Saw Captain Marvel on Friday night, wasn't that impressed. It's... fine. Inoffensive. It has nothing on Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor Ragnarok, probably the two best in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and films it seems to be trying hard to emulate. It never seems to commit as strongly to the comedy angle, unable to break out of the muddled tonality of most Marvel scripts. It's all played very safe, which is probably exactly what you'd expect.
With spoilers:
The confusion of the Tesseract timeline did the film no favours and left me looking it up on the wiki straight afterwards, which is never a good thing.
I thought Goose the cat was a pointless addition, irrelevant to the plot and played for cheap laughs. I'm not a big comic fan so was not aware of it from there, and if I had been I would have tolerated it more. Still, the film shouldn't rely on the inclusion of something only being worthwhile if you're already familiar with the source material.
In the finale there was no tension or sense of danger as Carol's powers were never well defined or given limit. Without establishing any rules it was impossible to judge how difficult the situation she faced was for her, so instead her victory seemed somewhat inevitable. It isn't a good setup for her appearance in the new Avengers. Could Captain Marvel beat Thanos in a fight? Who knows, she's a magic space wizard and that's about all I can tell you. Power creep is a continuing concern for me in the MCU.
The tribute to Stan Lee at the very start is very well done, and seemed to get a great reaction in the cinema.
It's all about opinions. Disagree with a lot of that. I'll post later to explain. I think this could be another film that polarises opinion and a lot of your comments are debate stimulating and certainly throw up some questions for future films - most immediately end game.
For me - Marvel have answered or solved questions /problems pretty well so far in other films. I expect them to do so again.
I enjoyed it, shes the character Ive known least about going into an MCU movie, something I think will apply to a lot of poeple and they did a good job of setting her up. I think the issue of her being overpowered is a valid one, its one of the reasons I hate Superman so much, but I think in a bubble it worked fine to show off what she can do. Im really excited to see how she fits in during Endgame, I think well see much more context for her powers there.
I also like how they side stepped the secret wars idea to a large extent, I wasnt high on the idea of potentially outing existing Avengers as Skrulls and undoing a lot of the good work the other movies have already done. This idea looks like its completely off the table now which I think is a good thing, waving away existing character arcs as the actions of shapeshifters could have gotten very messy.
I think her powers will have limits or can be offset. The obvious issue is that her link to the space infinity stone throws up the question - Thanos still has that stone and all the others. Does this give him control or some immunity to her power. Or can he negate or remove it. How she affects the balance is key really.
In terms of the humour - I thought it struck a balance between guardians and Thor and the more Poe faced marvel ones. I think the balance they struck was pretty spot on but use of humour and how much it can augment or can detract from the story is a fine line.
The addition of the cat I thought was genius. But I love cats because of that hidden (partially) lethality they have.
I think you're right, and they clearly have it planned out themselves, but I find it frustrating when the rules aren't defined upfront to the viewer. I don't feel like there is much of a satisfying pay-off when things just happen and get justified after the fact, rather than being well set up but hidden from the viewer through sleight of hand. Speculation for Endgame is sort of pointless as it could go in any direction at the moment. Captain Marvel introduced Carol's character but not so much her abilities, other than a finale where she seemed capable of pretty much anything. It wasn't satisfying to me as either a standalone film or as a set up for Endgame. Whatever happens with her in Endgame, you'll probably not need to have seen Captain Marvel to understand it. It makes perfect sense why they'd do that from a business perspective (more people are going to see Avengers) but from an overall story perspective it leaves the film with little value.
EDIT:
On the humour I think we agree that Captain Marvel falls somewhere between the outright comedy of GOTG and Ragnarok and the more "poe faced" Marvel films, but for me that's not a comfortable place to land. I find that the comedy detracts from the drama, and vice versa, and would prefer more of a commitment either way (and preferably towards the comedy when it comes to Marvel). Mileage will definitely vary.
