Captain Marvel (2019) is the first Marvel
superhero movie with a woman in the lead. Previous similar case was DC's Wonder Woman (2017), which I failed to see on the big screen, despite my best efforts.
Captain Marvel, however, I managed to see at the premiere. This is an English
version of the movie review I published in Finnish on this blog mere
hours after the premiere.
Captain
Marvel is a classic Marvel superhero originally from 1960's, but there has been
numerous incarnations of the character over the decades. They have in turn continued
their adventures under a different name, resulting into a rather confusing
tangle of characters, and history between them.
To make
things even more complicated, there is a completely different Captain Marvel as
well. The character begun his adventures in 1940's in comic books by Fawcett Publications.
The character became popular, and was soon in the teeth of National Comics, the
publisher of Superman. National claimed Captain Marvel to be a copy of
Superman, resulting into a years long legal fight. Eventually, Fawcett got fed
up, stopped publishing superhero comics altogether, and sold the character to
its rival, now called DC Comics.
Captain
Marvel stayed as a part of DC's superhero roster until Marvel Comics sued DC in
turn, claiming they owned the name, because they had their own Captain Marvel
now, and DC's hero had remained unused for too long. As a result DC was forced
to change the name of its character to "Shazam", which is the word Captain
Marvel used to turn into a superhero. The movie of the same name that's about
to hit theatres soon is based on this character.
The first Marvel
Comics' Captain Marvel was Mar-Vell, a member of Kree space race.
The Avengers came into the contact with the character, which led them to a cosmic
slugfest, both with human resembling Kree, as well as vile, shape-shifting Skrulls. Eventually Captain Marvel died of cancer, somewhat atypically for a superhero,
and remains one of the few Marvel characters not yet brought up from the grave.
Since then,
Captain Marvel has been a white woman as well as a black one, as the writers
have tried to keep up with the changing times. The most popular of the modern
versions is probably the former one, an ex US Air Force officer Carol Danvers,
who is also the one holding the title at the moment. It is also the version the
Captain Marvel movie now in theatres in based on.
Most people
I spoke with about Captain Marvel before the premiere had high expectations of the
film. A big reason for this was the fact this was indeed the first time there
would be a Marvel superhero movie with a woman in the lead. As we all know, we
never got to see a Black Widow movie, or one of her and Hawkeye, which is
why their characters were so thin in the Avengers movies. In fact, when it comes to MCU, women in general have mostly been in the sidelines.
I admit being sceptical about the film, partly due to all of the pre-hype. Not because there was a woman in the lead, but because I had seen over the years way too many superhero origin story movies
with the same formula. Superhero gets one's powers, learns to use them, grows
as a person and finally beats up the main villain. Wonder Woman (2017) for example was
a something of a disappointment for me, even though I am a big fan of the
character.
They could
have made such a Captain Marvel movie, as well. With basic Marvel's baddies like
the Skrulls around, there would have been an ideal opportunity to make a
story in which the titular hero beats them as well as the big main Skrull
bad guy at the end, saving the Earth. Therefore I am pleased to say Captain
Marvel avoids these pitfalls quite nicely, and manages to be a refreshingly
different kind of a superhero movie. It even succeeds to surprise the viewer a
few times, since everything is not what it seems in this movie.
Chronologically,
the narrative has been broken up in the film. The viewer gets dropped in the
middle of the action, into the life of Brie Larson's character as a Kree, a life
she remembers only for the past six years. As the movie progresses we get to
know who and what she really is.
The
character's origin story and the growth as a person are there, but done in different
way than usually. It seems the writers of the movie realized the audience has
seen the same story countless times already. They only need to refer to the
childhood of the character, and the audience knows how to join to the dots to
form the whole picture themselves.
In the
course of the past ten years, Marvel has showed an admirable diligence as it
has built a cinematic universe of movies that work together seamlessly. However,
with some of the movies it is hard not to sense a feeling of staleness, simply
because you can tell the same story only so many times. For me Ant-Man and the
Guardians of the Galaxy movies, as well Ragnarök have been breaths of fresh air.
Therefore it is positive Captain Marvel's strong points lie in the same
direction.
Whether or
not the character's gender plays a role in the movie is a hard thing to
define. One could quite easily to see a man in the role, because what the
titular character does in the movie has nothing to do with gender. However, there
are a couple of scenes where the question of gender plays an important role, for example as
the character picks herself up from the floor near the end of the movie. I
would even call it a key scene. I also noticed one reference to the criticism expressed
by male fans claiming that Brie Larson doesn't smile enough.
Still, as I
watched the movie as an assumed male I didn't feel any way not belonging to a target
audience, or that it was intended primarily for women. Reason for this may be
the lack of any kind of romantic sub-plot, something that seems to be a must in
movies these days. Therefore, the film's two-hour-long duration was more or
less tightly-packed action, with the just right amount of sentimentality
involved.
When it
comes to gender, it is also noteworthy that Brie Larson's character wasn't objectified
or even sexualized at any point. The costume used by her is commendably
functional, and the movie doesn't include a single unnecessary clothes change or
shower scene. In the absence of a romantic sub-plot there isn't a compulsory bedroom
scene either. The film even passes the Bechdel test with flying colors.
The film being set in 1990's has gathered understandable attention among the fans
and media. The film contains a nice amount of references to the era, and even though they
could have used it even more, it was most likely a wise decision not to overdo
it. There is a lot of nostalgia especially in the early part of the film, as
the titular character crashes into the Blockbuster video store, these days
better known as Netflix. The nostalgia can also be heard on the soundtrack, most successfully
in a scene where the hero kicks some ass with the No Doubt's
"Just A Girl" paying in the background.
Brie Larson
plays a tough, hard-bitten, human character who is not
dolled up and is delightfully far from the stereotypes reserved for women
in adventure movies. Equally important in the movie is the character of young
Nick Fury, and Samuel Jackson manages to steal
many of the scenes he is involved in. What makes the film work is the undeniable chemistry
between the two characters. As I've understood, Larson
and Jackson
The rest of
the cast is largely overshadowed by this duo, including the bad guys. In fact,
the movie doesn't even include one main villain, only a number of individuals
who do what they do, all for their own reasons. The film also plays with genre
clichés and expectations based on other similar movies.
The
character's origin story follows the comic book version quite faithfully, even
though taking liberties necessary for the character to sit in with the cosmic
storyline rapidly approaching its conclusion in Endgame. The movie is also a nice prequel for the other MCU movies,
and tells what happened before Iron Man (2008), including where, how and by
whom Nick Fury lost his eye.
And
naturally, the movie includes Stan Lee's last, very fitting cameo. A tear escaped
my eye, as the movie was already progressing with full speed, as I realized
that was it. Safe travels, Uncle Stan. The opening titles also include a
beautiful, funny Stan Lee tribute, that was given a spontaneous applause in the premiere. The same was heard
after the ending titles.
