Grade: B/B+
Entire family: No
2019, 124 min., Color
Fantasy-Adventure
Marvel / Disney
Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action and brief suggestive language
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 widesscreen
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 7.1
Bonus features: B
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital Code
Trailer
Amazon link

Two origin stories for the price of one?

That’s what Marvel Cinematic Universe fans get with Captain Marvel once S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) joins Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) a third of the way into the film. What might have been a warm-up for Shaft also turns out to be Jackson’s most entertaining role since Pulp Fiction.

Swagger + Banter + Bad Ass + Latent Rule-breaker + Alien Handler = a lot of fun to watch, especially playing opposite Larson, who for the first third of the film doesn’t seem to have the same ease prancing about in a superhero suit as, say, TV’s Melissa Benoist does as Supergirl. But Larson comes to life in her “buddy” interactions with Fury, the film takes off after that.

Fans who tire of the same basic plot—a supervillain poses a threat to Earth, so one or more superheroes have to rise to the occasion—will appreciate that the 21st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe offers a different kind of narrative problem.

Not to be confused with Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel, who was a little too close to Superman for DC Comics’ comfort, Captain Mar-Vell first appeared in the 1967 comic Marvel Super-Heroes #12, yet another creation of Stan Lee’s, drawn by Gene Colan. In that first comic, Mar-Vell is a Kree “he” sent to Earth to observe their development of weapons technology. In 1982 Mar-Vell was replaced by a woman named Monica Rambeau in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16, and the character changed again with Silver Surfer Annual #6 (1993), Captain Marvel #16 (2004), and Civil War: The Return (2007) before Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, got promoted to Captain for a role that (re)creator Kelly Sue DeConnick describes as “Carol Danvers as Chuck Yeager.”

So did they finally get it right? Considering the success of rival DC Universe’s Wonder Woman, one would hope so. BC (Before Carol) the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn’t had a stand-alone female hero. Now they do, and her back story—a combination of elements from all of the Marvel comic renditions—isn’t as confusing or complicated as others have been. It’s just presented as flashback rather than in chronological time.

It begins with a Kree special operative named Vers (as in Dan-Vers) being trained by her commander, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) treading familiar waters. Like a Kree version of Yoda he tells her she needs to learn not to let anger get in the way of her powers. Then, before you can say “Use the Force,” Carol is captured by the shape-shifting Skrulls, who are at war with the Kree. Then, in the film’s lone annoying gimmick, she’s hung upside down while a Skrull interrogator tells the people operating an electric brain drain to “fast forward” or “back up” through her memories they’re “downloading” so they can find information to help them.

That leads all of them to Earth, where the film starts to get more fun and less informational. Earth provides the arena for the two warring alien sides, with a pre-eyepatch Fury trying to figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad, and Vers piecing together her life as well.

The special effects are what you’d expect from a new MCU film, and the action wasn’t so nonstop that it felt like action for its own sake. There were also enough moments for characters (and the audience) to try to figure things out. While Captain Marvel is a solid-enough beginning, it will be fun to watch the relationship develop between Captain Marvel and Nick Fury in future films.

Language: Probably fewer than a dozen minor swearwords—the most sexual being a sexist line about why it’s called a “cockpit”

Sex: Nothing to speak of—unless you consider zooming in on a fully clothed butt sex

Violence: Here’s where the film earns its PG-13 rating, for repeated “sci-fi action and violence”—but nothing, really, compared to other Marvel movies; characters’ faces are bloodied, tentacles fly out of a character’s mouth, and there are the usual fights and explosions and battles

Adult situations: One flashback occurs in a bar, but there’s no real drinking or drunkenness shown; an alien autopsy is also graphically shown

Takeaway: Tame by Marvel standards, Captain Marvel is an entertaining film that falls in the B range—but there’s nothing to marvel at, to be honest, nothing that makes your jaw drop