This Captain Marvel movie……It’s…..
So lets get a few things out of the way. Going into this thing, I did not follow all the Brie Larson controversy that 4 chan & reddit managed to drum up over this movie. I was tangentially aware that it existed, but not following it at all. Also as a side bar, why are people getting out of sorts for a big ass fuckin Disney movie. Its a big ass blockbuster. No one gives a shit what your white boy ass thinks. Its time to stop being an asshole about anything with a female lead.
I also had to catch up on the MCU for this thing. The last MCU movie I saw in the theater was Age of Ultron. I had been seeing movies on streaming here or there, so I had to catch up. So alot of….fine….nothing to write home about movies later, we arrive at Captain Marvel.
And oh man, is this thing just bad…..its just bad.
Lets get the good stuff out of the way. The acting here is all good. Brie Larson holds her own with Samuel fucking L Jackson, which is not an easy thing to do. Hats off to her for that. Also, the anti-aging CGI has gotten SO MUCH BETTER. It honestly looks good, and thats really saying something. It makes me wonder what we are going to be able to do with these amazing actors in 10 years.
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Alright, that shit is out of the way. This movie is unberably clodding and dumb.
Lets start with the cinematography. Why does everything have to be dark all the time. Is it because Brie Larson cant fight convincingly? I cant see what the hell is going on. Why cant shit be well lit? Its like all the other scenes are lit just fine, but when we get to the action, BOOM lighting and color saturation goes wayyyyy down.
The score. Oh god the score. This movie suffers from the WATCHMEN issue, where they feel the need to hammer into your skull what time period this takes place in. In this case, Captain Marvel takes place in the 90s, so you as the audience HAVE to know its in the 90s. For example, for half of the movie, Brie Larson is wearing a NIN shirt. For no real reason. But, back to the music. The movie has somewhere around 10-15 top 50 billboard 90s alternative songs. Just constantly changing throughout the movie. And it just feels so lazy. The final fight scene in the movie is scored to No Doubt’s Just a Girl. Yup.
Which brings me to my next point, this movie is clearly trying to be MCU’s Wonder Woman. They both have similar themes of women being able to do anything, great message. But in Wonder Woman, it was never head on said. Its just implied. Again here, Marvel assumes you are too stupid to get any subtlety, so this is handled like presenting a thanksgiving turkey on a silver platter. 5-10 times throughout the movie Captain Marvel is either harassed by men, told she cant do something, or whatever. And its gets tiring. Like we get the point. Its a good one. Dont hamfist your own point by doing it over and over. Rule of 3’s dogg. Like if you woudl do the big kiss-off at the end (you know what I am talking about) and two more it would totally work. Not almost a dozen.
There is no high stakes in this movie. No one dies. Everyone lives. Everything is fine. Never once did I feel like our main character was in any danger. The movie tries to confuse you with an unreliable narrator trope, but you can see it coming a mile away. Its just not intelligent about anything it tries to do. You can see this movie coming over the horizon.
At one point in the film, they have to go to this character who knows more about what Captain Marvel forgot. And she is of course, from louisiana. So they go to her house, and make a big deal about it. Their location scout found the most boring Louisiana house of all time. And most of it takes place inside. There is absolutely nothing that makes me thing a) we needed to go there, b) it needed to be in louisiana, or c) these characters are from louisiana. If you woudl have told me this was filmed on a backlot in Vancouver, I would have totally believed you.
Lastly, absolutely nothing in this movie matters. If you are a fan of the MCU and want to continue the arc, you will learn nothing coming from here. This movie has two of the laziest after the credits stingers that Marvel has ever done. You know the stinger at the end of Infinity War that lead to this. That is absolutely all you need to know about Captain Marvel’s involvement in the MCU leading to avengers: endgame. Its just dissapointing to sit through YET ANOTHER 2 and half hour Marvel/Disney bloated machine movie in which nothing happens.
And I wanted this thing to succeed (and it will financially). I liked Captain Marvel in the books. This is just to lifeless for me to care.
1 out of 4 – This movie is like eating a tub of 2% greek yogurt for 2 and half hours. Bland and lifeless. The more I think about it. The more dissapointed I get. This thing is completely generic and forgettable. Skip it.