Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of November 6, 2023
The Marvels
Rated PG-13 for brief language, action and violence
In Theaters
Through a series of inexplicable cosmic events, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) find their powers and presences intertwined after a villain (Zawe Ashton) gains new powers through a newly discovered magical bracelet. Teaming up, the three superheroes attempt to take on the baddie before she destroys their universe in the spirit of trying to save her own. There’s a lot to like in the stories that lead up to this. Captain Marvel was a fantastic movie on its own and if you haven’t seen Ms. Marvel on Disney+, you are really missing out. But this new adventure is so full of plot holes and problems that the confusion alone makes it difficult to enjoy. First off, the villain has very little in the way of exposition or backstory. I feel that had they at least given her something, good or evil, this might have been a serviceable story to dig into. As it is, it feels like sloppy filmmaking from artists who know better, because they’ve done better. What is also confusing is Captain Marvel is incredibly overpowered. Even a tough villain is really no challenge for her, especially with 2 other heroes involved. And yet she struggles to fight her enemy as if she merely had basic fighting superpowers. This didn’t make sense in the least. Where the film succeeds is in its silliness. There is a strange sense of humor that pervades the film, making it more reminiscent of the recent Thor movies or the TV shows than your average Marvel movie. While this humor is rather out of place, like the whacky musical number or the kittens eating up the humans, those comedic scenes are almost welcome distractions from the rest of the movie. Overall, I didn’t hate it, but I certainly didn’t like it. It was serviceable had they fixed the script troubles, but it appears the project got away from them after it was too late to repair, giving Marvel even more issues to move on from as their latest phase keeps falling apart. I’m hoping something comes along as the glue to put it all back together, but with all their recent misses, it looks more likely that they might be forced to scrap the whole thing and start over. C