Captain Marvel is the first big Marvel (live-action) film since Stan Lee's passing and the first thing you will see is a touching tribute to the man in the Marvel logo that is usually taken up by the heroes he helped create. This is the final film before Avengers: Endgame and, really, it's Captain Marvel's biggest challenge. With 20 previous films behind it and the big finale to Phase 3 looming, it seems an odd time to introduce the first female-led superhero that is supposedly the Avengers only chance of defeating Thanos. But Captain Marvel does indeed try its best to ingratiate itself with the MCU history.
The film is largely a non-linear storyline, with the main plot heavily relying on the slow reveal of important information in protagonist Carol Danvers past. While it delves into her past, the film has so much going on that it really skips over her development too quickly, opting to choose short montages of around four times in her childhood that define her character. The same method is done to explain her connection with another character and, in the end, it leaves the character development at an unsatisfactory standard. When introducing an overpowered character, it's important to ground the character and explain how she is flawed in order to gain more empathy from the audience, but Captain Marvel is light in this area, and she, unfortunately, comes off like a "Mary Sue".
That all being said, Brie Larson does a much better job than I was expecting. The trailers did a horrible job at conveying her character Carol Danvers, and while there certainly are times that she looks to have the acting ability of a cardboard box, there are other times where she has a fair amount of emotional range and displays a great snarky, dry humour, which I very much enjoyed. You could almost say the over-the-top stoicism could be explained by the Kree story arc, but I wouldn't buy into it.
In other casting choices, Jude Law is surprisingly good giving off a rather imposing vibe which works well for a Starforce leader (on par with the dominating influence of Michael Shannon's General Zod from DC's Man of Steel), but his presence is rather minimal in the film. Ben Mendelsohn also has a very emotive performance and is his best performance in quite a while despite being a space comic book superhero film.
But the real standout acting performances come from Samuel L. Jackson and Reggie, who played a young Nick Fury and Goose the cat. the de-ageing process was pretty spot-on and didn't stand out and the pair had a great partnership in terms of the comedy in the film (think Rocket Racoon and Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy). Of course, it was nice for Jackson to finally get a reasonably significant role in a Marvel film. There are a couple of questionable CGI moments in terms of Goose, but that was most likely necessary to maintain it's ethical standing, and still elicited some laughs anyway.
The film is somewhat similar to Disney's Star Wars films, or more specifically Solo: A Star Wars Story. You can expect to find many, many shoutouts, callbacks and Easter eggs in this film. Nearly every major point in the film is either trying to set up future characters for films or remind you of a previous film to try make you feel like it's always been a part of the MCU. Captain Marvel also goes out of its way to answer questions that nobody really asked to be answered. The final comparison to make, is that as a prequel to the MCU you lose a lot of tension in the film because we know what happens afterwards (we all knew Chewbacca wasn't going to kill Han Solo), so you lose that edge-of-your-seat excitement.
Set in the 90s there are many nods to that era, whether it be to colour grading, score, cinematography, action scenes or set designs, and it all works very well. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is an absolute slap-in-the-face; so loud and jarring, that it feels more in line with Thor: Ragnarok or dare I say it, Suicide Squad. On the other hand, I love that grunge rock 90s music, so I loved to see it getting some recognition, and admittedly it did fit well in the scheme of what was going on onscreen (it just needed to be a bit more subtle).
While Captain Marvel sets up characters for potential future films, it remains close-lipped about Avengers: Endgame. We were already told that Captain Marvel would be important in Endgame so the film provides no new information at all. Which does have the consequence of meaning despite Captain Marvel being the first female-led MCU film in the franchise, it's also a film that you don't have to watch to understand Endgame. It's as if they were preparing for people to not like the film and instead of doubling down and making it required viewing, they gave you an option to skip it.
Overall, I enjoyed the film much more than I was expecting to. Brie Larson still doesn't feel like the best charismatic fit for the role, but she showed some good emotional variation and had some great humour, which I very much enjoyed. Feministic themes were present, but not too in-your-face apart from a couple lines of dialogue and one soundtrack choice during the climax of the film.
humour but better at the dry sarcasm. It manages to throw a couple of twists in there that if you really paid attention to the MCU history probably won't be a surprise, but to the general public, there is a lot to gain from the film. Lots of laughs and lots of action make up for a rather lacklustre plot.