I don't actually think we disagree tbh OR. Except that I do think it's pretty important to see this one before endgame. I think with this one - there would be an amount of trust from Marvel that fans would grasp many of the principles. There's been so many origins stories that a fresh approach to a new characters opener was welcome for me. I didn't find her overpowered at all. Just far more powerful than any of her contemporaries in the film. Yet with greater fragility and less certainty as well. Marvel's problem now is how to offset that. Superman suffered from a lack of real or many real threats. Can they avoid that with her?
The backstory - her struggle in coming to terms with what she is and isn't, her journey to a much needed epiphany (and her then joyously letting rip) were done brilliantly for me. But it does throw up so many questions and potential future niggles. I think a few will be answered in a months time. I think the end of infinity wars showing Fury paging her was perhaps seen as too convenient by some. Oh the big bad has just won against all the superheroes? Don't worry folks we've got an even bigger superhero to put it right. She seems to negates the need for the avengers in the first place. I think this film explains some of that and hints that Endgame and phase four will address that. Like I said - Marvel look like they're up to the job.
Saw it last Friday, so forgive me if I'm a little cloudy on a couple of plot details but it was.... fine?
It was perfectly enjoyable, and I'm also going to be upfront that most of my criticisms only came to me chatting with my mates after the movie. Whilst I was on the ride I was having great fun. But a gooseberry fool ton of stuff happened, particularly in the finale, where I started to think 'Wait, what?'.
First, I didn't think Larson was particularly great. She was quite flat and didn't have the charm to pull off such a snarky character, and I thought her interactions with Jackson were often really poor. Or, if not poor, at least underwhelming. Loads of the funny moments fell really flat too.
But the things that annoyed me were less to do with Larson and more to do with the writing, particularly because is didn't work that well as an origin story. Hands up, I had no idea who Captain Marvel was going in to the cinema. Knew none of the backstory or the comic lore or anything, so I went in completely blind. Problem was, my understanding of her character was pretty much the same ten minutes in compared to my understanding at the end. If anything, I had less understanding at the end than I did at the beginning. Like, during the training montages with Jude Law and he's doing all the 'let go of your emotions' kinda thing and I thought 'right, this will go one of two ways - it's playing on the 'Women are too emotional to be powerful' thing and she'll learn to control her feelings (which would be dumb, because that just reinforces the bad stereotype of women being too emotional) or 'Actually her emotions are the source of her power' which it....sorta does? But she doesn't realise this as part of character development and embrace it as a character moment, it's just 'Nah you got a maguffin in yo strawberry floatin head' and she pulls it out. That's not character development just plot gubbins.
Then at the climax, there's that weird montage of moments of her standing up in defiance of all the men telling her that she's a girl and doesn't belong there and I thought 'Wait, what?'. Are you trying to tell me that the theme of the movie is that she's not 'Just a Girl' and, No Doubt about that, but when was that ever the theme of the movie? The clips were all flashbacks to well before she was an established kickass fighter pilot which showed that she'd already overcome all the men telling her to stay down, and none of the interactions with the male characters in the movie are framed like that. Jude Law never belittled her for being a woman, Jackson seemed to treat her as a formidable equal, as did her friend and mentor. Like, none of the actual movie plots revolved around her being dismissed as being inferior as a woman, so why do we care that she's standing up against those expectations? She's been doing that all movie, and established that she was doing that before the plot kicked off, sooooo it's never part of her character?
So as an origin story it was lacking. It didn't make me understand her character, it just told me who she was in the first ten minutes, and then sent her on an adventure. She's exactly the same at the end of the movie, character wise, as she is at the beginning. I mean, compare that to Iron Man, who starts off as a billionaire arms dealer ignorant to the effects of his trade who gets humbled and then sees the impact of his lifestyle and uses his resources and wealth for good. Dr Strange is an arrogant selfish surgeon bastard who gets humbled by the loss of his hands and finds deeper meaning on his journey to reclaim them. Ant Man is a feckless loser who gets a chance at redemption through using his skills to help rather than steal and in the process gets his life back on track and gets his daughter back.
