What’s Next?
Every MCU project since Avengers: Endgame just hasn’t given any sense of purpose or excitement. It’s been four years since that monumental achievement and yet each successive project just hasn’t amounted to anything. The MCU feels aimless, directionless, and just overall uninspired. The Marvels is unfortunately another reminder that the glorious days of the MCU are a thing of the past and things need to take a break before we revisit this once legendary franchise. While the film is reliably entertaining, it just feels like a filler with no real stakes or plot on its own. Iman Vellani is the scene stealer and best part, but overall The Marvels is apparent proof that the MCU should take a hiatus and refocus up.
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.
The characters of The Marvels centers around Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan to give our titular team. There is not really much to each of the characters individual arcs they go through the movie. There are glimpses of what could have happened, say for Kamala Khan to meet her hero and idol Captain Marvel. It is teased to be an interesting interplay where Captain Marvel has to make a tough call early in the film that doesn’t sit well with Kamala. What could have been a fascinating story about realizing what it means to be a hero is quickly glossed over and resolved without any weight or stakes. The interplay that comes from the characters is primarily through the teased entanglement where each of the characters switch places when two or more of them use their powers at the same time.
This entanglement is the highlight of the movie and provides most of the film’s fun moments. It’s a fun dynamic to see how whenever one of the characters uses their powers, it results in a physical switch in places resulting in some fun action sequences too. However, these are too few and far between and doesn’t really lead to anything more than a gimmick. The movie has this as a gimmick but not the main plot/device driving the film forward. What that plot and narrative are however leaves so much more to be desired.
It’s hard to really tell what this film is actually about in the large scale of things. There is some villain who wants to take revenge on Carol Danvers for destroying her world, but the motivations that drive each of the characters are not entirely fully realized. The titular team drives from point A to point B with no real sense of urgency or stakes involved. There are extended dance sequences, singing planets, a cat subplot, and then a third act where the characters fight off the villain in an anticlimactic and unfulfilling manner. There truly is no plot to this film despite there being opportunity. An entire film based on the entanglement concept could have been really well done. The don’t meet your heroes arc with Kamala and Carol Danvers also could have been something great, but not fully realized. Even the reunion of Carol Danvers with her best friend’s daughter, Monica Rambeau, lacks any real emotional weight even though the film clearly wants you to feel something. The movie just kind of exists with no real momentum driving it forward.
From an individual character perspective, Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan shines through. She provides a joyful, youthful, optimism for the role that plays off role of the more stoic Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau. Her excitation at meeting her heroes is definitely a film highlight, but it doesn’t really evolve into much of anything beyond an energetic performance. Monica Rambeau on the other hand will be unfamiliar to audiences who didn’t watch the WandaVision TV series that outlined her powers, and the film doesn’t do much to make her an individual character in her own right. What the film sets up for her in the end is intriguing, but it doesn’t truly feel earned or as if it was a grand payoff. Brie Larson as Carol Danvers has a much improved personality this time around, moving from being less stoic and reserved to more endearing and heroic especially in her interactions with the team. But again, not much is done with her.
This film just feels very empty and doesn’t really have much going on its own. In fact, the marketing of the film also seemed to be aware of this as it started to advertise more about its post credits scene than what’s in the actual movie. The post credits scene is a fun tease of what’s to come, but again the movie should stand on its own with interesting characters and story where the creative team feels like they need to try. We shouldn’t be looking forward to the last second tease. We should enjoy what’s in front of us.
At the end of the day, this movie highlights the fact that Marvel’s plan isn’t working with the combination of too many TV shows and lackluster movies. There used to be a phase where the MCU was unstoppable, and now it feels like they aren’t really trying to deliver good stories. There have been plenty of exceptions, but overall the MCU may need to take a break for at least a year or two and come back swinging. I can’t say that I recommend The Marvels in theaters, nor can I say I recommend it for Disney+. Just bide your time for now and move on to some other things.
(D) Disaster
Raj Reviews 