Captain Marvel (2019) - Reviews + Discussion

[Jay R]

... how many cpt Marvels were there... it's weird with her and Shazam and now this? christ, it's like marvel couldn't come up with other names.

I only know of fourteen.

Fawcett/DC Comics
Billy Batson (the original)
Freddie Fawcett: (Captain Marvel Jr., then Captain Marvel)
Mary Bromfield (Mary Marvel, then Captain Marvel)

[Hoppy, Uncle Marvel, and the Lieutenants Marvel were never actually called "Captain Marvel"]

Marvel Comics
Mar-Vell
Monica Rambeau
Genis-Vell
Phyla-Vell
Khn'nr
Mahr Vehl (Ultimate Universe)
Noh-Varr (Marvel Boy, then Captain Marvel)
Carol Danvers

Amalgam comics
Billy Mar-Vell, an amalgam of Billy Batson and Mar-Vell

M. F. Enterprises comics
Roger Winkle

English football (soccer)
Bryan Robson

christ, it's like marvel couldn't come up with other names.

They had a reason to keep using that name. A trademark (unlike copyright) only stays protected if you keep using it in trade. Since 1968, Marvel has always wanted to keep one active "Captain Marvel", in order to keep the trademark. That's why the company with the original (Billy Batson) can't use the name he originated as a trademark, so the movie is named Shazam!

Mar-Vell was invented for exactly that purpose, in 1968.

Anyways:
My biggest issue is naming Avengers iniciative after Carol. Cpt. America was The First Avenger and changing this is just stupid.

You can still consider Captain America "the first Avenger" -- despite the fact that he wasn't called that in the WW2 movie, wasn't the first Avenger introduced in the comics (Human Torch and Sub-Mariner), wasn't the first one in the movies' Avengers Initiative (which was active before he was re-discovered) and wasn't in the Avengers until issue #4. Carol hasn't taken his place; Fury just thought that Avengers was a cooler name than Protectors. I agree.

Cap was the first Avenger to have his own comic, but the first Avenger to be the title character of a comic for fifteen uninterrupted years was Hellcat (who wasn't Hellcat yet).

[t209]

My point was that I'm pretty sure the Shi'Ar ARE worse than the rest of them - we have seen the occasional Kree or Skrull that wasn't a complete dip-spit.



I mean, they seriously consider art to be deviant and have been known wage war on cultures that have art, because it made them go mad because it made them dream. (There is no indication I have found that the Fianden were actually, y'know, intentionally doing this offensively as a weapon.). Who they then genocided. And purged all their own people with the ability to dream. Repeatedly.

They couldn't be more cartoonishly, pathetically Evil if they actively tried.

Just searching through and found this.
Part of me wonder how would Secret Empire played out, I mean consider that only Fury and Carol knew about Skrulls and not sure everyone will be on board with "Skrulls are not evil" considering multiple alien invasion (though not dumb enough to accept Green Goblins with 100% face value, even after committing one atrocity after another without any cover ups. Not to mention that half of them would be shot by his regime for "collaboration" after accepting Skrulls' obvious lies at 100% face value).

[Aotrs Commander]

Just searching through and found this.

...

Oh my Lichemaster.

I could not make that crap up!

They really a bunch of complete posterior openings full of excrement, aren't they? Ye gods.

[Ramza00]

I am happy now for I just learn that Brie Larson and Samuel L Jackson are doing another movie together besides Captain Marvel, even if that other movie is not in the MCU.

The Unicorn Store coming out on Netflix in April 5th, 2019. (It was directed by Brie Larson beside her staring in it, and it came out on the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017 but it was not shown in theaters and now Netflix got it.)

----

Also I can relieve my Thor Ragnarok Nostalgia with Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemwsorth partnering again in Men in Black International coming out in theaters Jun 14, 2019.

[Psyren]

The new Men In Black does look interesting. (Certainly it couldn't get any worse than 2 and 3...)

[The Glyphstone]

MIB3 wasnt bad. It didnt live up to 1, but it was serviceable and Young K was perfect. Mentioning it in the same sentence as 2 is criminal.

