My excitement whenever I can go and watch a Marvel movie on the big screen will never die, you know? It’s my peaceful little corner while the world around us slowly turns into chaos. Went a bit dark there, but I think you all get what I mean. And yes, even though I LOVE the MCU, I have had my problems with it too lately. I am fully aware that it is not flawless, but I am also fully aware that it never was. I do think that people are simply now hyper-focused on the bad stuff. It became incredibly trendy to shit on Marvel; literally, this past week, all I saw on TikTok and Twitter (I refuse to call it X) was people shitting on a movie that didn’t even come out yet and all exclusively saying: Marvel is in shambles. Why? Let’s be honest here: using all the potential a company has is a known and accepted thing. In Marvel’s case – seeing the success the first ten years brought – their politics went from quality to quantity. This could have worked, but they bit more off than they could chew by adding TV shows to their slate.
Trust me; I was just as dumbfounded as everyone else when it turned out that they didn’t even have showrunners. Was it a money-grabbing move to have so many new things instead of the nice and slow approach they used before? Yes, very likely. Does it mean that it’s now all shit and they don’t have anything to prove that there’s still a lot of good things that can come out of it? Absolutely not.
The Marvels is their last movie for this year, and I went and saw it on opening day. What did I get out of it? A TON of Fun. Exactly what I wanted to see. So, let’s dive in with a Spoiler-filled review.
The movie starts with our villain, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), as she retrieves an artifact we’ve all seen before. It is the missing bangle that goes with Kamala Khan’s (Iman Vellani). As it turns out, Kamala’s mysterious bangle is older than history itself, and the two together are the Quantum Bands. These powerful items can open a hole in spacetime itself. Dar-Benn uses the one she has to open the jump point directly to her Kree homeworld, Hala, and restore its resources. As we find out much later; Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), aka Captain Marvel, went back to Hala after the events of the first movie and destroyed the powerful Supreme Intelligence (AI) controlling the Kree world. However, her actions caused war and disturbances on the planet, and soon Hala fell into chaos. Their sun was dying, their air was polluted, and their waters were all basically gone. The main conflict starts when Carol and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) both touch the remains of these broken jump points at the same point, connecting their and Kamala’s powers together and causing them to switch places each time they use them. So they are forced to work together and stop Dar-Benn, who’s specifically targeting planets that are dear to Carol.
The movie has many things going for it. The first and most important one is the three leading ladies. Their chemistry is absolutely flawless and loveable. The conflict between Monica and Carol is well-established in the previous film and later on in WandaVision, too, but the true winner of this film is definitely Kamala. Iman Vellani was born to play this role, and you can easily believe all her reactions. All the things she’s been geeking about are now finally coming true, and Vellani truly captures what any fan who ends up in the Marvel Universe would feel.
I didn’t really like that they didn’t let the heavier moments sit for a bit longer. Many things are happening regarding all three of them that would need a bit of time to spend on. It’s a problem Marvel had before, where they won’t leave time for emotions other than having fun. For example, we get this beautiful scene between Monica and Carol, where Monica reveals why she is very angry with Carol. Instead of letting the moment bloom and the actors play out the emotions in the scene, they cut to a more light-hearted moment. And they did this again and again here, which felt a bit annoying, not gonna lie here. But even despite this – again, a problem I had with their other movies as well – it all still works.
The jokes may not always land, but I think that’s true in general with everything. People simply don’t have the same taste when it comes to humor. I can tell you all that I absolutely lost it during one of the scenes, and I was literally crying from laughter. I hope you all remember Goose from the first Captain Marvel movie. That wonderful kitty that turned out to be a Flerken. Well – to my absolute delight – Goose is back. But this time, she has her own little adventure to go on, meaning that she needs to bring new Flerkens to the world just so we can all be happier. Let me paint you this scene: It’s an emergency at the station; there aren’t enough emergency shuttles to get everyone to safety.
Panic erupts until we see Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) look at the new incredibly cute kittens, and a smile appears on his face. The Marvels return just as the kittens start to devour the crew one by one, and it turns out, they are the solution to save everyone. After all, it is easier to fit tiny kittens into space shuttles than full-grown humans and aliens alike. And the most brilliant thing about this scene is Barbra Streisand singing Midnight from Cats in the background. I didn’t know what made me laugh more, the absurdity of it all or just how brilliantly it was put together. It will leave rent-free in my head forever; I can guarantee that.
I think the trailer, in the case of this movie, did a pretty good job of telling us what we can expect from it all, and I can safely say that my expectations were met. I loved that Brie Larson got more room to really show what Carol is all about. Teyonah will never fail to amaze me; I adored her in WandaVision, and her storyline so far paid off really well. Given the ending they gave her definitely opens completely new doors, even if it kind of (?) contradicts what we’ve already known. You see, Monica closes the time-space hole that Dar-Benn created with the bangles, but in the process, she gets stuck in another Universe.
In the post-credit scene, when she wakes, up she is greeted by a variant of her mom (Lashana Lynch) and… get this… Beast from the X-men, played by Kelsey Grammer. Now, the question mark before is in regards to the introduction of X-men in another Universe.
If you all remember Ms. Marvel, it was revealed that Kamala has mutant genes, so Marvel already teased the arrival of the X-men. If they get introduced through another Universe, I will be interested to see how it will all connect to Kamala and the mutants in the Universe we’ve followed so far.
Part of my closing thoughts is the thing I said earlier: This movie is so much fun. Is it groundbreaking? No. Does it have to be? No. It tells the story it wants to tell – even if more could have been put in there – it sets up where the characters are and will be in the future, and it further goes into the multiversal question these new phases are all about. It’s a joy to watch all these characters come together, and I honestly can’t wait to see them again because I am sure we will.
I really hope this whole MCU hate train will soon die off because, let’s be honest here, Marvel is good. Yes, they have had a few missteps lately, but at least they are actively listening, and we will get what we asked for. Going forward, they are slowing down in a big way. Who knows what the future holds, but I am excited to see it, just like I was after the first Iron Man movie.
