Captain Marvel [#movie #review]

by Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

Avengers
← Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Endgame →

Rating: 9/10

Higher. Further. Faster.

I had great expectations for this movie, the first Marvel female superhero to have a solo movie, and I must say it was even better that I thought! I have so many things to say that I don't know where to start, so I'll throw random comments as they come to my mind.

The timing was managed very well in my opinion, the movie is fast and never boring, maybe even a little too fast sometimes, but better this way that an excessive amount of overthinking. For example, the protagonist's past is shown in brief and fragmentary flashbacks plus some comments from other characters, but every one of them very representative, managed in my opinion very well to give us an idea of the personality of the character without telling the story of her life.

Verse, the main character, is wonderful! Above all, the thing that I liked the most about her is her human side, and the fact that it is precisely this humanity, in every sense, that becomes her winning weapon! I admit I'm enormously biased because we finally have a heroine of the MCU protagonist of a movie of her own, but objectively she's a great superheroine, and not just for her extraordinary powers! The scene in which she becomes aware of her most powerful strenght has moved me very much, it had already moved me when I had seen it in the trailer: we see various moments of Verse's life in which she, physically and metaphorically, falls, but she always rise again. As her best friend says: You were the most powerful person I knew long before you fired fire from your fists. [I watched the movie dubbed in italian, so I don't know the original quote, I translate from the italian version].

In the movie there's an interplanetary war and it's clear on which side Captain Marvel is: on the side of the refugees. In this time of ever growing hate and racism, it's an important message even if it talks about aliens and spaceships (but I've always said it: the beauty of science fiction movies - and books - is that while talking about fantastic places and characters, in reality thay speak of us and our reality).

I know very little about the comic book story of Captain Marvel, and I must say that I'm happy about it because I can give this movie the merit of having also surprised me:

ok, maybe I'm stupid because I knew from agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that the Kree are the bad guys, but everything seemed so clear and sure that I believed that the group with which Verse fights were the good guys, and even when I saw Jude Law/Yon-Rogg talk to Ronan I thought he was deceiving them and that they were still good faith. And then, come on, the Krulls are shapeshifter, how can you trust them? But so it is, and suddenly everything is turned upside down! And Marvel, once again, managed to amaze me!

Moreover, this movie is not only the first Marvel one to have a woman superhero, but it also has many women among the main characters (Vers, Mar-Vell, Maria Rambeau and of course Goose) and other staff members: one of the directors is a woman, two of the three screenwriters are women, even the soundtrack was composed by a woman.

Finally, this is the first time we see agent Coulson in a movie after The Avengers, and I sooooo loved it! He's just become an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (they call him a newbie!!) and unfortunately his appearances on the screen are very few, but significant enough, for example we see the prelude of how he'll become Fury's one good eye. However, I can not deny that I wanted to see him more!!! #CoulsonLives!!!!!

Captain Marvel is really a good movie! Fun, heroic, exciting, meaningful: a bit of everything, and well done.