[Ramza00]

MIB3 wasnt bad. It didnt live up to 1, but it was serviceable and Young K was perfect. Mentioning it in the same sentence as 2 is criminal.

2 must exist to affirm 1. 1 was so perfect when it was born into this world, 2 is merely the afterbirth, the everything else to allow 1 to occur.

1 was so perfect in making a divine mixture of getting the show and tell just right, an apotheosis of getting the timing and praxis to it's ultimate conclusion.

2 is the opposite of 1, with 2 everything here is intristically wrong! 2 should have been locked in the MIB vault after it was made, it should have never seen the light of day.

Neuralizes The Glyphstone so you forget about 2.

[ben-zayb]

MIB3 wasnt bad. It didnt live up to 1, but it was serviceable and Young K was perfect. Mentioning it in the same sentence as 2 is criminal.

MIB3's saving grace IMO was that it had Brolin and half of Flight of the Conchords.

[AvatarVecna]

2 must exist to affirm 1. 1 was so perfect when it was born into this world, 2 is merely the afterbirth, the everything else to allow 1 to occur.

1 was so perfect in making a divine mixture of getting the show and tell just right, an apotheosis of getting the timing and praxis to it's ultimate conclusion.

2 is the opposite of 1, with 2 everything here is intristically wrong! 2 should have been locked in the MIB vault after it was made, it should have never seen the light of day.

Neuralizes The Glyphstone so you forget about 2.

Using mind control lasers on a mod? Oh how the tables have turned!

[Ramza00]

Using mind control lasers on a mod? Oh how the tables have turned!

I forgot Glyphstone was a mod when I used Neuralizer. EEK! 😬

I only used the Neuralizer for MIB 2 was so evil it must be forgotten, for the good of society. MIB 2 is why secret societies are invented to protect the public from the horrors they should not know about (also to protect us from Arquillian Battle Cruiser, Korilian Death Rays, and intergalactic plagues.)

My bad for I didn't meant to mess with a mod's memory. EEK! 😬

[Kato]

...

Oh my Lichemaster.

I could not make that crap up!

They really a bunch of complete posterior openings full of excrement, aren't they? Ye gods.

So, I'm not in any way a fan of the Shi'ar (I basically didn't know they existed before this debate) and I'm not making a claim about them being nice guys but...
Just going by that list most stuff really doesn't qualify as more than average evil.
Half the list is 'trying to stop the Phoenix Force' which is a threat to the whole universe. And obviously you can have long arguments what is okay and what isn't when you try to save the universe but it's not like they do that out of malice.
Another third or so is being ruthless in regard to Earth or less developed cultures which is again obviously evil but what is one planet (race) compared to dozens? You can't win an intergalactic war without blowing up a few stars.
Don't get me wrong, there are clearly evil / stupid things on the list but the majority seems pretty minor when I think from the position of a civilization that intends to 'fix' the universe.

[GloatingSwine]

Half the list is 'trying to stop the Phoenix Force' which is a threat to the whole universe. And obviously you can have long arguments what is okay and what isn't when you try to save the universe but it's not like they do that out of malice.

On the other hand, the Phoenix Force is only really a threat when people screw with it.

It's one of the natural processes of the universe, and you can no more save the universe from it than you can from gravity.

[Ramza00]

On the other hand, the Phoenix Force is only really a threat when people screw with it.

It's one of the natural processes of the universe, and you can no more save the universe from it than you can from gravity.

People try to stop natural things all the time. Sometimes via mere tenacity and sometimes by doing things like building a dam.

What I am saying here is I agree with you on my personal level, but at the same time humans are not perfectly rational, so why should alien empires be rational as well? The people who screw things up with The Phoenix Force do have internally consistent beliefs on why their logic make sense. It is just a question did their actions decrease the risk or increase the risk by messing with the powers that be that are naturally occurring.

Furthermore there are things you can do to protect yourself from The Phoenix Force even if you can't do perfect protection and trying to mess with The Phoenix Force often makes things worse in this fictional narrative.

