(film review) - Captain Marvel

We are at a stage in our lives and in Marvel's franchise that an origin movie may now be out of place.  I mean our lord savour, Kevin Feige has mentioned no more origin movies, yet this one is a semi origin movie with a twist and ultimately, Marvel has stumbled with this one.  It's sad to say, but they have and although I will review the film, I won't go into all the details and spoil anything, but reasons as to why they stumbled but didn't fall.
Marvel have stumbled with many films.  Their way of doing something different and/or when they first started out, they were slowly piecing together what they wanted to do with the franchise.  The Incredible Hulk is good, Ironman 2 is good, Thor: The Dark World is good and Ironman 3 is Goodish (not one of my favourites at all), but Marvel have had greater and many more hits than misses and have made small ret-cons here and there.  One of the major ones of recent, by no fault of their own I guess, was with the Spider-Man: Homecoming movie, regarding the year.  But that came down to communication and "admin" error? However, this is something that has  been more forgiving by fans and helps with the integrating of such character into a grander story.  If the new and upcoming Avengers: Endgame grosses around 3 billion worldwide, we are looking at a 10 Billion Dollar Franchise.  10 Billion.  That's 9 zeroes.
But how does Captain Marvel's story fit into this? Well, any way Marvel can squeeze it in...for the women of the world!?

Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) is a Kree operative for Starforce who goes by the name of Vers.  She is a confident, upbeat, determined, yet hard-headed woman who get's the job done at any cost.  She has a good moral compass but is plagued by dreams and visions of what seems to be another life.  On a mission to eradicate the Kree's sworn enemies, The Skrulls, the mission goes wrong and from that point, Carol aka Vers spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out the mysteries of her dreams and visions, who she really is and what and whom she is ultimately fighting for.

It sounds great on paper, but I personally feel that this movie could have been executed in a better way.  This is where I feel they stumbled, and not fell.  I felt that it was not fully fleshed out and that some of the characters could have had more depth as well as maybe, the film being a psychological thriller, a bit like how 'The Winter Soldier' was a 70's political thriller.  With the themes in the movie, this film could have touched on that in a big way.  What is real and what isn't.  Who am I?  Total Recall did that.  And for the most part, that movie is a classic for many reasons.  But they would still need to cater to the young ladies of the world to aspire to be Captain Marvel.

I didn't hate the film as I quite enjoyed it.  Brie is not miscast at all and their are some great visuals and some really quiet moments that allow particular characters to shine.  Lashana Lynch is great as well as Samuel L. Jackson.  But as I said earlier, some character development with some other characters would have made the story a bit meatier.  There are some decent visual gags as well as the many mid-nighties references.  With many easter eggs and visual references of movies from that era, this movie hits it out of the park, but ultimately felt like a Phase 1 Movie in a Phase 3 world.  Doctor Strange is a origin movie, even Black Panther, yet these movies feel like they pack more of a punch, especially with Black Panther...and this woman has glowing fists!  I felt that it was shoehorned into the MCU because DC made a Wonder Woman movie which was very good.  And these two giants are in deep competition with each other, so there is always a company trying to out-do the other and this is possibly another reason why Marvel stumbles.

A lot of people are saying Carol is over powered and personally, although that is somewhat true, I feel we should have more powerful characters in the MCU, because this is how we will separate the many different tiers of these heroes and be able to tell a variety and multitude of different stories.  Phase 4 is looking to be great and varied, especially with the conclusion of the Fox Deal, I'm very interested in seeing what Carol will be doing in Avengers: Endgame and after.  A sequel and the many prospects it has is great fore the future of the MCU as well as the many women and little girls who will feel empowered by Captain Marvel.