Captain Marvel: A New Age For The MCU?

I have a confession to make. I have only ever watched two MCU films in a movie theatre. The first was last year's Black Panther, which has renewed my interest in the MCU, so much so, that I went back to previous films in the MCU that I hadn't watched and watched them. I then missed out on seeing the spectacle that was Avengers: Infinity War in the cinema (I really regret that now, I recently watched it on DSTv and I really enjoyed it) and also Ant-Man And The Wasp. However, I have now vowed to follow the MCU more closely, cause it is (at this current moment) the best superhero cinematic universe out there.

I first became aware of the MCU in 2012, at the tender young age of 13, when the first Avengers film came out. At the time, there really wasn't anything like it. It was the first major crossover event in the MCU and is the reason many film studios (ahem, Warner Brothers) are now attempting to emulate the MCU's success with crossover films (their primary competitor being the DCEU). However, nobody has really been able to achieve the critical and commercial success that the MCU, under the guidance of Disney and Marvel Studios, has achieved in the past eleven years.

For me, however, my interest in the MCU was dead by 2016, with disappointments like Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 3 and the highly anticipated but lackluster Avengers: Age of Ultron killing it, resulting in me returning to 2oth Century FOX's X-Men films, after the smashes of X-Men: Days of Future Past and Deadpool. The last MCU film to truly have my attention was 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy, which came out of nowhere (before 2014, I am 100% certain that mainstream audiences didn't know who Rocket Racoon, Groot, Drax and Star-Lord were) to become a critical and commercial success, and my favorite MCU film at the time.

It wasn't until Black Panther came out in February last year, that my interest in the MCU was rejuvenated. People had told me before then that the MCU had recovered, with films like Thor Ragnarok and Spider-Man Homecoming leading the charge, but I still didn't care. But Black Panther made me take notice of the MCU again, not just because of its social and cultural significance (it was the first superhero film with a predominantly black main cast), but because it just so happens to be one of the greatest superhero films of all time. It was so good, in fact, that it became the first MCU film I saw in a cinema, I just couldn't' miss out on being a part of it.

Anyways, onto today's review. Captain Marvel had a massive amount of hype behind it, for many reasons. For one, it is the first female-led superhero film in the MCU, it introduces several important things from the comics to the MCU (the Skulls, the Supreme Intelligence, the list goes on) and it had a very solid main cast, with Brie Larson taking up the role of Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, the partly alien protagonist of the film, and Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg and Lee Pace reprising their roles from previous MCU films (Jackson as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury, Gregg as his partner Phil Coulson, and Pace as Ronan The Accuser).

This review won't contain major spoilers, but the plot is basically about Carol Danvers returning to Earth after mysteriously vanishing six years ago with no memory of who she once was, while trying to prevent an alien invasion of Earth. The story is set in the 1990s (specifically 1995) and contains many references to aspects of 90s life, such as music from the time, dial-up internet, pagers and a Blockbuster video store.

Carol Danvers is extremely powerful in the film (perhaps maybe a bit too powerful?) and the action setpieces are, as can be expected from an MCU film, of exceptional quality. I enjoyed the acting throughout the film, and the story was rather enjoyable, but I do have to talk about how much I actually enjoyed the film.

While I really enjoyed the film, I didn't enjoy it as much as a few previous MCU films. I still feel that Black Panther, Thor Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Spider-Man Homecoming, the two Guardians of the Galaxy films, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War are much better films, simply because I enjoyed them far more.

I put my blame mostly on the character of Carol Danvers herself. She doesn't feel as developed or as well-rounded as most of the other characters in the MCU. In fact, I found her to be boring at some points, and lacking anything interesting. Another problem is her power level. She is so incredibly powerful and destructive, that it makes me wonder where in the galaxy she was when some of the MCU's biggest crises (Thanos' quest for the Infinity Stones, the Chitauri invasion of New York, Ego's plan to destroy the universe etc) occurred. She suffers from some of the same reasons I cannot feel any sense of tension in a Superman movie. Her power level, like Superman's, is so massive that there cannot possibly be a way to defeat them, the only difference is that, in most adaptations of Superman, he has a weakness to Kryptonite, which weakens him and can also kill him. Carol Danvers, in this film, doesn't seem to have any weaknesses of any kind, and this kinda removes most of the tension in the film, because I kinda know she'll win anyways.

Bar that, I'd still recommend seeing Captain Marvel. It does live up to the hype, but for me, it doesn't exceed it, simply because I enjoyed other MCU movies more than this one. If I had rated Black Panther on here, I would've given it a 9,3/10, and that is my favorite MCU film. Thor Ragnarok would be next, with an 8,8/10, then Guardians of the Galaxy (8,6/10), Avengers: Infinity War (8,5/10), Captain America: Civil War(8,4/10), The Avengers (8,3/10), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (8,3/10), Spider-Man Homecoming (8,1/10) and then Captain America: The Winter Soldier (8,0/10). Captain Marvel gets a 7,9/10 from me, which, I should explain, is a good rating, but it didn't do quite enough for me for me to give it a great rating. Nevertheless, I'd still recommend going out to see it in the cinema.