The Marvels

There’s something to be said about hindsight. You don’t just see better, you also see clearer because what was blinding you before no longer exists. What was blinding us before was an MCU in disarray thanks to a former CEO who was more concerned with quantity over quality. This resulted in an oversaturation of the market with 3 film flops in a row and several TV flops on Disney+. But somehow, in the midst of all this, Nia DaCosta took the helm of a challenging sequel to a billion-dollar franchise and managed to create a genuinely great film.

Four years after her first appearance in the MCU, we return to a movie centered around Captain Marvel. The last time we saw the Captain in the MCU was in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, so…we had a lot of catching up to do. This was one of the same problems that plagued the first Captain Marvel film. With so much to explain, how do you leave room for the actual story that you’re telling? Somehow, writers Megan McDonnell, Elissa Karasik, and DaCosta herself are able to craft a compelling story out of Carol’s past and tie it in with the events of WandaVision and Ms. Marvel. In the process, they write the first film in this new phase of the MCU to actually tie into the stories we watched on the small screen. By doing so, the film doesn’t have to go into detail as to how Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) got her powers or who the heck Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) is. Instead, we can just watch the three light-based powered heroes get their abilities intertwined after a Kree revolutionary named Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) gets ahold of one of the Khan family bangles in an attempt to steal resources from other planets and restore her own planet of Hala.

From there, we get treated to one of, if not the, most inventive fight sequences we’ve seen in the MCU with the characters’ power switching. This sequence is filled with not just action, but also a decent amount of hilarious gags like Goose randomly eating people and objects, Kamala’s fan-girling obsession with all things Avengers-related, and Samuel L. Jackson delivering sharp-witted quips at the proceedings. It was the first time in a long time where the signature humor of the MCU was finally well-utilized.

This film excels in two areas in particular, one being its visual effects. Anyone watching recent MCU projects like Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness or Thor: Love and Thunder had been aware that the visual effects team had been under immense pressure to complete their renderings in time, and with little success. In each, you would find incomplete work that looked shoddy and unbalanced to the point that it was difficult to immerse yourself in the story being told. However, in The Marvels, it seems like there was enough time, attention, and devotion to the project to deliver quality work that fits right into this world. If you’re going to make a story about three people who can shoot light rays out of their hands, it has to look unquestionable. And thankfully, it does! Not only are the shots believable, but they are consistent and add to the immersion of the story, making the action sequences that much more enjoyable to watch and rewatch.

The film’s other standout feature is its genuine character dynamics between our three main leads. Every scene with Carol, Kamala, and Monica is engaging. Kamala is the heart of the three, being delightfully obsessed with Captain Marvel and earnestly sincere with both her and Monica. Her family (Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, and Saagar Shaikh) treating this wild and wacky space adventure like a serious threat helps develop this character more and makes you want to see more from her in the future. Carol also gets more development here and is seen in a completely different light when the three visit the singing planet of Aladna, where Carol is the princess and everyone’s language is song. This intentionally out-of-place sequence just adds to the fun of the adventure we’re on with these three. Teyonah Parris’s Monica also gets time to shine as we learn she’s been working with Fury and S.A.B.E.R since the events of WandaVision. Unfortunately, her story doesn’t work as well as those of the others. Her relationship with Carol and her loss of her mother are compelling and discussed in the film but don’t get enough room to breathe.

There certainly are criticisms of The Marvels that make a lot of sense. Our villain is rather forgettable and has some questionable, if not unreasonable, motivations. The ending is basically a setup for a future film many years down the road, and much of the story may leave audiences wishing this had been the third film in the Captain Marvel series rather than the second. These critiques are all valid, but they don’t take away from how enjoyable this adventure was. For an MCU that had been extremely shaky recently, it was nice to see them get back to solid ground. Misfire (Doctor Strange 2) after misfire (Thor: Love and Thunder) after misfire (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) led more to this film’s poor box office and reception than this film’s actual quality. With the benefit of hindsight, I hope we come to recognize this movie as the moment the MCU finally got back on track.

7.5/10