Death is inevitable, The Phoenix Force doing something nasty or something nasty occurring due to the proxy of The Phoenix is also inevitable given enough comic time.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by t209
Just searching through and found this.

Probably not news to anyone else, but this is the first I’d heard of Lilandra and the Shi’ar in the next X-Men movie.

Some of my favorite X-Men issues involved the Starjammers, so this is good news for me. If only they could work in the Brood.

[Kitten Champion]

Probably not news to anyone else, but this is the first I’d heard of Lilandra and the Shi’ar in the next X-Men movie.

Some of my favorite X-Men issues involved the Starjammers, so this is good news for me. If only they could work in the Brood.

Hey, they are Fox after all, they could use the real Xenomorphs.

[Palanan]

Sorry, the Brood are much cooler. They've got wings.

And mind-controlled space whales. The big screen needs more mind-controlled space whales.

[Clertar]

In some reviews and discussions on Captain Marvel I have observed a paradox that I will try to put down in words:

- Some people complain about both x and ¬x in Marvel films

I have come to think that there is a received narrative that "MCU films have this problem" (this being a cliché villain, a cliché origin story, a cliché formula), but also complaining when the opposite is shown. Sometimes complaining about it as if ¬x were actually x.

"Kevin Feige / Marvel plays it safe, it's always the same formula." When it's the case: "these movies are all the same", "Black Panther was ok but it just has the same old MCU final fight with an villain that's the reverse of the hero."

When it's not followed: "why didn't they have an epic fight with a final boss that has the same powers as Captain Marvel?", or "Why wasn't the Mandarin a cliché bad guy in the shadows?".

"Marvel has a villain problem", when for the last 5 years this "problem" is more pervasive in non-MCU films than in the MCU itself.

I've also seen simultaneous complaints about the character of Captain Marvel being a cheap attempt at copying Tony Stark, while at the same time making the decision to portray her as too emotionless and deadpan.

I imagine it's the result of MCU films being so successful. When a MCU film that's considered run-of-the-mill like Ant-Man or Dr Strange matches Justice League in box office and outperforms it with critics, or when the best box office of the competition (like Aquaman) is an order of magnitude below the best box office performances of the MCU, I imagine it's hard to find criticism that's both solid and not too nuanced or complex to express. Still makes me scratch my head.

[Dienekes]

In some reviews and discussions on Captain Marvel I have observed a paradox that I will try to put down in words:

- Some people complain about both x and ¬x in Marvel films

I have come to think that there is a received narrative that "MCU films have this problem" (this being a cliché villain, a cliché origin story, a cliché formula), but also complaining when the opposite is shown. Sometimes complaining about it as if ¬x were actually x.

"Kevin Feige / Marvel plays it safe, it's always the same formula." When it's the case: "these movies are all the same", "Black Panther was ok but it just has the same old MCU final fight with an villain that's the reverse of the hero."

When it's not followed: "why didn't they have an epic fight with a final boss that has the same powers as Captain Marvel?", or "Why wasn't the Mandarin a cliché bad guy in the shadows?".

"Marvel has a villain problem", when for the last 5 years this "problem" is more pervasive in non-MCU films than in the MCU itself.

I've also seen simultaneous complaints about the character of Captain Marvel being a cheap attempt at copying Tony Stark, while at the same time making the decision to portray her as too emotionless and deadpan.

I imagine it's the result of MCU films being so successful. When a MCU film that's considered run-of-the-mill like Ant-Man or Dr Strange matches Justice League in box office and outperforms it with critics, or when the best box office of the competition (like Aquaman) is an order of magnitude below the best box office performances of the MCU, I imagine it's hard to find criticism that's both solid and not too nuanced or complex to express. Still makes me scratch my head.

Well, for one, I think you'd need to demonstrate that the same people are the ones with the contradictory views. Because mostly, all I've seen are just a bunch of people each with their own individual views not forming a consensus.

