Travis Leamons // Film Critic
Rated PG-13, 105 min.
Director: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, and Samuel L. Jackson
For Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, it was the need for speed. For Carol “Avenger” Danvers, it’s higher, further, and faster. Such an axiom should not be taken lightly, and yet, in an ironic twist, it seems the guiding principle should have been a warning for Marvel Studios and its glutenous reign over the last decade with its Marvel Cinematic Universe. With thirty-three feature films and nine different shows on Disney+ (adding to the confusion with keeping track of everything) – not to mention competing comic-book movies in the marketplace – heroes are looking less and less super these days.
But when the outside narrative focus has cine-fanatics relishing Disney’s ruination on account of the studio’s “go woke or go broke” mentality, which I disagree with (I chalk it up to complacency and bad decisions more than anything), it makes projects like THE MARVELS collateral damage, and an easy mark for assassination sight unseen. This is a shame because it is wacky and fun, just not nearly engaging despite director Nia DaCosta’s (2021’s CANDYMAN) best efforts and Iman Vellani’s effervescent performance as Ms. Marvel.
As a direct sequel to CAPTAIN MARVEL and a continuation of events that transpired in the TV series MS. MARVEL, SECRET INVASION, and WANDAVISION, the story picks up with Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, dealing with nightmares and memory problems. Goose, her Flerken cat, keeps her company in a starship, looking as homey as a college dorm room. When Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) asks Carol to investigate an anomalous wormhole, it sets off a chain of strange events affecting her, her estranged niece, Capt. Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Jersey City fangirl-turned-superhero Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel (Vellani). Forget the multiverse; these gals did what Egon warned about in GHOSTBUSTERS – they crossed the streams. Well, they didn’t entangle their light-based powers, but our resident mid-level Marvel baddie, the new Kree leader Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), created the power trip after unearthing a magical bangle (Kamala has the other). Now, their light-based powers are entangled, and they switch places whenever one of them uses them.
Dar-Benn has a three-point supremacy plan involving destroying other worlds to restore her home planet of Hala, vanquishing Carol – whom she calls “The Annihilator” after she takes out the Kree Empire’s Supreme Intelligence – and getting Kamala’s bangle. That’s the story, or should I say the story that allows for the obligatory green-screen, CGI-heavy battle sequences to test the strengths and weaknesses of our three heroes. To DaCosta’s credit, I appreciate how the three major skirmishes against the Kree allowed Carol, Monica, and Kamala to evolve as a team. First is the sense of the unfamiliar, then comes experience through execution, and finally, mastering the process of the old switcheroo.
At 1 hour and 45 minutes, THE MARVELS is a refreshing reprieve from overlong superhero slogs. Then again, it feels like it stretched to make it to the finish line. Moments of levity and comedic interludes involve Kamala’s family, a galactic pit stop to the singing planet of Aladna (seriously, all of the inhabitants communicate via song), and the aftereffects of Goose the Flerken eating too many odd objects. Goose makes Gizmo eating after midnight look tame by comparison.
Still, those last two scenes might be too wacky for the casual MCU viewer. Frankly, I found their peculiarity highlights in a mediocre story sustained by chemistry. Larson, Parris, and Vellani are dynamite together. Zawe Ashton’s Dar-Benn, sadly, can’t carry enough gravitas to compete with Kamala Khan’s fangirl.
THE MARVELS is far from marvelous. Vellani, by all accounts, wins the movie, lightening up Larson’s depressed vibe and upping Parris’s earnestness. Quick flashbacks try to fill the gaps for character motivation and reason to differing effects – one of which becomes a catalyst after the credits start to roll. But by the end, it all boils down to light battles, girl power, defeating evil, and, of course, the inevitable mid-credit teaser and the Pavlovian response in heightening audience expectations. It’s a doozy and yet another sad example of MCU story points furthering a cinematic universe instead of completing a cinematic narrative.
Grade: C+
