THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
During the Infinity Saga, nobody expected Captain Marvel to make such an impact in her solo debut with only a month before the event, that was Avengers: Endgame. As soon as she got everyone’s attention, it was a given for her to be a mainstay for the franchise’s future. She proves such with her long awaited sequel, The Marvels.
PLOT
The 2023 film takes place in a Post Blip era and follows Carol Danvers live her life as a protector of the universe after regaining her identity from the Kree. Things haven't been pleasant since as much as she wished because when defiantly destroying the Supreme Intelligence, it caused the home planet Hala to be barren as it would lose air, water & sunlight yearly, as well as triggering a civil war. A Kree Supremor named Dar-Benn searches for Quantum Bands that she'll use to open jump points from other universes. With it, she'll steal the planet's resources to save her own. She only finds one on a moon which is enough to create the network, but her anomaly opens a jump point near a SABER space station ran by Nick Fury. When Monica Rambeau investigates the jump point near the station and Danvers checks the new one that Dar-Benn opened, they touch through their jump points and switch places between each other and teenager Kamala Khan who has the other band on Earth. When they fight off Kree forces while also swapping places, they eventually regroup with Fury and deduce their powers are linked through quantum entanglement and they'll swap whenever any of the three use their powers simultaneously. With the conflict involving the Kree causing damage in the Khan residence, Kamala's parents and brother take shelter at the SABER station for the time being. When all three protagonists decide to stay together and visit the planet Tarnax, that has been a Skrull refuge thanks to Danvers' aid, negotiations break down between the shape-shifters and the Kree. When that happens, Dar-Benn rips open another jump point to take the planet's atmosphere to restore Hala's air. She evacuates the colony to New Asgard ruled by King Valkrie (Tessa Thompson). During their space travels, the trio try to bond but Rambeau shows resistance due to her animosity towards Carol; She calls her out for not visiting her since the 90s after helping the Skrulls, but her surrogate aunt clarifies she was caught up saving others that needed her more than she did. They decide to use Fracking Pods, created by Skrulls, to re-access their memories which will help them narrow down where Dar-Benn will attack next. When looking through each other's memories, Monica shows sympathy once again to Carol when not only being reminded of the Kree using her, but sees a memory of her saying goodbye to her mother Maria before succumbing to her cancer; She wasn't able to due to being blipped. The trio discover the next planet to be Aladna, a planet where people speak by singing, to warn Prince Yan (Park Seo-Joon), who she married for the sake of solving the planet was a matriarchal society, of upcoming danger. It would be too late no matter the effort because Dar-Benn tears open another jump point to draw the planet's water to Hala. When retreating to another planet, Carol confesses to others that it’s her fault the Kree is doing this since her good intentions backfired in the 90s and felt that she didn’t deserve to return to Earth until it could be all fixed. Monica assures her that she never expected her to be a superhero 24/7, but just her aunt. Since Dar-Benn is targeting planets she cares for, she knows where she’s going next. With the Supremor's final task to be taking energy from Earth's sun, it destabilizes around the planet and endangers SABER's station. With not enough pods for the whole crew, the Flerken Goose has given birth to a nest of offspring, giving Fury the idea to allow the crew to be temporarily swallowed by them in order to make room in the pods. Upon landing, all flerkens regurgitate all that were swallowed. The superhero trio confront Dar-Benn for the last time and try to capitalize with their entanglement, but the Supremor gets the upper hand to take the second band from Kamala, using both to tear open a hole in space. All the energy she consumes causes her to disintegrate, but ends the entanglement between the Marvels. As Kamala regains both bands, she and Carol use their powers to help Monica close the hole from the alternate side which strands her in the process. When the young Khan reunites with her family, Danvers flies into Hala's sun to restore its energy. After this eventful journey, Kamala becomes inspired to assemble her own superhero team and starts her recruiting process by meeting Hawkeye's protege Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). The film ends in a mid credit cliffhanger where Monica wakes up in an alternate universe where Monica is not only alive but is also a mutant under the alias Binary, and is greeted by fellow X-Man Hank McCoy/Beast (Kelsey Grammer).
