Blog #34: Review of Captain Marvel

 First of all, I LOVE the way they changed the opening logo to showcase all of Stan Lee's cameos in all the MCU movies. What a great sendoff to the greatest storyteller of all time.

This movie is a much-needed shout-out to girl power. While most females included in comic book movies are relegated to glorified sidekicks, damsels in distress and/or nursemaids to their male counterparts, Carol Danvers shoves guys into the back seat and tells them to sit down, strap in, and shut up! She makes it abundantly clear throughout the movie that she doesn't need saving and, let's be honest here -- she's right! From her unrelenting questioning (or outright ignoring) of any form of authority to her saving the future badass Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. himself (multiple times!), Brie Larson throws typical tropes on their heads and then kicks them out the airlock! This movie makes it clear that, if not for her, there would have been neither a Nick Fury or an Avengers Initiative as we have come to know and Love them.

So, this movie is your typical origin story. Brie Larson plays "Vers," an amnesiac soldier in the Kree Star Force. She's got powers that she doesn't quite understand, apparently obtained in the dim past she cannot remember. Sent on a mission to locate an undercover agent, she's taken captive by the Skrull and has her brain pumped for information on a one Dr. Wendy Lawson and something called "Pegasus." She breaks loose, kicks a lot of Skrull ass and ends up crashlanding on Planet C-53 (90's-era Earth, 1995 to be exact) where she tries to find a way to stop the Skrull from getting their hands on light speed technology that would allow them to invade entire galaxies. Hijinks ensue, betrayals are discovered, and Vers comes into her own, ending the movie fully embracing her destiny as one of the most powerful beings in the Universe, destined to bitchslap Thanos a few good times before the end of End Game.

Personally, I think Brie Larson was born for this role. She is eminently believable as a badass, exudes a charismatic confidence and sly humour not often seen in female leads, and manages to pull off the difficult task of being cheeky without seeming to even try.

In this movie, we get to see a young Nick Fury in his earlier years as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., still with both his eyes. There are a couple nice "gotcha" moments where you expect him to have lost his eye, only for it not to have happened. I especially liked the way he dropped his hardass persona in the presence of Goose the cat. It's a nice, unexpected dimension of character for Nick Fury and Samuel L. Jackson.

We also get a nice look at Agent Colson with hair! Yeah!

Goose the..."cat" is an amazing addition to the movie. What his purpose is and how or why he does what he does is a mystery, but damn! I Love that cat! Flurkin power!

Some of the best scenes in this movie include:

1) Vers escaping the Skrull. This fight makes it perfectly clear that Vers is a legitimate badass. I mean, she beats the crap out of how many Skrull while whipping off one-liners, all while barefoot? (The answer is 20!) And to top it off, she then goes back to get her boots before blowing up the ship! And this is all with her hands encased in metal cylinders!

(I bet the Skrull rethought their restraint designs after that encounter!)

2) The Metro train fight scene. Note to regular people: if a woman dressed for Laser Tag hooks off on a sixty-year old woman and that old biddy responds by hopping out of her seat and dropkicking her attacker, I suggest letting this one play out, and *not* jumping to the defense of the old lady who clearly has something else going on.

3) Interrogating Nick Fury. C'mon, finding out that his first pet's name was Mr. Snoofles? Awesome! And her proof that she's not Skrull?

Vers: "That was a photon blast."
Fury: "So?"
Vers: "So, Skrull can't do that!" she says, looking at him like that should be common knowledge for any Terran.

4) Vers in a Guns N' Roses t-shirt, singing Lita Ford's Kiss Me Deadly. What?! I'm an 80's kid and that was hot!

5) Goose going full Flurkin on the Kree!

6) Vers versus The Supreme Intelligence.

Vers: "I've been fighting with one hand behind my back; but what happens when I'm finally set free?"

The answer, we quickly find out, is she kicks EVERYONE'S ass!

7) Carol Danvers forsaking the classic trope of goings hands up with her former commanding officer-turned nemesis in their final fight and simply blowing him away! After all, she's got nothing to prove to him.

8) The reveal on how Nick Fury got his eyepatch: "Mother Flurkin!"

9) Whooping Kree ass to No Doubt's "I'm Just a Girl."

10) Goose hocking up the Tesseract.

On the Cheshire Scale, I give this movie 4 Grins!

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