Captain Marvel Review
First off, the cat needs to have it’s own movie. It is wasted in this piece of garbage.
Now, about the way SJW movies are written. The problems with this movie all revolve around this. The tone is inconsistent while the narrative is confusing and sometimes incoherent, with the entire 3rd act looking like a massive copout. I’ll explain.
You have to look at the main message of this movie. Women possesses power but they are held down by the patriarchy. Only when they break free of the artificial confines that this patriarchal society has imposed upon them can they fully express this power. I fully agree with this since I come from a more traditional Asian society. However, the message here takes precedence over proper screenwriting, leading to a complete narrative clusterfuck.
What should have been a proper origin story of Captain Marvel growing up while getting told she shouldn’t do guy stuff, entering the military and getting insulted by men, developing a kinship with another self-dependant woman and getting mentored by a woman who has worked her way to a high position, acquiring her powers, getting played and seeing through all the bullshit… this is all sacrificed to push the agenda. It should have been a journey with the audience following along.
Instead, Captain Marvel starts out already having powers(see what I’m saying about the message?). Her entire backstory is told is rapid flashbacks, with none of them explored or expanded upon later. All these things are simply TOLD to us, with each of them simply an SJW point from off of a checklist.
We know she has a best friend but we don’t buy their relationship. There’s simply a scene of them bantering before boarding their fighter planes, with one of giving the other a thumbs up. We know she has a mentor but we don’t appreciate her importance on her development as a person because all we see is her mentor telling her some empowering woman shit, nor do we give a fuck when she loses this mentor. The oppression she has faced does not resonate because they are told in individual almost random montages in her flashbacks.
Which means that Captain Marvel essentially behaves like the same person from start to finish. There’s no growth, no sudden moments of revelation, no real internal conflict, nothing. Which brings me to the worst part of the movie. Brie Larson. She can’t fucking act. She could have single-handedly ruined the movie even if the writing and directing didn’t suck. To pull off a character like this, you need someone identifiable and likeable coupled with charisma since the story gives you no reason to root for her.
So, after the clusterfuck of the first 2 acts, we get to the part where she finally gets to display her powers and it’s the ultimate Mary Sue moment. Remember, we have not followed her journey as she goes through shit to acquire them since she has had them all along. What happens is a simple flipping of an ideological switch told through exposition, which shows all a woman needs to do is believe in herself, let go of the artificial confines of society and all the inert powers she has can be expressed. Now this happens at a pivotal point where she and the other characters are put in rather shitty situations because of the bad guys who have easily overpowered them.
Since Captain Marvel is the most powerful character of all, she goes from almost normal to fucking flying in space and fucking up spaceships in a matter of seconds, immediately resolving all the situations the rest of the characters are in. It isn’t satisfying; it is cheap and unearned, and without understanding the intent of the writers, looks like a massive copout.
This is what you get when you write movies putting an agenda first. They suck. The worst thing is this is a Marvel movie. Marvel has been consistently upping the ante when it comes to their movies, with the exception being Ant Man and the Wasp. Even the latter had some good CGI moments and a decent amount of spectacle. The action scenes here suck. They are worse than Black Panther’s. The fight scenes are filmed with horrible shaky camerawork so you can’t see what’s going on. They can’t decide whether to go with a semi-serious Iron Man tone or Guardians of the Galaxy. The dialogue is crap, with ridiculous one-liners that nobody laughed at.
Captain Marvel is a massive step back for Marvel, and right before the conclusion to Infinity War for fuck’s sake.
Fuck it. I’m done.