Out now to own or rent on Digital, and 4k UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on February 13th.
“Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole, her powers are entangled with super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and work together to save the universe.”
The Marvels combines storylines of three characters: Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, the first one of the trio introduced with the character being featured in several MCU films since. Monica Rambeau, the current actress and most present variation of the character introduced in WandaVision, where she gained her powers. Finally, Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, introduced in Ms. Marvel in which she finds a powerful bangle that gives her her powers.
One issue I’ve had since the beginning of Disney+ and the expansion of the MCU to television was the need to assimilate all MCU content in order to stay up to date on what’s going on and the general story arc of the franchise. While genre fatigue is definitely real, for me, it was around the time Ms. Marvel was released that it set in, and was the first show that I didn’t end up watching. Despite this, I was still easily able to follow the Kamala Khan storyline, thanks in part to the short and to-the-point opening sequence that gets us up to speed. If The Marvels succeeds at anything, for me at least, it piques my interest in the show and the Kamala Khan character and her family.
As for the rest of the film, like any other, there is good and bad. With the Captain Marvel character, I’ve always felt that with a character this strong, there isn’t a lot of conflict you can throw her way besides a story that involves around taking away her almost indestructible abilities, and in essence, that’s what they’ve done here…again. Thankfully, it’s in a very cool and unique way that I actually enjoyed. That, and the fact that the events after Captain Marvel are shown, with the entire Kree race viewing her as ‘The Annihilator’, a moniker given to her after she destroyed the supreme intelligence which left their planet without water, air, or even the warmth of their sun for over thirty years. Being viewed as a villain is a very interesting plot point, one I wished they were able to explore further in depth. It makes the actions of the main antagonist, Dar-Benn, actually kind of sympathetic if it weren’t for the killing of countless people in order to return their planet to its original form. Unfortunately, besides a very brief confession from Carol Danvers to Monica Rambeau and an earlier lapse in judgement is about the deepest we explore this.
Additionally, the whole draw of the film and the quantum entanglement that the trio has found themselves hindered by doesn’t feel like it comes to its full fruition. We see the disadvantages of them switching places when two use their powers, in a really well done sequence at the beginning of the film where they switch places in vastly different locations. Then, we see an entire montage of them working out and mastering the entanglement, but the final battle comes and it’s somewhat lackluster. I’m not for certain, but it seemed as though the montage of them switching places was longer than the actual battle. I had hoped that there would be an epic battle with the teleportation used in a lot of cool ways, but that’s just not that case. For the shortest film in the MCU, they chose some of the worst moments to cut short.
Regardless if you like Captain Marvel or not, the Flerken are the best creatures in the MCU. The Flerken scenes – the one on the space station, will continue to be one of my favorites, and worth seeing the film by itself. Overall, I think that a lot of opportunities were missed in The Marvels. The formula needs to change, and this had some new and unique ideas to it, but for some reason didn’t connect with a lot of people. Is it the worst of the franchise? Absolutely not. It’s lighter, it can be fun, but missed some good character moments that could have made it better. Not every Marvel film with multiple super-heroes is going to be an Avengers film.
We were given a digital code to review The Marvels, which is now available on Digital. This will also be available on 4k UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on February 13th.