Carol Danvers is a kickass soldier and awesome pilot with no memory and finds out that her dreams are real and before she lost her memory she was actually.... a kickass soldier and awesome pilot. Oh, but in the process she basically becomes a God, which must be nice for her. So at the very end of the origin story of someone who's being introduced as a foil to the main villain of the last decade of films and our last bit of information is 'all the rules we've just established have changed and so now you have no idea what this character can do going into the biggest film of the entire franchise'. I think that's what annoyed me the most, the movie was meant to be an origin film for a pretty niche characters and the only thing we can take into Endgame is 'I have no idea what this character can do now, and so I have no idea what the stakes are now'.
Soundtrack was good though.
Karl wrote:Can't believe I got baited into expressing a political stance on hentai
I think Skarjo you should have read up before going in. She really isn't a niche character. You seemed to have missed the point with a lot of it. I think the way she fought for acceptance as a woman on earth is mirrored in her fight for acceptance as a warrior on kree or in Starforce. Maybe that's a little too pat or its not done in a sophisticated enough way for everyone's satisfaction.
First and foremost - if the chemistry between her and Jackson is not to your liking then you aren't going to rate this film. That's not a criticism - I loved it but don't expect everyone to. It's like with the cat. I loved it and found the way they used that hilarious. But I accept why others would find it perhaps gimmicky or too obviously played for laughs.
Like I said previously - I did think this film would polarise opinion. It's been an interesting and stimulating debate so far though.
Don't think there's spoilers there but just in case.
I think Skarjo you should have read up before going in. She really isn't a niche character. You seemed to have missed the point with a lot of it. I think the way she fought for acceptance as a woman on earth is mirrored in her fight for acceptance as a warrior on kree or in Starforce. Maybe that's a little too pat or its not done in a sophisticated enough way for everyone's satisfaction.
First and foremost - if the chemistry between her and Jackson is not to your liking then you aren't going to rate this film. That's not a criticism - I loved it but don't expect everyone to. It's like with the cat. I loved it and found the way they used that hilarious. But I accept why others would find it perhaps gimmicky or too obviously played for laughs.
Like I said previously - I did think this film would polarise opinion. It's been an interesting and stimulating debate so far though.
Don't think there's spoilers there but just in case.
Just to your first point, I completely disagree that you should be expected to do any reading up before going to see a movie. If it's a sequel, fair enough you could argue that you should be familiar with the previous instalment. If it's a big extended universe movie like this then I'll admit that there can be details that might make more sense to the viewers fully up to date with the series, but each movie should still be self contained enough that a first time viewer can still make sense of it. And the thing is, the MCU was actually really good at that. Even the big Avengers movies, possibly bar Infinity War (which is the only one I've not seen with newbies) are self-contained enough that they make broad narrative sense. But an origins story? No one should be expected to have homework before seeing an origins story. It's right there in the name!
Now I'm not saying that the movie was nonsensical or anything, but there was a complete absence of meaningful character arc over the course of the movie, so if you're saying I should have read up beforehand to understand the bits that were character development then that's a failure of the film.
And that's the thing about the way she fought for acceptance as a fighter on Earth or abroad, we don't actually get to see any of that. We get told about it as a fight that she has already won before the movie starts. And that's fine, I get that, that's not the story they wanted to tell. Maybe the scenes of someone repeatedly failing at military training but always getting back up would have been too reminiscent of Captain America's origin story. Maybe they wanted to acknowledge that their feminine hero overcame challenges in her past but wanted to focus on a story where she's already a capable badass on page one. Cool, go for it. But there still has to be development. The character that ends the movie is functionally identical to the one who starts the movie, except for getting more powers that she didn't really need to do anything to earn bar take off her hearing aid.
