TroytlePower

I am predisposed to liking Marvel movies; I’m a nerd who grew up on superheroes and comic books and video games. I’ve seen almost every MCU movie in theaters, usually within the first few days of them coming out, and I’ve had a great time with just about every one of them. I say all of this to acknowledge that I may be biased when I say that Captain Marvel was a ton of fun, and I really, really, really want to go see it again.

Spoiler-free review: It’s a good action flick that feels important for what it says about women, refugees, and the military, and if you have even the slightest interest in action movies, superhero movies, or feminism, you’ll find plenty to like.

Now let’s talk spoilers.

I’m not going to write a full review, but I want to get out some general thoughts.

• The intro was super disorienting, and I kinda disliked it at first, until I realized that Vers was disoriented, and then I started to, like her, latch on to the few things that made sense.
• Jude Law is charming as all get out. My wife asked why he wasn’t blue, like the rest of the Kree, and the only answer I could come up with is that he’s too pretty to paint blue.
• JUDE LAW IS A VILE JERK AND I HATE HIM. Well, his character at least. It’s a testament to how common misogynistic BS is that I didn’t even realize how awful him telling Vers to control her emotions at the beginning was, but as soon as his turn was revealed, his vileness in everything prior became super apparent.
• Carol Danvers is a charming character, who is strong and confident and funny and absolutely wants to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing to do.
• Connected to the point above, there was no romance! Nearly every movie has a romantic subplot, to the point that it sometimes distracts me trying to figure out where they are going to shove it in. What I like about the lack of romance here is that Carol is being heroic just to be heroic, not at all in the hopes of getting some.
• THERE WAS ALMOST A ROMANCE BETWEEN CAROL AND MARIA! For just a bit I thought Marvel was giving us a queer relationship, which would have been way better than Carol falling for Nick or some other dude, but alas.
• This movie doesn’t hate men, but it does hate toxic masculine nonesense. Nick Fury is a fantastic character, and Coulson is really good, too, but the movie is not afraid to show random male characters being awful to women, which feels like a really important thing to see in such a visible movie.
• The action is a little by the book, which is a little disappointing, but it’s not ever bad. It’s fantastic that Carol is basically able to dominate every physical altercation that she gets in to, but some of the choreography and a lot of the CGI in the action scenes felt lacking.
• THE FINAL CONFRONTATION WASN’T A BIG ACTION SCENE! When Carol and Jude Law were facing off against each other, I was secretly hoping that they’d find a way to not have another CGI-fest fight to beat the bad guy, and then Carol just blew that a-hole away and said “I have nothing to prove to you” and I absolutely squeeled with delight!
• AVENGERS ENDGAME IS IN LIKE A MONTH AND HALF! I had somehow missed that the date on this got pushed up and just, I just, it’s, I mean… oh lawd am I excited!