Captain Marvel Review

Captain Marvel came out in 2019 and was probably the first Marvel character I knew absolutely nothing about. It seemed to have a lot of mixed reviews and I think performed so poorly because of the timing of its release. It had some good aspects to it, but felt like a last minute decision and forced her tie into the MCU rather than brought her in seemlessly. While it may have seemed she didn’t have much of a personality, she actually had more personality than a Kree should have. Once she learned she wasn’t Kree, she opened up to learning about herself and of course had to go on a personal and emotional journey to develop herself. However, this made it difficult to enjoy her as a character and the film didn’t give her enough room to grow.

The film begins with a tribute to Stan Lee’s cameos, since this is the first film to be released after his passing. It is an emotional opening and a reminder of how much he contributed to the MCU. We then get a flashback of a scene that Vers remembers, but later we learn that her memory has been altered. We get our first look at the Kree homeworld, Hala, and of Captain Marvel, or Vers for now. She believes her powers are a gift from the Supreme Intelligence that she needs to learn to control. She gets her first glance of how strong her powers actually are and who she really is while trying to escape the Skrull ship. After attempting to stop a Skrull attack, Vers ends up on Earth in a Blockbuster video looking for the Skrull. We meet a young Nick Fury and Phil Coulson. Her time on Earth shows her that she isn’t a Kree but rather a human, and she begins to learn about the past she can’t remember. 

There were a few fun catches in this film for MCU and comic book fans. Korath is a member of Yon-Rogg’s team, but we know from Guardians of the Galaxy that he later follows Ronan the Accuser on his quest to avenge Kree deaths. Ronan also makes an appearance and we learn that he always held some rather extreme views, even for the Kree. He will most likely be reprising his role in the next Captain Marvel film since he mentions he will pursue her later. The Blockbuster used in the film is actually the last Blockbuster in America, located in Bend, Oregon. Stan Lee makes his cameo on the train while Vers is looking for the Skrull and she gives him a very sweet smile. I’m glad they were able to film that before he passed. The music in the movie was pretty good as well, but not as good as some of the other movies!

My favorite part of this movie, though, is Goose the cat. Goose is a Flerken and is rather fond of Carol just as it was fond of Dr. Lawson. He is the reason Fury wears an eyepatch and guards the Tesseract in his stomach. He also seems to be somewhat of an office pet for Fury now, so I’m curious to see where his story will go. 

Something the Kree teach is that emotions are dangerous to warriors, and they are trying to teach Vers to control them since she was human. While she does have more emotions than a normal Kree, she is still lacking a lot of personality and emotional range. In fact, she reigns in her emotions at the end of the film when she is challenged to a hand-to-hand combat fight with Yon-Rogg. He wants her to prove to him that she is in control, and instead she blasts him with her powers. The reason I say she is reigning in her emotions here is because she’s not trying to prove anything to him. She is not letting her emotions get the better of her and instead she shows him how powerful she is. She has nothing to prove to him. 

Something that was done well was the development of Carol and Fury’s friendship. They’re suspicious of each other at first but learn that they can help each other out as needed. He helps her discover who she was, that Dr. Lawson was a Kree who saw the fault in the Kree’s ways, and she promises to come help when he feels it is absolutely necessary. I think my biggest issue with this film though is that it doesn’t feel like a MCU film. All the other films and characters have been tied in by now, but this one came in late and felt thrown into the universe like she was a last minute decision. Her story is set before the majority of the MCU events, but was released after Infinity War. This made it difficult to follow along and her tie-in (the pager) was an extremely weak one. I think they would have been better off leaving her out until later, or should have brought her in during Phase 2. 

The two end credit scenes really leave Marvel fans on the edge of their seats. The first scene is Carol showing up in the Avengers compound responding to the pager Fury sent out before he got dusted. This led us to believe she would play an important role in Endgame, though she was once agains thrown in at the last minute again. The second end credit scene is Goose throwing up the Tesseract on Fury’s desk. This explains how the Tesseract returns to Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. and it remains with them until the events of the Avengers. 

Next week there will be no blog post to celebrate the holidays. I’ll be back to posting every Monday next year! If you enjoyed this post and would like to keep up with future posts, be sure to subscribe below and follow my official Twitter or Instagram for updates!         

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