This year I set myself a mini challenge of catching up with the MCU. Not exactly the hardest challenge in the world, but I have a surprising amount to watch and no real desire to see a fair few of them, but I'm currently trucking along at a slow but progressive pace. Captain Marvel (2019) was the newest film to tick off my list and it was one that I was genuinely looking forward to, mainly due to Brie Larson being in the lead role. I really enjoy her work as an actress and felt that her acting across from Samuel L. Jackson was going to be very entertaining. I was also looking forward to seeing a film where the main story would not be to involved within the Avengers: End Game (2019) story as the film could have been very convoluted if they tried to do this. After watching the film I can say that it is a fun ride, and Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson are great in the film, but it is not the best film of the MCU I have seen so far. The film follows Vers (Brie Larson), a Kree warrior who is fighting a war against the Skrull, a race of shape shifting aliens who infiltrate and take over planets. Vers is not a normal Kree however. She has a past which she cannot remember, only ever getting occasional flashes of her past life. When a Kree mission against the Skrull goes wrong, Vers is captured and has her memory tapped into by her Skrull captors, She escapes and lands on Earth, where she believes she will find clues to her past and so defies the orders of her superior, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). She meets Nick Fury, who helps her discover her past and fight against the Skrull who have landed on Earth. The film then follows Vers and Fury as they fight against the oncoming Skrull as well trying to find out more about her past.
As a blockbuster this film pretty much knocks it out of the park. What I mean by this is you can see the money that they spent on the screen in the effects, the costumes, the make up and the action sequences. Marvel have been very good at this for a while, with their alien characters all looking really good and feeling real. A hand has to be given to the make-up department for this as it is a very impressive feat. The costumes in the film are all cool as well. They may not be totally different to what has been seen across sci-fi films before, but where the design may lack a little the actually quality of the costumes pushes them above and beyond many sci-fi films. The action scenes are all a lot of fun as well, and the effects, both practical and computer generated, look great throughout. I was excited throughout the action scenes which were paced well, had nice moments of comedy and were shot so that the action was visible. Like I said, the budget is all on the screen to be seen and it is as impressive as always in Marvel films. The film is also very well acted. Ben Mendleson plays Talos, a Skrull commander, and hams it up just the right amount. He is really funny in the film when he is meant to be, and can also be quite menacing when it is called for. Jude Law is okay, but his character traits don't allow him to really show off his acting chops. As a Kree he is meant to keep his emotions in check and so not much emotion is shown throughout the film. Sam Jackson is fantastic again as Nick Fury. He has the same bad ass moments that the character is known for, but is a lot funnier in this film then he has been before. And then we come to Brie Larson, who I really liked in this film. I really like her as an actress anyway, and she reaffirmed my liking of her here. She has great comedic timing, has a good physical presence and gets all the emotional scenes brilliantly. I am very much looking forward to seeing more of this character going forward.
But, for all of the positivity that I have thrown at this film thus far it really suffers from being quite run of the mill. It follows the Marvel mould pretty closely and so doesn't have any real surprises. Narratively, it is not anything you haven't seen before. Hero with a hidden past goes rogue and finds out a darker side to her past. It's been done a million times. This is not to say that it is a bad narrative because it isn't, if it was it wouldn't have been done a million times. But it does mean that you are going to have to be exceptional to push yourself above it. Even the twist that the narrative has was predictable and I guessed it in the opening minutes of the film. Also, the narrative element of Vers having flashbacks of her past memories led to what I thought was the worst part of the film, and that was how they showed these moments. On a technical and stylistic choice I did not think these moments were good, mainly because they were far to frequent and seemed to be used when the writers couldn't think of a real world reason to have Vers get a bit more information on her past. Instead of her finding out these in an organic way it quite often was just a random flashback and she gains a bit more information. I just think it is a bit lazy and I wasn't a massive fan of the flashbacks on the whole.
Captain Marvel may be just another run of the mill Marvel film, but that isn't to say that is not a fun film. The narrative is not the best. It has been done before and the twist was predictable, but the performances make the narrative move along nicely and I never found myself bored by the story. The main selling point of the film is definitely in its action, special effects and costume designer and these were all stellar. The make-up and costume designs were all top notch and the action scenes were a lot of fun, with both the practical and special effects being very well done. It is a film that hasn't got me entirely excited about the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, but I am looking forward to seeing more of Captain Marvel character in that film.