Film Review : "Captain Marvel"

So when I reviewed "Black Panther" there was the out cry that comes when you say the Emperor has no clothes of people saying "That movie is not for you" . To which I replied "You mean a comic book movie isn't for someone who reads comics?" That is what this is coming to now. So I will first give you the review of someone who this movie is for ... a 9 year old girl. After all they are making GoFund Me's for this movie so they can go see it. Or perhaps that is all in the hype , and if you can sell this as something that a cultural even rather than a super-hero movie then perhaps we don't notice when the movies take on the same formula. But I digress here is what a 9 year old girl thought of it.

First she has seen other super hero movies in theaters ... Spider-man, Wonder-woman, Ant-man, and Avengers. She did not make it through Aqua-man,got bored fast. She loves Suicide Squad and I think if you ask her will tell you she prefers Harley Quinn over Captain Marvel, a fact also substantiated by the fact she has watched Suicide Squad multiple times. So she can sit through a super-hero movie. Another point is considering she is my daughter she has grown up around comics. She knows who the Sentry is as well as Satanna, so might even be more well versed in them than many of today's fair weather Marvel movie fans. Since she knows the comics and not just the movies,  Today she asked is Captain Marvel the greatest super hero ever before we watched the movie and I told her well...probably not, but that can be a matter of taste.  So the heavy sci-fi shoot outs at the beginning between the Kree and the Skrulls , began to lose her, she wanted super-heroes not star wars. Then 30 mins later she was falling asleep.  When I asked her how did she like what she saw she liked Ant-man and Wasp better.

I think that is a fair assessment of where this movie falls. I was surprised the girl power was not more heavy handed. There was only one montage like scene where she gets up after being knocked down that put it in your face. I will also say , the cgi was not as bad as what they showed in the commercial. Not on Infinity War level or even Dr. Strange. I like the fact that it felt more like a super-hero movie than Black Panther and more fluidly flowing into the Marvel Universe. That is the movie's strong point. There was a lull midway into it, but it was not as slow going into as I had expected. So points for that too.

Where the movie was a train wreck was doing things like making the Skrulls good guys. I went in thinking it would make for a great entry point for the Fantastic Four. Boy did they fuck that up. I did like the little Kirby looking servant skrulls though. Visually they were handled pretty well. The Kree have appeared on Agents of Shield before which is part of the cinematic universe. Anette Benning as Mar-Vell was another place they dropped the ball. Mar-vell as a conspiring bad guy? Give me a fucking break. Ronan was hardly used. The cat everyone was talking about, underwhelming. I agree that the 90s thing seemed forced. Brie Larson's Captain Marvel, lags behind Scarlet Witch or Wasp in terms of convincing me, though she was better than anticipated, but my expectations were pretty low. I am all for female super-heroes...She-Hulk could carry a movie better. Mantis could be a bad ass instead of a Pokemon. Where is Tigra? If they left an easter egg for Kamala Khan it was buried. Decormick kinda killed Danvers for me in the comics, I think I prefer the yellow and black suit.

As a movie stripped of any Trojan Horse agenda, I liked it better than Black Panther , the Andrew Garfield Spider-man movies and think it has a better ending than Wonder-woman. But if they try to sell us The Eternal with this same hype machine, Marvel is going to have ruder awakenings in store.

Film Review : Thor Ragnarok

The third installment of the Thor movies is the most entertaining of the three, but is that really saying much considering how flawed the first two are. The first well Thor doesn’t have his powers most of the movie, the depowering route means the writers don’t know how to handle the character in their true form. The second movie was better to some extent though we had elves in space ships. The third film is fun , but has major problems. I am a huge Thor fan, I have the Walt Simonson Thor tattooed on me. So the bar is high, but I want to see Thor on screen. I like Chris as Thor, I think the script he has to work with most of the time leaves something to be desired.

Clearly this movie was following a blueprint laid out by the Guardians of the Galaxy films.As it tried to inject more humor into the story. To the point of making the Hulk come across like Drax when he was given something to do aside from smash. Sometimes this worked better than other, using the Hulk in a humorous context worked better on the first Avengers movie , if the Hulk was going to have a sense of humor which he is typically to angry to have one, it should be handled more like it was there. But of the movie’s problems this was actually the mildest one. I can understand on following the comic books frame for frame. When it comes to the actual Norse mythology, the comics have been more faithful to it than others , but have adhered to the basics, aside from obvious faults like turning Jane Foster in a Thor. I get that Valkyrie was not Brunhilde, though I did like the wink to her in the flashback sequence. The problem is Valkrie’s are not sworn to protect Asgard they are sworn to take dead warriors to Valhalla, pretty basic core stuff.

Another big plot fail is the fact Hel is the daughter of Loki, not his sister. OOPS, that pretty much pisses on the point of the movie. Toilet flushing inserted here. So with the basic premise being foolish, let's look at what I liked. Dr Strange being way more powerful was cool to see. I also liked Korg and Meik being included in the wink to the Greg Pak “Planet Hulk” storyline. Funny how it made it into this movie after having Beta Ray Bill replacing the Silver Surfer in the cartoon adaptation. Why Beta Ray Bill wasn’t in the movie I don’t know , while the Hulk is my favorite superhero I would have prefered Beta Ray Bill fighting Thor in the arena if we had to go that route. I thought Hel looked good and Skurge was fairly true to the character. The film leads us up to where Thor and Loki are going to fall into the Infinity War. We already know the Hulk buddies up with Rocket Racoon. So it’s too bad the Thor films never got it right , but at least this one was fun getting it wrong.