The Marvels

Marvel makes another middle of the road film and suddenly everyone is unhappy cause it features women.

I could rant about the backdrop to this film quite a bit and I’m gonna try and refrain from doing that but I still wanna touch upon the discourse. It feels like before this movie came out everyone already had an opinion on it, and a vocal part of the internet was calling it some of the worst filmmaking marvel has ever done. Now I find it really sad that this being one of the few female led projects in the MCU, directed by a woman of colour, that people were already hounding on this project before it even came out.

Marvel is in a weird space. It seems like everyone has an opinion on what’s going on right now, and the cool thing to do is to wish for it to fail. It’s exhausting when a new project is coming out, if it’s bad, suddenly the MCU is over, and if it’s good then well wait the next project will be bad. People harp on about the MCU of past and that we need to get back to when they were producing only good movies. The reality is that’s never been the case. People have always hated the MCU but now it feels more popular to do so, hence a more vocal outcry of people not enjoying projects.

I went into this movie with no expectations. DiCosta seems like a really cool director with a clear vision, I think the three leads are all amazing actors and I was excited to have a female led movie. The result? Such a mediocre and fine movie. No where near as bad as some people are making it out to be and had this come out before people were hating on marvel as much I feel like it would’ve been received this way. (Also if people weren’t misogynistic)

What makes this film work is the main leads. I’m not gonna go as far and say that the chemistry between the three is a highlight of the film cause I think it has issues but Iman Vellani is. When people are saying the chemistry is amazing, I’m gonna assume they mean Vellani with everyone else. She is effortless and so charismatic, she’s fed the same level of script as everyone else ans yet she just is able to elevate it. She clearly has a love for this character and it’s hard not to love her as she just exudes charisma. (No spoilers but it’s ingenious how marvel are using her for future projects)

I think Brie Larson is an incredible actress and I like how we get to have a more rounded version of her character in this film but I do understand why people have a hard time liking her character. She’s actually written really good but she’s written as a jaded character who feels the burden of her responsibility and that’s hard to make interesting without giving her some large emotional scenes. It’s a problem I have with the film as a whole but it feels like the film wants to skip over everything that isn’t pure action or part of the plot. Her character, and the movie, would have benefitted so much from some more emotional scenes. I mean we get a scene between her and Monica and it’s insane how quick it’s resolved, it actually doesn’t feel real.

Teyonah Parris is serviceable, again I think she struggles with the same problem, there just needed to be more of her to understand who she was. When she is giving emotional scenes, like for some reason the post credit, she’s amazing. However, both of these characters shine when Kamala is interacting with them, hence why I think people are loving their chemistry so much.

The plot is fine. The villain is weak and they try give her some background but it just all falls flat, I mean I still have no idea what her name is so I think that gives you all you need to know. The best parts of the film are when the main three are just exploring. The musical planet was delightful and felt in line with Gunn’s universe. Whenever they’re on the ship as well was fun. However, the film truly lights up during the fight scenes. Some of the best the MCU has produced. The switching powers lends itself to such creative sequences and DiCosta shoots them so creatively that they are fun to watch. Really wish a better story accompanied such a refreshing idea.

Kamala’s family were also just another standout really enjoyed them and Samuel L. Jackson was back to giving a good performance after whatever the fuck he did in Secret Invasion. Imma rant here as well. Why tf did we watch Secret Invasion?!? This film not only never addresses it but actually goes out of its way to make the whole story of that show redundant. Really disappointing that it feels like no thought was put into connecting the projects at all.

Weirdly I was spoiled every major thing that happens in this film before watching so I don’t even have the bias of getting fan service. It’s a fine movie, people are exaggerating, it’s easily better than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania