms of Captain Marvel was that Carol didn't have much range, and The Marvels is giving her plenty of range. We see how the events of the first film have impacted her and how she is still recovering from that, how shouldering everything from The Blip was weighing on her, and the banter she has with Fury is top-tier. We don't get to see Nick Fury act like he is legitimately friends with many people, but we see that on screen with Carol, even if there isn't enough of it.

The characters are very much the focus of The Marvels and develop the dynamic between the three women and what they learn from each other. The early Marvel films put the heroes as the focus first, and that is what makes this film feel like something from later in Phase Two rather than Phase Five. Something else that is very "early Marvel" is that our villain, Darr-Benn (Zawe Ashton), gets the shortest end of the stick, which is a shame. It's always fun when a villain has a legitimate grievance with one of the heroes that we can all understand, and she is the kind of villain who very much believes she is the hero. Her intentions are noble in the end, even if the execution is extremely bloody, tinged with some old-school revenge.

It's not a perfect movie. As previously mentioned, the beginning is a bit messy, and it takes a little while for the film to find its footing. Still, considering the interviews we have had with writer and director Nia DaCosta, you have to wonder if that chaos and messiness was a bit intentional, given what our Marvels are going through. A lot was also made about the runtime, and, as said in the first paragraph, far too many phase four and five movies padded out their runtimes with extended scenes only meant to tease things to come [looking at you Zeus scene in Thor: Love and Thunder]. The Marvels doesn't waste that time, so the film is brisk, and DaCosta does an excellent job of making sure that everything is moving well enough along.

The fight scenes are also well done, though they can be a little hard to follow at times. However, considering all of the switchings that the characters are doing, you would expect it to be worse, but DaCosta frames the crap out of these scenes. While there are moments when you're wondering who, what and where, that seems intentional because that is what it feels like for the Marvels. They are also thrown around and sometimes end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Marvels is a callback to when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was putting out some pretty good movies where not every aspect of them worked, but it's still a very enjoyable experience. Like those other imperfect films, there are plenty of things to nitpick; however, by the time the credits roll, the good far outweighs the bad. There is no need for these films to become trailers for more movies down the line; they can stand more or less on their own, and we can hope that more of phase five will follow that example set by The Marvels if nothing else.

The Marvels

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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8.5/10

The Marvels feels like a return to form for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it is a film focused on telling the story of its three leading ladies and not future endeavors, and those three ladies are all a ton of fun to watch.

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