Captain Marvel is moving towards making $1 billion at the global box office and for very good reason: It was an amazing movie. Before its release, people were wary of the movie due to Marvel’s less-than-entertaining trailers, but it blew us away. Instead of talking about all the political discourse surrounding its movie (and about Goose the cat), let’s take an objective look at it. Here are three spoiler-free pros and cons for the 21st MCU movie.
Con: The Pacing
Overall, the pacing wasn’t that bad. It showed the passage of time well-enough and the movie didn’t go by too fast. Based on the trailers, we know that Carol Danvers lost her memory, but we don’t know much about it. The trailer just shows flashbacks of her time on Earth. Avoiding spoilers, there was a lot of character development throughout the movie, but considering Carol’s memory loss, her connection to characters from her past hadn’t developed enough. There were scenes that would have been much more emotional if Marvel had taken the time to redevelop their friendships, especially since Carol lost her memory.
Pro: Character Development
Carol’s character development was spot on. We see that from the first fight scene down to the very last. Online trolls complained about the hero’s lack of emotion in the trailer, but that was definitely not the case in the movie. Danvers was a witty, funny, and personality-filled character that Brie Larson did an incredible job at portraying. Marvel added a lot of little details to symbolize her development, right down to the name on her Air Force dog tag. Her character development was central to the plot of the movie.
Cons: The fight scenes weren’t that great
It’s well-established that Captain Marvel is going to be a key player in the defeat of Thanos, so it makes sense that she is overpowered. Even so, she is a bit too overpowered. A huge component of superhero movies is the fight scenes and the finale is supposed to be the biggest one. All of them should be great in general, but the final battle in Captain Marvel felt anticlimactic. The fight scenes up until the finale were great, but the ending of the movie didn’t sum up all the epic-ness leading up to it. Even heroes like Black Widow, who doesn’t have any extra powers (aside from the strength and healing capabilities that were enhanced in the Red Room), has had more entertaining fights than the finale of Captain Marvel. It certainly displayed the full capability of her powers, but it’s a huge downfall in terms of the overall action in the film.
Pros: Huge Twists
This movie will not be what you expect. There are huge twists and turns along the way and everything you think you know about the plot will be disproved in an instant. Obviously, these twists can’t be disclosed here since it’s a spoiler-free review, but I will say that Marvel did an awesome job at making all the twists make sense from the get-go.
Con: Convenience
There were many nods to previous MCU movies that were well-appreciated, but some things happened that felt a bit too convenient. To preface this, the plot for Captain Marvel itself was airtight and didn’t have many conveniences related to that until the biggest nod to a past movie appeared. When this easter egg appeared, my brother and I were very upset because it messed with the plot of another MCU movie and we spent some time fuming over that trying to make sense of how they would fit it in. At the end of the movie, they never explain it how it got there. It shows how it ends up in the later movie, but doesn’t explain how it got there in the first place (Something that was already established in a previous film). However, I can let that slide because it makes the movie much cooler, and it makes the arc of the Marvel Cinematic Universe slightly more far-fetched.
Pro: Full Circle
This is by far the best part of this film. Marvel was certainly taking a risk introducing a brand new hero less than 90 days before the release of Avengers: Endgame, but they showed the importance of her character to the entire universe as a whole. We all know that the movie takes place in the 90s, well before the events of Iron Man and after Steve Rogers goes into the ice. This time jump happens for a reason, and we find Carol Danvers has a much bigger impact on the Avengers than we expected.
Captain Marvel is still in theaters. It’s definitely worth the watch and a must-see before the finale of this era of the Marvel Universe.