Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. However, unintended consequences see her shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with two other superheroes to form the Marvels.
Director: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-joon, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, Samuel L. Jackson
Release Date: November 10, 2023
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Rated PG-13 for action/violence and brief language
Runtime: 1h 45m
The Marvels manages to shake up the standard formula by leaning into its weirdness which ends up making it fun if rather light comic book fun similar to another franchise tangent, Thor: Ragnarok. Nia DaCosta delivers an energic and efficient entry into the long running franchise that smartly keeps the focus on the tangible chemistry between the three leads. Sure the overall story is fairly basic by comic book standards with a central villain that barely registers as one dimensional. The stakes are what you would expect with these kind of films but in this film it almost seems besides the point and we are given a steady stream of kinetic, body swapping action sequences that are cleverly staged and always fun. DaCosta moves her film at pleasantly breezy pace which is a welcome change of pace after a series of overly serious and bloated chapters that have populated the Marvel release schedule over the last few years. As a result, Brie Larson comes off far more comfortable and relaxed here than she did in the original film. Larson is given a bit more rope with the character and she embraces it especially in some of the film's wackier sequences such as a planet whose populace communicates through song. These sort of left turns provide a steady bit of organic comedy that works better than last year's more ham fisted Thor: Love and Thunder. Larson benefits from having Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani join her this go around with their interplay and relationships serving as the lifeblood of the film. Parris and Vallani bring their small screen characters to the big screen with relative ease but Vallani's youthful charisma shines through the entire film. The three of them together keep the film moving even as it moves to a fairly predictable end as they try and stop Zawe Ashton's villain. Ashton fares the worst of the primary group as we are given the slightest sliver of information about her character's motivations which leave her with little to do outside of stare and scream maniacally and little else. The story and characters are tied to a variety of separate, preestablished mythology, mostly from Marvel TV shows, but its surprisingly not weighed down by the script making the most of exposition dumps to catch the uninitiated up to speed. The Marvels might not be the most impactful entry in the MCU but it is one of the easiest to enjoy in recent memory.
B
