The Marvels (Spoiler-Free) review: An Unfortunate Misstep

The sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel brings back Brie Larson paired with a new crew to help save the universe. But does it live up to the lofty standards set by its MCU predecessor? Or does it continue the troubling trajectory of Phase 5 movies? Find out ahead

The Marvels

Directed by Nia DaCosta
Starring Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani

Runtime: 1 hour, 45 mins

Synopsis

When a new threat emerges from the crumbling Kree empire, Captain Marvel (Larson) is forced to defend the people she calls family across the universe. However, that’s easier said that done as her powers have now been entangled with her biggest fan in Ms. Marvel (Vellani) and her estranged niece Monica Rambeau (Parris), both of whom have their own complications working with one of the universe’s strongest beings.

Strong Start, Sputtering Everywhere Else

There’s a great, frantic pace that throws us quickly across the galaxy as our three lead characters slowly realize that they are sharing a galactic moment together. This isn’t a spoiler (even if you haven’t seen the trailer) but our 3 lead characters are dealing with a partial, Freaky Friday situation that works like this:

If they use their powers at the exact same time, they end up switching places in the universe.

This mechanic works pretty well for the most part; there’s a few moments when you may want to question it, but those are thankfully few. Even later on as they improve their teamwork through a typical training montage, you’ll sort of figure out the limitations and advantages of their powers being used in this manner, forcing them to work together. As the strongest visual and energetic parts of thefil, if we had received more opportunities like this, it’s likely fans would be comparing it favorably to key moments in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Coincidentally, what this movie misses are the slow burn moments that made us fall in love with those Guardians characters. Director James Gunn had some sizzling action moments for sure, but the smaller, quieter moments helped us fall in love with those characters, whether it’s Gamora and Quill having a tender moment that eventually ends with a pelvic joke or Rocket being comforted by Drax after they lose Groot in the finale. Those little moments add up to create a larger impact on the overall feeling and our impressions of those characters along with sharp wit and character dialogue.

Think back to Captain Marvel in 2019; there were plenty of moments between Nick Fury and Carol (I’m gonna use their first names going forward so we avoid the confusion of which Marvel I’m talking about) or Carol and Maria Rambeau (Monica’s mother) that capture what I’m talking about. Those moments had time to breathe and they help us understand what Carol lost when the Kree brainwashed her. That makes the eventual final act that much more powerful as she’s liberating Hala from an oppressive artificial intelligence while reclaiming a piece of herself.

The Marvels is moving too fast to catch or sit with those moments. To the narrative’s credit, it knows that Monica and Carol, two characters who haven’t seen each other in decades need to clear the air. However, one of those key moments lasted all of 2 mins and just reaffirms what you could have surmised from context clues. The strongest of these moments comes between Kamala and Carol after a difficult decision puts the newly formed team on it’s heels. However, it’s short, the characters make up quickly and later scenes will undermine the emotional tension (in fairness, many MCU films do this, but it can extend too far at times).

Star Energy

The shining grace of this entire film is Iman Vellani; fans of hers from the Disney+ Ms. Marvel series already know how great she is. Her energy and chemistry really steals the show and elevates the whole affair. You would have thought she’s been acting for years given how quickly she’s acclimated herself to the MCU system. My only criticism is not her acting, but the moments I talked about above. The film missed an opportunity to have her come to grips with meeting her idol. They flirt with the fun aspect of that and pat themselves on the back for teasing darker, more complex issues but refuse to explore it. Hence, while Vellani is having a blast, it robs her from a great opportunity to explore the depths of Kamala.

For an Academy Award-winning actress, Brie Larson gets way too much flack for her performance in the original Captain Marvel. I’m not saying an award gives you free license to do whatever you want, but I want to put fan criticisms of her acting into perspective. She’s fantastic in many of her roles and doesn’t deserves the nonsense that trolls fabricate on a near daily basis (fall into the wrong side of the internet and you’ll quickly discover what I mean). That said, I’m a bit torn on her second full turn as Carol Danvers. On the one hand, she seems as even-keeled as her first iteration of the character, however when the movie needs more depth from her performance, it’s simply not there. Whether that’s a result of the script (more likely) or Larson (less likely) is hard to tell, but I’m confident in saying many fans will enjoy her overall performance even if some scenes leave no taste in their mouth.