THOUGHTS
When Captain Marvel surpassed a billion dollars around the same time Endgame did, it was given for a sequel to be made. Since I genuinely enjoyed the preceding film, I was onboard with it to happen. Having seen it all from top to bottom, I'm not ashamed to say I like this one as well. Nia DaCosta helms the director's chair to craft a bonkers of an adventure. You can call it Freaky Friday starring Captain Marvel because the idea of three supers swapping places whenever using their powers was so intriguing yet pretty funny because it's a situation neither are prepared for. The editing done to show their dynamic perspective was well executed because it puts you in the adrenaline rush the characters are all feeling. As that also brings excitement to the fight scenes throughout, there is a fair amount of joy from all the laughter I unleashed. Having 'Memory' by Barbara Streisand play during the unorthodox Flerkens montage was so out f pocket but I hard time containing my laughter when the scenery took a left turn by the time we reached Aladna. The costumes in the sequence were so well dressed, I was expecting Aladdin to sing along. Now in all seriousness, this can still be a grounded film because like Spider-Man, this is a tale on taking responsibility that comes from wanting to make a difference because good intentions don't guarantee good outcomes. This is the lesson we learn when following the titular trio who play off each other oh so well. Brie Larson gives another good performance as Captain Marvel who is in a much different predicament than anticipated. We've already accepted this character has been absent until Thanos' arrival due to watching out for other planets but in reality, she was disappointed in herself for having a backfired outcome on putting the past behind her. She wanted to save Hala from an AI dictator and thought doing it overnight would solve everything. She didn't consider the possibility on how a good decision could open another can of worms and for that, she felt ashamed she couldn't solve it and chose to isolate herself out of shame. With the help that came her way, she was able to redeem herself with intentions that never changed. I was impressed with Teyonah Parris fleshing out Monica in Wandavision and here, she picks up where she left off and expands very well here. She is still a good person overall since she does nothing but help no mater the vicinity because it's in her instinct. She still doesn't let grief consume her, but it does explain her anger towards Carol. Due to how she hasn't seen her since the 90s, she wasn't sure on if she was being neglected or not. Once she found out her aunt did eventually come back, she knew she couldn't hate her for something past her control. And from that realization, she is able to help Danvers understand mistakes are bound to happen and you can't let pride better your judgment as that can still affect others. It is this reconciliation that gives her the motivation to be comfortable in her new identity as the superhero when she closes the alternate side. You totally feel bad for her during the end because she was about to have another dose of feeling content until her mother's variant confirms she has never met her before. Parris and Lashawn Lynch play off the scene spectacularly because the latter's got to be a version of someone who never became a parent after already playing the preceding version in an ailing predicament. And for the former, she's confused yet tries to be happy despite not catching on until later she's not where she's supposed to be. Nevertheless, I'm sure she'll find her way back home within the gap of Doomsday and Secret Wars. Iman Vellani was undoubtedly the brightest spot of the trio when playing Ms. Marvel on the big screen. While being in awe of her role model, the true dangers of heroism kick in for her with all the threats that came her way. In her case, she comes around in learning that multitasking is not ideal because you can't save everyone all at once no matter how hard you try. She accepts this when having to retreat from each planet in need. Despite the disappointment, she maintains her morals and powers through to do her best. With such a hectic experience, it inspired her to be her own leader which she plans to do when meeting Bishop in a lineup that'll set up the Young Avengers. After an intense experience that was Secret Invasion, it was an impressive 180 for Samuel L Jackson to present Fury in a calmer mindset. He's calm enough to lead SABER to realistic solutions and give his own sense to the protagonists on what they can do. He's not even mad at Goose anymore for scratching his eye out and is not terrified when the nest hatches because it leads to a necessary solution he never thought he needed. That is a maturity level I respect because I'd be conflicted