Captain Marvel

Marvel have long been at the stage where they can do anything they damn well please. That much has been apparent for a while as each film in Phase Three has casually subverted expectations, flipped the script of what a superhero film ‘should’ be, brought auteur-ist styling into a multi-film, populist franchise and still topped box offices worldwide.

Captain Marvel places itself at the very beginning of the MCU timeline as a prequel. It requires knowledge of the entire universe to make sense of the intricacies of the plot, the alien characters and the humour; a lot of which is based on references to past (well, future) events.

It introduces Marvel’s most powerful hero character yet in its 21st (?!) MCU movie yet doesn’t even officially bestow her with the titular moniker. It, of course, finds itself atop the box office after another of Marvel’s record breaking opening weekends. Quelle surprise.

What’s great about this is that the film is completely deserving of it. The lack of hand-holding, traditional superhero rhetoric and meaningless MacGuffins (hello, Aquaman) is a fresh change up. The sci-fi, alien planet setting (and returning characters) give it a Guardians Of The Galaxy flavour, nicely offset with Thor’s fish-out-of-water humour.

Brie Larson is a superb fit. She’s not the MCU’s first female superhero but is the first to headline a film whilst we all still wait patiently for a Black Widow origin. Marvel needed to show us Carol Danvers’ immense power whilst also giving her a role beyond being the Avengers’ ‘saviour’ and that’s exactly what we get here with a rich and nuanced story that even leaves some intriguing gaps in fill in (hopefully) future sequels.

We learn more about the already introduced Kree and eagerly awaited Skrulls and, when Danvers crash-lands on Earth early on, get a glimpse of life for Nick Fury and Phil Coulson (lovely to see him return, albeit in a limited role) before the Avengers initiative.

The CGI de-aging job on Samuel L Jackson is nothing short of miraculous and he clearly relishes getting a more front and centre, less mysterious role. He brings all his comedy chops to the fore and we finally get to learn how he came up with the Avengers title, why he needs his eye patch and how he stumbles upon the Tesseract.

The new additions are great too. Jude Law works in a rounded role as Yon-Rogg, Lashana Lynch and Akira Akbar brilliant as mother and daughter (will Ackbar’s character Monica also become a hero all those years later in Endgame?) Annette Bening is underused but tasked with playing both hero and villain and perhaps most intriguing of all is Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, one of the Skrull leaders. In a hugely varied performance he brings depth to a character, and entire species, with a smashing Pulp Fiction reference to boot (perhaps Samuel L’s idea?)

The 90’s setting is exploited for lots of laugh out loud humour, we’re introduced to a cat (or Flerken) who just about steals the entire film and it plays with conventions and feels new.

It won’t surprise you that Marvel have aced it again. They can do no wrong.

4 stars ****