For me it's like this; at the end of Infinity War, when the dustings go off and Fury uses the pager, I was like 'Holy gooseberry fool, who's that?'. This is a character that Fury has known about for the whole series, but never called on. Not when New York was under attack, not when Ultron was trying to smash cities into the ground, not even when whatever minor nonsense happens in the Ant Man movies. But this, in absolutely man's darkest hour, is someone Fury wants to bring in. Who is this person, what can she do? And so at the start of the movie we get a kickass action hero. Already capable, already a fighter, boom. Good. Now lets see how she becomes the only person Fury trusts with the fate of the world.
And then... we don't. She just gets bigger powers by ripping out her airpods and then flies off to help with a bunch of refugees. In fairness, that's the exact ending of Ragnorok too to all intents and purposes. She's still the same kickass fighter she was at the beginning. Sure, she's found out some stuff about her past, but her past is just her being the same kickass fighter she was at the start of the film. Moreover, she doesn't actually use her new memories to change anything about herself, only to change sides in a war. That's not really character development, that's plot development.
Again, it seems like I'm hating on the film and I'm not, it was a fun ride. But in terms of wondering how this character is going to fit into Endgame, I could have walked out of the movie fifteen minutes in and so long as someone told me she gets loads more powers, I'd have every bit of understanding of her character as I did walking out two hours later.
Karl wrote:Can't believe I got baited into expressing a political stance on hentai
I saw this last night, rather than try and go in depth I’m just going to say I liked it, thought it had a bit of a slow start but after the first few scenes (once she meets Fury) it picks up nicely. Amazing special effects in the closing scenes as well.
One minor criticism (which probably isn’t a criticism really but I don’t know what else to call it) was that the two post credit scenes were quite easy to predict, first one I guessed before I’d even gone to see it (still a superb scene though) and the second one I guessed once the cat had swallowed the tesseract and it hadn’t resurfaced by the end
Skarjo wrote:Carol Danvers is a kickass soldier and awesome pilot with no memory and finds out that her dreams are real and before she lost her memory she was actually.... a kickass soldier and awesome pilot. Oh, but in the process she basically becomes a God, which must be nice for her. So at the very end of the origin story of someone who's being introduced as a foil to the main villain of the last decade of films and our last bit of information is 'all the rules we've just established have changed and so now you have no idea what this character can do going into the biggest film of the entire franchise'. I think that's what annoyed me the most, the movie was meant to be an origin film for a pretty niche characters and the only thing we can take into Endgame is 'I have no idea what this character can do now, and so I have no idea what the stakes are now'.
This is pretty spot on for me. The film introduces her character, but you're right that it doesn't particularly develop it. It's the lack of development of her powers and their limits that I find to be the biggest problem.
I also think the comparison to Iron Man is a good one and highlights what made that such a good template for the whole cinematic universe to follow. In twenty films I think Iron Man has only been bettered two or three times.
I do always enjoy Nick Fury and Agent Coulson though, and thought they continued to be fun in this film.
I'm quite happy going into Endgame without knowing that Marvel can just obliterate Thanos, the self contained nature of many of the films in the series means that we probably shouldn't be bringing across any preconceptions derived from other films. My take home from the film was that the audience are supposed to be unsure about the range of her powers just like she is.
See, I can actually see Endgame being very Marvel centric. Most of the other characters are so weakened and desolate that Endgame basically being Marvel going head to head with Thanos, getting beaten, getting backup and finally triumphing would actually make for a half decent movie. It's not like the other characters really need that much more story either.
Plus, it would be strawberry floating INCREDIBLE to watch the whiny white boy meltdown that would cause.
Karl wrote:Can't believe I got baited into expressing a political stance on hentai
Skarjo wrote:Saw it last Friday, so forgive me if I'm a little cloudy on a couple of plot details but it was.... fine?
It was perfectly enjoyable, and I'm also going to be upfront that most of my criticisms only came to me chatting with my mates after the movie. Whilst I was on the ride I was having great fun. But a gooseberry fool ton of stuff happened, particularly in the finale, where I started to think 'Wait, what?'.