I’ve loved Teyonah Parris in many of her recent projects, like They Cloned Tyrone (2023) or Candyman (2021), where director Nia DaCosta and Parris worked together in a fantastic reboot / continuation of that series. Her work in the MCU though has left much to be desired as her role doesn’t seem clearly defined. She spends most of the runtime spouting off technobabble in ways that would make Geordi LeForge blush. Seeing a clearly capable actor worn down or misused in this way is baffling; that doesn’t diminish the more heartfelt or humorous moments between herself and her teammates, but when they needed to advance the plot, Monica was their go-to and it became increasingly more painful as the movie wore on.

Regrettably, I haven’t seen many of Zawe Ashton’s projects. So while she may be a fantastic actress, I won’t be using The Marvels as my measuring stick. While the motivations for her character were great, the movie made the decidedly dumb decision to give us little time with her plight. Given how interlinked her issues with Carol were (more on that in the spoiler review), it’s a discredit to her performance to dangle those threads and then not explore them fully. I’ve already seen many fans compare her motivations favorably to Killmonger in Black Panther and while that’s true on paper, I would call these performances as far apart as Earth and Hala. Ashton either doesn’t do much with what she’s given or the likely culprit is that MCU executives hacked this script to death until it was a disjointed mess. Either way, Ashton’s performance suffers as a consequence and her first turn in the MCU ends with a whimper.

Mismatched Characterizations and Tone

Since this is spoiler-free, I’ll keep this next part brief (and we’re tackling those more in the spoiler review and conversations next week over on our Discord)…Disney+ fans will definitely be a bit confused by how Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and others seem in this film compared to how they were just a few months ago. Now, this wouldn’t be the first time that a MCU film has a slightly different feel for its characters across movies. Take Thor for example: he cracks way more jokes and has a completely different mood in Ragnarok (2017) than Infinity War (2018), where he’s much more gloomy (which makes sense given everything he’s experienced across two movies). I argued that tonal shift was bad back in 2017-2018 and it’s even more noticeable today when you watch those two films back-to-back.

It feels jarring to have Fury in this sort of jovial spirit given everything he just went through. Yes, he’s a rugged character and since he’s seen so much, maybe the expectation is that life can roll off him. However, that doesn’t account for just how many jokes, asides, and overall lack of urgency we see from him over the course of the film. It also makes his overall role in the film unnecessary; sure he’s the link between these characters due to past history, I’m not saying he shouldn’t be here. However, most of his scenes with Kamala’s family members (who are wonderful in this) seem so whimsical and out of place, that they felt like a different movie.

Towards the finale, there’s some wild tonal shifts that didn’t work for me, especially when Marvel wanted to eat it’s cake and have emotional depth, too. If the audience thinks about any of those scenes too long, they are going to immediately think less of this film and narrative automatically. The most egregious of these is how careless some scenes are when referring to vast devastation. When the film isn’t allowed a moment to breathe, it makes the characters seem like jackasses for moving on so quick and not thinking or dwelling on what just happened. The narrative realizes this is a problem and attempts some fixes for it (which may be what those reshoots were attempting to address) but it comes off pretty callous. I’ll call out specific examples in the spoiler review, but suffice it to say, these patches did not work for me.

Conclusion / Recommendation

For diehard fans hoping this latest entry in the MCU would right the ship from its rocky trajectory, no such comfort will be found. That doesn’t mean it’s a worthless or lackluster experience with the fun performances from Vellani and crew, but the lofty standards we expect are falling faster than we can keep up with the myriad of TV shows and offshoots. It’s unfortunately hampered one of its more successful character franchises when the continuity desperately needed a boost.

I can only recommend this film to the MCU faithful who are going to watch this no matter what or taking the young kiddos to see women powering up on the big screen. Aside from that, I would wait until it’s streaming on Disney+ or available to rent / purchase.

Score: 5 out of 10

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