But, if we are to take your statement that it is the same people with both views at face value, I honestly think the answer has more to do with the individual movies and the promises made in the script. Purposely breaking with a formula is not inherently better than strictly following the formula, so long as the story around that formula is satisfying and meaningful to the audience.

Take GotG2, which I personally loved, it does follow the pretty strict formula of introducing the villain, setting up the villains evil plan, and ending with a big dumb final fight. But the story itself focuses on the complexities of family, and the effects of imperfect parents. Which, personally, really spoke to me. Everything the movie foreshadowed came back around with very little in the way of deviation, but I still loved it. It followed the promises it made to a tee.

Compare and contrast with Iron Man 2. It set up the Mandarin as this big villain with this big dramatic showdown that was referenced all the way back in the original Iron Man movie. And then the reveal happens, and it's hilarious and breaks from the promises of the earlier story. Now it's not a complete break, as the story had also set up Killian as a major antagonist to Tony. So we still had that plot line running through the movie and carrying it to the end. But Killian just wasn't particularly interesting to watch. So after the hilarious reveal of the Mandarin's true nature the movie kind of dragged on.

This I think comes to the for with Captain Marvel as well. Marvel set up the war with Kree and Skrulls. Set up Carol's amnesia and her coming to terms with her individuality and power. And there was a major twist with the Skrull reveal, which I loved. It was in my opinion the best part of the movie. But the main thread of Carol coming into her own didn't really have a twist in it. She self-actualizes and beats back the Supreme Intelligence. My problem was after that moment, Carol's arc is done, but there's still about 20 minutes of fight scene to go through. And, in my opinion, it wasn't that interesting of a fight to watch, because other than minimal scattering of dialogue here and there, the only member of her old squad that had a personality was her mentor figure. And she had already shown herself more powerful than him in the first scene so there's no conflict of strength, and she had already broken from his mental control with the Supreme Intelligence scene. So, for me, I ended up just waiting for the credits to start rolling at that point.

But you can contrast this with Civil War, which in my opinion had one of the better villains. Who does not have a big final fight, has an interesting motivation, and even though he does not really have a direct connection to any of the main characters each scene he's with one of them is meaningful. I especially liked his scene with Black Panther which found a way to tie up Panther's arc in the movie very satisfyingly. And though the promise of a confrontation with Zemo was ultimately denied, it still resulted in a satisfactory moment to conclude his story in the movie, and the much bigger promises of Steve and Tony going head to head are brutally fulfilled.

Now as to people both thinking Carol was too snarky and too stoic. I got nothing.

[Clertar]

I guess I can see that. It's a thing that the fans of a genre or "intellectual property" are more vocal and nitpicky than non-fan cinephiles, right. So meta-awareness of the beats and expectations of a genre or sub-genre can lead to a higher degree of frustration when this is not met than it does for audience coming in without that baggage.

[Mato]

Overall, it's "Ok".

Spoiler

Show

They tried to hard is what I think it comes down to.

I guess I don't know what to expect when it comes to masculine hero vs feminine hero but I know I wanted a superhero movie and they just wanted to beat me over the head with the fact she's a girl. I believe that by design it's a female power fantasy. Like a female doesn't have to prove her self to a male, it's totally fine to be a cocky thief if someone hits on you, women can revoke access if a man follows proper protocol, and so on which I find to be a little too disturbing. In a male fantasy multiple women choose to be with them and the even do X to get girl formula that people claim is objectification is still based around the man has to earn the debt of gratitude from a women. But this female fantasy is based around being a nonconformist that can be terrible to others and it's totally ok.

Now she does follow the more traditional boring line. Even losing all of her memories and training to crunch her special ops training and power control into a two year off screen training she's the second best member on her team and allowed to ignore orders. She's an ace pilot, hardware specialist, avid programmer, already a master of her powers (the system was just holding her back), the only one that knows whats going on, the central figure in everything, and so on. And she suffers from it. She has no real character arc, just empty comments about not knowing things and the only meaningful thing she forgot was just a confirmation that the rest of the characters already said & demonstrated and the audience knew walking in. But these traits are normal fantasy protag traits and they are fine on their own, it just creates a boring character is all.

