Captain Marvel

Another fine Marvel picture that fills in the gaps. Danvers borrow from Wonder Woman and doesn't excessively shove women’s superiority down your throat. Brie Larson is fine and her playing the rascal and flirting with Fury was entertaining (Sam Jackson really enjoyed himself)… but space battles alone aren’t enough. I liked the villain and some of the unexpected twists that unsurprisingly closely follow today’s trends. Great music. And what a fox. (03/07/2019)

Carol Danvers may have lost her memory years ago, but the alien Kree race has made her the ultimate warrior, and now she's back on Earth, where her past is being recalled. And she must figure out where her home is and what she's willing to risk for it. Captain Marvel is a classic Marvel original with lots of action, a bit of humour, and a fine heroine in the lead role. Don't expect much new from this comic book adaptation, but if you want to enjoy spectacular space battles and classic Marvel stuff, you won't go wrong. (03/07/2019)

Captain Marvel is a film that, like its protagonist, seeks its true identity and is not very successful in doing so. In its better moments, it is a fast-paced buddy movie with a digitally facelifted Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson in a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, thus rather an extended episode of The X-Files (but without the mystery). In worse moments, it is a sterile space/soap opera (but without a sufficiently detached view). The overarching “detective” framework, in which Vers searches for who she really was/is, has an original exposition (Carol is a more or less “burnt-out” superhero from the beginning; she only fulfils a role that is not her own), though the development remains very predictable. In addition to that, it does not raise enough questions that would maintain our curiosity (which is even truer of the second of the two origin stories, following the inception of the Avengers). Its rhythm, characterisations and (towards the end) CGI are grating. The story arc is mediocre, the environment is nondescript and, with the exception of some surprising background music, the action scenes are generic. The emancipation storyline approaches naivety and literalness (when the heroine has to stand on her own two feet, then she stands on her own two feet, in several consecutive shots, culminating for the sake of certainty with the declaration “I don't have to prove anything to you” – for its unforcedness, the scene in which Brie Larson walks through a video rental shop among VHS tapes with 1980s hypermasculine action heroes is far more telling). The problem lies in the fact that, in its old-school simplicity, Captain Marvel is not as consistent as the formally and stylistically much cleaner Wonder Woman. Other than Brie Larson, the film’s main value added, thanks to which it is not (by a slim margin) the weakest Marvel movie, comprises an orange cat and the cameo of Stan Lee reading the Mallrats screenplay. 65% (03/06/2019)

The second blockbuster of the year and the first Marvel movie. This appetizer before the upcoming Avengers is a typical origin story that is good by default, but doesn't exactly bust your balls. On the plus side, Brie Larson is a great actress and a very strong hero, so she pulls the film off just fine, and when the excellent Samuel L. Jackson and Jude Law follow suit, things are more or less taken care of. Captain Marvel has a decent retro vibe, solid action (although the fights are shot a bit chaotically), working humour thanks to Samuel, and a rather interesting plot twist in the second half. At times the film feels like Star Wars in Marvel mode, but it's thankfully bearable. Enjoyable cinematic entertainment and a big plus for the cat, perhaps the biggest surprise of the film. 75% (03/08/2019)

So how’s the first female solo film from the MCU? Weak. The idea of casting Brie Larson as Carol Danvers didn't work for me, and the only actor I like in the whole film is Annette Bening, because she's great. Otherwise, it's just another piece of the puzzle. The action is unclear, and the appeal to little girls and their dreams is obviously overdone. I was hoping for more of a 90s vibe, but other than the video rental and the use of "Just a Girl" by No Doubt, it’s really not great. (03/07/2019)