in this case compared to other instances where he's in a pickle. With heroes learning their heroism can backfire when least expected, it's fair to get a villain who crosses boundaries of their own. With Yon Rogg likely dead by the time of the Kree Cvil War that emerged after Supreme Intelligence's demise, Dar-Benn is still a formidable threat in the same vein as Ronan the Accuser. Putting aside having a similar weapon, the Universal Weapon, that makes her ruthless when taking action, actress Zawe Ashton portrays her as one who's got fair motive. She wants to save her race while wanting to also emotionally crippling Carol with the planets she was targeting. She wanted her to feel her pain she felt when her planet started dying. With her comeuppance, even she learned the hard way playing fire with fire is not guaranteed to work when you want it to. But with her down for the count, I do hope the next successor comes around in having a legit peace treaty with the Skrulls because we need all the help we can get when Secret Wars comes around. I’m not kidding when I say I enjoyed this film, but fun stuff like this doesn’t excuse the issues I picked up on during my re-watch. For starters, why does Kamala get to keep the spacesuit to breathe in space while Carol & Monica are able to swap clothes later? I don’t want her to die, . but that was a moment of consistency that lacked for a bit, especially to the point where they don’t swap super suits which could’ve been funny to see too. Moving on, why did Carol wait til after entering Tarnax’s atmosphere to camouflage her ship? That’s so much of a gamble because Dar-Benn could’ve seen her sooner. And why doesn’t Kamala’s family run when the Kree get transported with her? I respect them defending themselves, but violent extraterrestrials are not their turf when they’re not skilled in self defense. It’s even more surprising they didn’t even leave the house and try go into hiding before Fury finds them. Also, I think Skrull leader Dro’ge (Gary Lewis) was too harsh on Carol when Dar-Benn was bound to take something valuable from Tarnax. On top of that, it was so out of pocket for Carol to tell Kamala & Monica that Fracking Pods were originally torture devices if she wants them comfortable enough to look through each other’s memories. If she wants them to trust her, don’t call it that when the device is actually harmless compared to other weapons we’ve seen in this franchise. I also think it’s kinda dumb for Fury to not take cellphones from the Khan family if he didn’t want anyone to document the SABER space station. And do the portals turn off on their own when Dar-Ben gets what she wants from other planets? We don’t see how that works because the Marvels keep retreating before there’s an answer so it’s crazy to not know how these corrupted jump points work for her. I also think it’s unprofessional for Firy’s station to not have a Plan B when it came to Goose making a nest. They may have not known the Flerken was gonna do that, but they gotta prepare for contingencies when alien related incidents go town. I mean some of their staff members are alien so it’s not like Fury doesn’t know strange things happen in the universe. I then wonder how come other heroes don’t get involved in this situation? Valkyrie helped the Skrulls out, but it’s not like other heroes like Rocket Raccoon’s lineup for the Guardians of the Galaxy can’t do anything. If they can do jump points with their ship, they probably would get to Earth on time to help more than enough since they don’t have entanglement issues. If I gotta get into design flaws, I feel like the escape pods for SABER should’ve had airbags because it’s lucky no one, especially the Flerkens, didn’t have whiplash upon crashing into Earth. I don’t even blame Carol being merciful by removing the debris that was impaling Dar-Benn, but she could’ve avoided the final jump point if she just took the other band and took her hammer, the Universal Weapon, from her or threw it across the room to maintain the upper hand. Had she done those things, Monica wouldn’t be stuck with X-Men variants. I also couldn’t believe how big of a continuity error it was when Kamala doesn’t have the second band on her when reuniting with her family. Lastly, how are the other planets expected to recover when we don’t see how the other jump points close? Aladna lost a lot of water and Tarnax had most of their oxygen taken, so there would be clarification on how this was pulled off. Ignore this, then you’ll still enjoy the movies just a much as I did. In conclusion, The Marvels is another entertaining entry in the MCU for showing the value of teamwork in a whole other perspective. If you’re into superhero flicks, I doubt you’ll hate this. But if you do, please don’t be sexist about it.
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