And mashing her up with Samuel L Jackson was a brilliant way to counteract that. They let him carry on the story and take forefront to the comedic humor passed back and forth. The kitty that can devour everything (subtle right?) had no lines on screen but they built it up and waited so it had a nice delivery. I think Ben Mendelsohn deserves a shout out, he was able to project empathy through all those facial prosthetics. I'm not sure naming his character Talos did anything through, anyone that got the reference wouldn't have thought he was the bad guy because they would have gotten the Kree reference from GotA and Agents of while Ronin was a dead give away for anyone that didn't. I hope Jude Law's Yon-Rogg returns for Endgame and teams up Black Widow, they both strike me as the do what needs to be done and living in regret kind of people with similar training and love for wrist mounted weapons and glowing sticks.

I also loved the Super Saiyen scenes in live action but I can't imagine the writers liked it. Scarlette Witch, Vision, Thor, and Strange all have gotten too powerful and it's hard to write a story that has them going against the same opponents with people like Captain America, Gamora, & T'Challa. So in Infinity War they didn't really overlap outside of their character interactions (which is what makes the MCU great imo) and then most of them died off anyway. But now we have another spaceship++ living weapon that will probably get shoved off until the end.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Dienekes
Compare and contrast with Iron Man 2. It set up the Mandarin as this big villain with this big dramatic showdown that was referenced all the way back in the original Iron Man movie. And then the reveal happens, and it's hilarious and breaks from the promises of the earlier story.

I think you mean Iron Man 3, yes?

I agree with you on most of your following points, with the movie dragging severely after the Mandarin twist/reveal, except I didn't find the reveal funny, just silly. Completely deflated the rest of the movie for me.

[Erys]

I think you mean Iron Man 3, yes?

I agree with you on most of your following points, with the movie dragging severely after the Mandarin twist/reveal, except I didn't find the reveal funny, just silly. Completely deflated the rest of the movie for me.

Showing the big bad was not a man, but a narrative created by a think tank and utilized to push an agenda -> was art imitating life.

I thought it was a bold move and liked it, even though real life doesn't have superheroes to thwart such evils.

[Reddish Mage]

Showing the big bad was not a man, but a narrative created by a think tank and utilized to push an agenda -> was art imitating life.

Isn't that more like art imitating the making of art?

I found the idea of a white guy pretending to be asian making vague terrorist threats without any real definable goals to be about the most tone-deaf take on terrorism you can possibly have.

Now if the villain was a front-man for a special interest group that would be something else, but in no world is a weak actor pretending to be a villain a threat worthy of all that sacrifice and build up that was had. I vaguely recall there was some other stuff leading to a showdown at some docs...it just got very muddled at that point.

[Devonix]

Isn't that more like art imitating the making of art?

I found the idea of a white guy pretending to be asian making vague terrorist threats without any real definable goals to be about the most tone-deaf take on terrorism you can possibly have.

Now if the villain was a front-man for a special interest group that would be something else, but in no world is a weak actor pretending to be a villain a threat worthy of all that sacrifice and build up that was had. I vaguely recall there was some other stuff leading to a showdown at some docs...it just got very muddled at that point.

That's the point, the weak actor wasn't the threat. The threat was the businessman and the fear he could manipulate.

[Velaryon]

I didn't mind the bait-and-switch reveal of the Mandarin. I understand why they did it, and I think doing the comics version of the character right would have been extremely challenging. I just felt that the actual threat behind him (Killian) was a massive letdown.

[Erys]

Iron Man 3 is definitely art imitating life.

I didn't mind the bait-and-switch reveal of the Mandarin. I understand why they did it, and I think doing the comics version of the character right would have been extremely challenging. I just felt that the actual threat behind him (Killian) was a massive letdown.

For me that was the beauty of reveal.

Without being specific- history is full of events where fictitious narratives are formed around events, or people, (or both!) to mold and manipulate public opinion.

