Captain Marvel — Review
Released in the absolute prime of the Right-Wing reactionary pop culture boom, Captain Marvel (2019) has long been paraded around by a certain sect of the internet as not just one of the worst Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) outings, but one of the worst blockbusters ever made. For years, YouTube freaks have made a career off of misquoting and wrongly contextualizing Brie Larson, manufacturing made-up narratives about how the cast of The Avengers secretly hates her guts, that Disney was buying out entire theaters to make it seem like people were seeing this movie to inflate its box office gross, a highly illegal practice for any company, and a secret agenda and metatextual war against “straight white men” the world over.
Somehow, Disney was planning on taking all of the male characters, reducing them to feeble beta male, liberals who were in need of saving from a big strong woman, of which Carol Danvers was the first. For some reason, the idea of representation in popular media is exceptionally frightening to people who haven’t touched grass since before the original Iron Man (2008).
To be clear, Captain Marvel is not a masterpiece, and though its diverse cast and representation are important, it’s not infallible. It’s nowhere near as good as Black Panther (2018) and has even less to say about the marginalized groups it puts center stage. More on that later.
From the jump, Captain Marvel is pulling influence from some pretty expected places, and also some not-so-predictable ones. It’s almost impossible not to compare this to Wonder Woman (2017). It makes sense. For years, studio executives had been skeptical of a woman-led superhero movie doing well with general audiences (a majority of which are men). Wonder Woman proved that not only can they turn a profit, but they can actually turn a very big profit. Captain Marvel’s creation probably owes its entire existence to the success of the DC film from two years earlier.
The titular hero is on a journey to a strange new land, set in a time that’s not our own, with a spy, up against an enemy that can take the form of anyone. Sound familiar?
Set in the 1990s, the film also feels heavily inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy in the way it almost fetishizes a previous decade (Guardians in the 1980s, Captain Marvel in the 1990s). There are cultural references, needle drops and blink and you’ll miss Easter eggs. Some of them are inventive and fun (the aforementioned Stan Lee cameo, and the True Lies cutout), but others feel a bit hamfisted (the Nine Inch Nails shirt comes to mind). There are even a few Guardians characters that show up in new contexts, and I think it’s always fun when Marvel brings back these total throwaway characters in a new light. The film is constantly looking at the decade with a great deal of awe and wonder. There’s an offbeat charm to a lot of the character interactions and while not reinventing the wheel, mostly everything works structurally.
Obviously, this movie has caught a lot of heat from serious, good-faith critics for giving the titular hero very little in the way of a character arc. This is a fair criticism. Aside from the main villain outright stating the themes, they make little appearance in the film. There’s a b-plot (that becomes the A-plot) about a group of refugees, characterized as dangerous by their oppressive governing body (a transparent allegory for the immigration crisis), but then the film makes the refugees behave like bad guys for the first two-thirds of the film, giving away the game far too late. I hate this trope, and it feels particularly cheap in Captain Marvel.
Where the film also struggles is the comedy. The traditional MCU “uh, he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” style of humor is ever-present, but I’m not sure if Larson has the chops to pull it off. Not a crime, not everyone is meant for comedy, but a lot of the “cool indifference” of the character just comes off as either really wooden or disconnected. It’s a shame because she and Samuel L. Jackson have a basic level of chemistry on screen, but it never really elevates itself beyond that. She nails the emotional moments, but many of those are, in typical MCU fashion, undercut with some cheap jab or a joke or a reminder that what you’re watching is mostly stupid. However, supporting performances from Ben Mendelsohn and Jude Law are deliciously hammy and absurd, which is what this movie needed more of.
Of course, the film can’t be discussed without also talking about its inclusion of the United States Military. This movie’s marketing and Air Force recruitment ads were virtually interchangeable upon release. The MCU (and Hollywood at large) have had a long-standing relationship with the US Government since its inception, but Captain Marvel feels especially troubling. Probably the most heavy-handed use of military endorsement since the original Iron Man, the film carefully omits anything that could show the military (as an institution) in a bad light.
According to the 2021 Department of Defense Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military (the most recent data I could find), It’s estimated that nearly 36,000 people in the military receive some kind of unwanted sexual advance from a fellow soldier every year. In 2021, the most recent data available, 8,866 reports of sexual misconduct were made by active duty and retired women, a 13% increase from 2020. This is an estimated 8.4% of all women serving and 1.5% of all retired women, roughly 1 in 5 collectively. Despite the D.O.D. Being aware of this misconduct, it seems like little is being done to address it, beyond the obligatory “we here for you” bullshit. It doesn’t change the fact that it is still happening, it’s being covered up or entirely ignored, and women are more often than not the victims of the assaults. Yet, this film presents the Air Force as an environment where women can thrive. Where they’re treated with respect and get to walk down runways with the other girl bosses and fly planes. It’s an intentionally false depiction.
Captain Marvel bypasses the sexual abuse altogether. There are some scenes of men doubting Carol’s abilities, but they’re viewed as these rousing “girl power” moments, events that are bound to happen, so you might as well just learn to live with it and find a way to prove them wrong. I guess, why I find all of this so gross is that this movie was treated a lot like Black Panther (2018) was. It’s a girl power story that’s meant to give representation to one of the genre’s most underrepresented or underutilized groups. Young women the world over will watch this movie and (hopefully) find a hero in Carol Danvers, and to pair that with ads for recruitment to the military, a place that is statistically dangerous for women just feels a little gross. Though that doesn’t really fall onto the filmmakers themselves. Clearly, the Pentagon saw dollar signs and decided to capitalize (surprise, surprise).
In the end, Captain Marvel is not the attack on men, S.J.W., woke snuff film that a certain group on the internet would have you believe. It’s a perfectly charming, albeit humdrum, origin story. I think it works just as well as many of the origin stories in Phase 1 and is potentially a victim of just being released at the absolute worst time for a movie like this. Either way, it’s a fun ride. I’m excited for the sequel.