First, I didn't think Larson was particularly great. She was quite flat and didn't have the charm to pull off such a snarky character, and I thought her interactions with Jackson were often really poor. Or, if not poor, at least underwhelming. Loads of the funny moments fell really flat too.
But the things that annoyed me were less to do with Larson and more to do with the writing, particularly because is didn't work that well as an origin story. Hands up, I had no idea who Captain Marvel was going in to the cinema. Knew none of the backstory or the comic lore or anything, so I went in completely blind. Problem was, my understanding of her character was pretty much the same ten minutes in compared to my understanding at the end. If anything, I had less understanding at the end than I did at the beginning. Like, during the training montages with Jude Law and he's doing all the 'let go of your emotions' kinda thing and I thought 'right, this will go one of two ways - it's playing on the 'Women are too emotional to be powerful' thing and she'll learn to control her feelings (which would be dumb, because that just reinforces the bad stereotype of women being too emotional) or 'Actually her emotions are the source of her power' which it....sorta does? But she doesn't realise this as part of character development and embrace it as a character moment, it's just 'Nah you got a maguffin in yo strawberry floatin head' and she pulls it out. That's not character development just plot gubbins.
Then at the climax, there's that weird montage of moments of her standing up in defiance of all the men telling her that she's a girl and doesn't belong there and I thought 'Wait, what?'. Are you trying to tell me that the theme of the movie is that she's not 'Just a Girl' and, No Doubt about that, but when was that ever the theme of the movie? The clips were all flashbacks to well before she was an established kickass fighter pilot which showed that she'd already overcome all the men telling her to stay down, and none of the interactions with the male characters in the movie are framed like that. Jude Law never belittled her for being a woman, Jackson seemed to treat her as a formidable equal, as did her friend and mentor. Like, none of the actual movie plots revolved around her being dismissed as being inferior as a woman, so why do we care that she's standing up against those expectations? She's been doing that all movie, and established that she was doing that before the plot kicked off, sooooo it's never part of her character?
So as an origin story it was lacking. It didn't make me understand her character, it just told me who she was in the first ten minutes, and then sent her on an adventure. She's exactly the same at the end of the movie, character wise, as she is at the beginning. I mean, compare that to Iron Man, who starts off as a billionaire arms dealer ignorant to the effects of his trade who gets humbled and then sees the impact of his lifestyle and uses his resources and wealth for good. Dr Strange is an arrogant selfish surgeon bastard who gets humbled by the loss of his hands and finds deeper meaning on his journey to reclaim them. Ant Man is a feckless loser who gets a chance at redemption through using his skills to help rather than steal and in the process gets his life back on track and gets his daughter back.
Carol Danvers is a kickass soldier and awesome pilot with no memory and finds out that her dreams are real and before she lost her memory she was actually.... a kickass soldier and awesome pilot. Oh, but in the process she basically becomes a God, which must be nice for her. So at the very end of the origin story of someone who's being introduced as a foil to the main villain of the last decade of films and our last bit of information is 'all the rules we've just established have changed and so now you have no idea what this character can do going into the biggest film of the entire franchise'. I think that's what annoyed me the most, the movie was meant to be an origin film for a pretty niche characters and the only thing we can take into Endgame is 'I have no idea what this character can do now, and so I have no idea what the stakes are now'.
Soundtrack was good though.
To pick you up in one minor thing and out myself as the worst kind of internet person - Ant-Man has a masters in electrical engineering, and went to jail after his previous(high level) job for essentially doing a Robin Hood - redistributing wealth from the company to customers who had been short changed. Not so much of a feckless loser
Hopefully will get to see Captain marvel in the next couple of days. I hate waiting as all I see if articles popping up on Google or various websites discussing the film or how it impacts on Endgame, ties in with other films but I can't read them then by the time I've seen the film I will struggle to find them.