That is exactly what Killian was doing through the use of actor-Mandarian. Just like the movie, often the fear/anger (and subsequent response) generated by a false narrative is greater than the real (but obfuscated) threat.

[Tyndmyr]

"Kevin Feige / Marvel plays it safe, it's always the same formula." When it's the case: "these movies are all the same", "Black Panther was ok but it just has the same old MCU final fight with an villain that's the reverse of the hero."

When it's not followed: "why didn't they have an epic fight with a final boss that has the same powers as Captain Marvel?", or "Why wasn't the Mandarin a cliché bad guy in the shadows?".

This is, IMO, overly reductionist.

A credibly powerful villain is needed. A mirror image of the hero is not the only way to have a credible villain.

I've said this a few times, and had people act as if I was talking nonsense. Look, everyone loves GotG 1, right? Pretty much everyone? The villain is clearly evil, clearly powerful, and clearly not Peter Quill 2.0. Yeah, he's not super original, but the story works.

The Supreme Intelligence could work as a villain, but the structure's off. An action montage of her fighting her way to the Kree homeworlds and taking on the SI in an epic fight could have made an epic final fight. They didn't do that, though. They treated the guy from the beginning as her personal foe, and frankly, he's a joke by this point, and was never really all that scary, being a kree soldier who wants to take on Capt Marvel in fisticuffs. As a joke, that's fine, but as a final fight, it's deeply unsatisfying.

[HMS Invincible]

Isn't that more like art imitating the making of art?

I found the idea of a white guy pretending to be asian making vague terrorist threats without any real definable goals to be about the most tone-deaf take on terrorism you can possibly have.

Now if the villain was a front-man for a special interest group that would be something else, but in no world is a weak actor pretending to be a villain a threat worthy of all that sacrifice and build up that was had. I vaguely recall there was some other stuff leading to a showdown at some docs...it just got very muddled at that point.

Spoiler: IM3

Show

Iron Man 3 resonates for those who lived through the fear of 9/11, Iraq war 2, Vietnam, Korean war etc etc. Special interests rile up the masses. It happened before and it'll happen again.

I'm surprised you didn't see the parallels between the military industrial complex and iron Man 3. Or how CA Winter Soldier plays into a simplistic version of the same complex.

[Rodin]

Yeah, I liked the take on the Mandarin. I was rolling my eyes at the terrorist videos and was delighted when they decided to take it in a different direction.

The big problem with Iron Man 3 is that it doesn't really follow through with any of its plot points. The Mandarin thing just sort of falls apart at that point in the movie, Killian is supremely boring as a villain who...got mad when Tony snubbed him? I even watched the movie again recently and I can't recall his motivation more clearly than that. He's just so unmemorable. Stark's PTSD doesn't really get a satisfying conclusion, the kid sidekick (who was awesome) sods off back home halfway through the film, and the generic enhanced super-soldiers are the very definition of "mook".

I think Iron Man 3 was the first time they were really trying to get outside the "superhero movie" genre and dip into a sub-genre, but they kinda chickened out partway and didn't really nail genre-blending until Winter Soldier.

[Ramza00]

I think Iron Man 3 was the first time they were really trying to get outside the "superhero movie" genre and dip into a sub-genre, but they kinda chickened out partway and didn't really nail genre-blending until Winter Soldier.

Only 11 months separated Winter Solider and Iron Man 3, only one movies between the two. There was no time to reverse course and try anything new there was no time to chicken out.


Remember the 2013 / 2014 MCU theater release order was.

May 2013: Iron Man 3
Nov 2013: Thor 2: The Dark World
Apr 2014: Captain America 2: The Winter Solider
Aug 2014: Guardians of the Galaxy 1.

And we get Avengers 2: Age of Ultron in May 2015.

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The decision to go sub-genre for Iron Man 3 and Captain America 2, and so on was a key decision made in Part 2 of the MCU plot. You needed to brand these movies in a different way for you are doing 2 movies a year now from 2013+ on, and in 2017+ we are now doing 3 movies a year now. 😕