Rent The Marvels (2023)

The Marvels (aka Captain Marvel 2) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Nine years ago, movie-going audiences watched Agents of SHIELD alongside the new Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. You didn’t need to watch SHIELD to understand The Winter Soldier and vice versa. It was a bonus. Now, with The Marvel, it’s a requirement. There’s no walking in the cold if you haven’t boned up on the past three years of MCU movies and TV shows. And even then, that’s only so you can piece together a film that is still a sloppy smear of sci-fi adventure.

Here’s what you need to know before the film even begins to comprehend everything that’s going on. Carol “Captain Marvel” Danvers (Brie Larson) is working alongside Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) with the space organization SPEAR to stop intergalactic threats. Also working with SPEAR is Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), having gained cosmic powers during the events of WandaVision, is also working with SPEAR. There is another Marvel show or movie that sets this up, and there’s hardly a moment of introduction to get used to this. There is, however, a relation to the Ms. Marvel show, as the film begins immediately where we last left the teenage superhero Kamala Kahn (Iman Vellani), when her magical bracelet sent her flying through a closet and switching places with Captain Marvel.

The three superheroes have some solid chemistry, but they’re given little time to appreciate their company. They’re far too busy handling an intergalactic threat that, at this point in the MCU, should be just another day at the office. The villain they need to stop is Dar-Benn, a spiteful Kree leader who wants revenge on Captain Marvel for inadvertently launching a planetary civil war. Dar-Benn is a lesser copy of Ronin, the Accuser, from Guardians of the Galaxy, considering she wields the exact same weapon but has far less charisma and intimidation, mostly because the film doesn’t spend much time with her. That’d be a smart call if the film didn’t waste so much time with the less engaging plot of Dar-Been scooping up resources from other planets.

The film only starts getting good when it embraces the stranger parts of the cosmic components of the MCU. I loved the musical planet where Carol attempts to speak in song to warn the population of an incoming threat, complete with a musical-fitting dress that just magically forms for no reason other than it is fun. Another great moment features Carol’s alien cat, Goose, having an unexpected development that could help out with an evacuation in the grossest way possible: it involves the words “kittens” and “tentacles.”

It’s depressing that so many of these fun moments feel like small vignettes rather than building elements culminating in a fun climax. Instead, we get a bog-standard superhero outing involving a showdown, sacrifice, and resolve that feels more obligatory than engaging. Sadly, there are not more scenes with the three leads just hanging out because they definitely have chemistry. But before they can ever get to that Guardians of the Galaxy sweet spot, it’s interrupted by the plot, which is a road that’s been traveled so far you can see the tiremarks of previous MCU films.

The Marvels has its moments of fun, and for many fans, that will be enough. But after having appreciated past Marvel films that have been able to balance great character beats with superhero standards from the comics, it’s a major letdown to watch how uneven The Marvels becomes in its far-too-brisk 105-minute running time. Perhaps with more time, the film might’ve become more fun. Maybe even posing it as a TV series with as many as six episodes would give more room for the sci-fi sweetness to take hold. As it stands, this is a watered-down Marvel movie that desperately needs more of the weirdness that works and the tropes that do not.