LogFAQs > #950345264

CoolCly
This movie has all the pieces of a good movie maybe even a great movie. And it executes them all with mediocrity.
The overall main problem comes from Captain Marvels character arc. Its the opposite problem of the first Thor movie, which Ill get to later. Captain Marvel at the start of the movie is a somewhat brainwashed soldier of the Kree empire, and by the end, shes seen the lies shes been fed and where she came from, and chosen to stand against the empire she believed in and fought for before, choosing her humanity. This is a great character arc, and there are many moments in the film that contribute to this, like exploring her homeworld and forging her partnership with Fury, meeting her old friend, learning about her past and how she got her powers, and discovering the Skrulls real goal. This all good stuff that shows the path she takes to where she gets by the end. Except.. Danvers doesnt actually change. Shes exactly the same character at every point in the movie. She makes all the same wise cracks, she doesnt take anything seriously, and tends to do whatever she wants. I think this is a somewhat conscious choice to show her as an empowered woman who doesnt take shit from any of the male characters but it really destroys her growth as a character. The revelations of her origins and the Kree empire should be really ground breaking and challenging for her, and compel change. And the structure of the movie kind of hinges on this. But. I dont feel like it had any impact on Danvers at all. Learning about the Krees motives wasnt emotionally impactful for her it was just new information that caused her to change sides. This REALLY brings down the movie to me if the performance of Danvers had grown along with all these revelations, this could have been a really great movie.
Theres a lot of other things that I thought could have been executed better too. Furys scar was a weak throw away joke, and the cat turning out to be dangerous was telegraphed WAYY too many times and the actual moment where it happened felt SOOO generic and poorly timed I couldnt believe it. It was a scene in a hallway set up JUST for this to pay off, the shot held for awhile on the victim and the cat for a while and made it very clear what was about to happen and then it just happens. The FX wasnt even that good. And then the scene is over and Fury moves on. Imagine if they only hinted at it once or twice, and then in a critical moment for a characters well being for the plot, the cat steps in. this could have been so much better.
The song montage didnt feel like it flowed that well with what was going on. I dont mind it as an idea at all, but it didnt really work, and Danvers doesnt feel like shes operating at the right power level at that point, which is always a problem. Movies like this should always have a good bead on the strength of its characters and how they should be performing in a situation, and I dont think they handled this well. Its very tough to do this with Captain Marvel since her upper end is sooooo high which makes it even more important they do this well.
I thought the final confrontation with YonRogg was a good idea conceptually but the really hammed up way he tries to get her to fight him and her just owning him didnt feel like the I dont need to take your shit moment they want to it to be just a deflation of the tension between these characters. They didnt take the impact of the revelations in the movie on Danvers seriously earlier in the movie, and they cemented that here.
Theres a lot of good things though. Coulson is used just right, and Fury was awesome. The Skrulls were fine (though a bit generically used at times in the first half of the movie). Talos is great.
Overall this is a good movie, that I think could have been GREAT if things had been executed better.

Red13n
Marvel celebrates having their first female superhero movie by...making sure she has as little character as possible. Unfortunately Vers is stuck in this near permanent limbo, a character that was a poorly developed Kree soldier and the human that apparently they were for much of their life. We end up with a fairly generic story, generic underdeveloped villains where the threat becomes a recycled villain that gets little more than a what amounts to a cameo appearance. The whole 90s gimmick unfortunately doesn't really amount to anything beyond evoking a bit of nostalgia and letting a couple characters have an appearance.

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