Captain Marvel

Zeitgeist 2 Minutes

Last night I did something I rarely do anymore, saw a movie in theater right when it was released: Captain Marvel.  As Marvel movies go, it was typical: lots of action, special effects, heart warming moments, and laughs.  Marvel / Disney really seems to have the formula for general entertainment down.  You don’t come out of these movies with any deep insight into the human condition, but you usually do come out emotionally satisfied (as least as long as you don’t scrutinize the details too carefully).

One of the things I found interesting is how much the Captain Marvel story has changed from when I was a kid reading comics.  In my day, Mar-Vell was an alien guy, a Kree military officer who ended up exiled on Earth.  This original character died in a much publicized story in the early 80s.  I had heard about the character “Ms. Marvel” but I think she came along after my comic reading days.

The movie retains elements of this original story, although the title character is, of course, now a woman, and we learn almost immediately that she is in fact originally from Earth.  But her overall history is somewhat confused for a good part of the movie, although eventually the pieces come into place in a satisfying manner.  A version of the original Mar-Vell character even ends up being worked in.

As with all Marvel movies, this one has tie ins with the others.  Nick Fury, played by a Samuel L. Jackson made young with CG, is a major supporting character.   It even has a young Agent Coulson.  We also have a villain show up from another series, but discussing that connection crosses into spoilers.  And, of course, in the now thoroughly expected end-credit scenes, it ties in heavily with the upcoming Avengers: End Game, as anyone who’s seen the end of Avengers: Infinity War would expect.

So if you enjoy Marvel movies in general, I think you’ll enjoy this one.  I could quibble endlessly with the scientific inaccuracies, but that’s really not the frame of mind to be in to enjoy these movies.  They’re fantasy pure and simple and should be taken in as such.

As a side note: it’s interesting that DC is about to come out with a Shazam movie, which will feature the first superhero character from the 1940s named “Captain Marvel.”  You have to wonder about the timing of this release.

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13 thoughts on “Captain Marvel”

  3. As a kid I was more on the DC side of things, so I never absorbed the full MCU back then, and now it seems like both Marvel and DC have so many reboots and variations that I can’t make head or tail of it anymore. (Just the variations on X-Men are too much to keep up with.)

    So I’m not really familiar with Captain Marvel at all, although I do know there are a number of female power heroes in both universes. (I did read about fanboy misogyny and how both Marvel and Brie Larson handled it with aplomb.)

    I have found most Marvel movies pretty watchable (for that sort of thing). I recently watched Ant-Man and Wasp, which was pretty watchable, but (as you wrote) despite all the apparent SF trappings is sheer fantasy. (I loved how Rudd’s character, at one point, asks, “What? Do you just put ‘quantum’ in front of everything?” Yes, Paul, that’s exactly right! 😀 )

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    1. I’m not sure why, but as a kid Marvel had a far stronger hold of my imagination than DC. It might have been because I didn’t start reading comics until around 11-12 or so, and that Marvel was relatively fresh and new while the DC characters were ones I had seen already in cartoons and other TV shows. Or maybe Mavel’s marketing in the 70s was just better.

      I wasn’t aware of specific misogyny for this movie, but it doesn’t surprise me. They seem to come out for just about any female protagonist, particularly for any role that was once a male one.

      I enjoyed Ant-man and Wasp too. None of these movies are really must-watch for me, but they’re all more or less entertaining. (Of course, I find even most of the DC movies entertaining, even when I know they’re not as well done as the Marvel ones. Although DC seems to be getting better with their formula.)

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      1. Different upbringing and a slightly different era. Neither DC nor Marvel had cartoons on TV when I was a kid. Comics in general hadn’t gained mainstream acceptance quite then. (Talking 20 years before the Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons revolution.)

        I do agree DC has gotten better. I really hated the last two Superman movies, but the Supes v. Bats one was okay, and the Justice League was okay. (But, OMG, Suicide Squad sucked balls.) I actually haven’t seen Wonder Woman, yet.

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        1. I’m with you on the Superman movies. They went for dark, because it worked for the Nolan movies. But it worked because Batman is a dark character. Superman traditionally hasn’t been. (He was a pretty rough character in the earliest comics, but he quickly morphed into the great American hero and I think has stayed there in popular imagination.)

          I did mostly enjoy the BvS movie, despite groaning at some points (and outright confusion at the surreal but visually stunning sequence in the middle). But I even mildly enjoyed Suicide Squad. I thought Wonder Woman was pretty good. Aquaman as well. Like Marvel, popcorn entertainment.

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    1. I’ll agree with that. Wonder Woman was better.

      On posts about movies and books, just fyi, I try to make my posts spoiler safe. When they’re not spoiler safe, I usually announce it early in the post so you can stop reading if you want to avoid them.

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