The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been floundering since “Avengers: Endgame.” The franchise has made some missteps, namely with how many lackluster shows and movies have been cranked out. And now Disney arrives with a new offering. . . “The Marvels.”
“Captain Marvel” was a movie sandwiched between two “Avengers” films, and it made more than a billion dollars. But that was four years ago. The MCU is in a different place today. And it’s continuing on after expensive disappointments like “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and “Secret Invasion.”
James Gunn’s last film in the MCU showed audiences this world still had gas in the tank. But with so many shows and movies that left a bad taste, the odds are stacked against “The Marvels.”
Thankfully, this latest superhero outing is. . . fun enough. Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), the amnesiac superhero who helped defeat Thanos, is drifting through space, lonely, and still trying to recover some memories. That’s when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) radios her and asks Captain Marvel to investigate some holes in their jump points, interstellar gates that allow for quick travel through outer space.
She investigates and soon finds her powers tangled with those of Captain Monica Rambeau Teyonah Parris and Ms Marvel (Iman Vellani). In fact, whenever they use their powers simultaneously, the women swap places with each other in the universe, often bouncing from fight to fight.
This complicates their efforts to stop a Kree warrior named Supremor Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) from tearing open more unstable jump point holes and destroying entire homeworlds to save her own.
“The Marvels” gets by mostly on the chemistry of its core three. Vellani, Parris, and Larson are an amazing team. Of course, it’s Vellani who steals the show with her unbridled joy and charisma. Sure, some of their origins required some homework courtesy of Disney+. But when they’re together, just existing on the same spaceship and sharing their worlds, the movie is at its best. They make the film’s secret sauce.
Viewers should get a kick out of the swapping gimmick, and Director Nia DaCosta was smart to limit that to a big fight at the beginning and one or two smaller skirmishes throughout the film.
“The Marvels” offers some genuinely creative and fun sequences, whether the heroes land on a planet where everyone communicates in song and dance or people are being devoured by Carol’s space cat, Goose.
It’s refreshing to have a superhero trio that cares about things like how they talk to each other and their shared emotional trauma. In one scene, Carol snaps at Kamala when tensions are high. And a few minutes later, Carol actually takes the time to apologize for speaking so harshly with her. The small touches like that give this team a unique sentimental identity.
Of course, this is still a Marvel film with some of the standard cliches that come with the territory. This includes an underdeveloped villain and even a skybeam or two.
Fortunately, the rest of “The Marvels” is fun enough to make up for those shortcomings. And it looks like Marvel may finally be about to give fans what they’ve been waiting for. . . the X-Men
