Captain Marvel - Does it Fly or Crash?

I feel the need the need for speed I don't know why I quoted that like seriously I mean I know Carol Danvers is a pilot left I'm according this later than I usually do I'm a little punchy so Captain Marvel I have now seen it I have been avoiding reviews of it actually as has become my habit these days I really kind of even from the reviewers that I like in whose opinions I want to know if I know I'm gonna see something I usually hold off seeing their reviews until after I a see and record my own review cuz I've just reached a point where not only do I not want I sang the idea that I don't want my view tainted isn't really right but I don't want my thoughts to be in response to somebody else's thoughts you know but anyway so boy where do we start with this one well um it's good it's very good I'm not gonna call it excellent but it does work very well overall I'm not gonna like tell you like specifically or we're in Marvel doesn't rank in terms of general it's not top tier for me because top tier Marvel is stuff that connects with me on a more personal or emotional level so that would be stuff like Civil War infinity war Black Panther spider-man Home Coming guardians of the galaxy to those had something in them that hit me like a little a little closer whereas this is the upper level of that was a good time so that would slot it in around you know the first guardians may be thor ragnarok things like that so i did enjoy it quite a bit and more to the point I don't really have anything to complain it just didn't have that little extra hook that really got you know got me all like oh yeah top stuff but at the same time as much as I complained about how late it is when I'm recording this I had a long drive home from where was that I saw it I'm not gonna explain why it's not worth how long it would take me to explain why that happened but I'm actually kind of glad cuz think you on it a bit more on the drive I made me appreciate it a little bit better it still didn't quite have that like personal hook and as I mentioned but yeah I think this is a pretty well put together thing so story wise it is it's interesting because it is an origin movie but it's not structured like an origin movie because Carol Danvers is already a super-powered space traveling soldier when the movie starts but she's not Captain Marvel yet and we have some gaps to fill in in terms of how she got where she is at the point we see her so it is telling an origin but it it doesn't fall into the origin story structure that Marvel basically said they were done using after dr. strange and then I I think having it be more of a story of self-discovery as opposed to a strict a to be to see linear origins story helps helps it from keeping as repetitive or redundant as it might have otherwise with a more typical structure and also some of the ways that she sort of remembers more about her past and the way that's conveyed to the audience at times actually was quite clever both in terms of visual composition and also the internal mechanisms of the film that it that are allowing this you know information to be relayed in the way that it is I actually I quite enjoyed that so we we get to it's it's set in the 90s primarily on earth so we get a ton of 90 stuff including slow internet and dial-up jokes and a whole bunch of 90s era music which I actually enjoyed a lot more than I would have thought like I knew that stuff was gonna be in there maybe it's just cuz I'm like I'm at that age or I'm gonna be a sucker for 90s style juh you know I I kinda can't help it it was weird even songs that I don't really like I still find myself smiling when like the needle drop hit and I'm like what I don't even like I wouldn't listen to this song in my own time why am i smiling something's working so that I quite enjoyed um brie Larson I actually really liked in this part I think she did a really good balance and the like this is the the extent to which I'll talk about criticisms that I've heard this was not on the movie this was of the trailer I remember people saying that you know she she looks like she has no personality she never smiles that like well first of all she does smile in the movie she actually has an interesting sense of humor and and what I like about her performance in what I kind of expected was gonna be the case and it turned out to be exactly what we got which is that she is very much trying to be cool calm and collected and a soldier like that is her training and that's her goal she has been taught like this is the ideal you put your emotions away so she's trying to clamp that stuff down but this sort of playful snarkiness and which is a chemistry she has with most of the other characters keeps bleeding through a little bit um in a way that works for me in a way that reads like she she can't quite repress everything that she you know feels about stuff but not in uh-uh your control my emotions kind of wait just in a no you know I know I'm on the job but I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna make you smile first and I like that I like that vibe she'll show really good performance chemistry with pretty much everyone she had scenes was she had good performance chemistry with Jude Law or Leone I see a great performance chemistry with with Samuel Jackson with some of the other characters usual later like Marie Rambo they she she bounces off all of them really really well I mentioned Sam Jackson he's he might be the highlight of the movie for me what I really liked about him was not only do we get him as Nick Fury but and we get him looking younger but the thing is for so like for as good as the d aging technology has become especially in the Marvel movies and it's gotten really good there's something that he is able to bring to this which is more than just looking younger because sometimes you you end up with a performance that's like alright you look younger but I'm still getting you know the vibe of the age that you actually are Sam Jackson was able to tap into like how he was how he performed and the kind of vibe and movies that he was doing in the mid-90s he was able to give her performance that not only did he look like he did in the nineties he's he's got the energy he's got the more youthful energy that he that he had in those kinds of movies it was a really neat thing to see and he's obviously having a blast doing this so that went really well the other one who was the highlight and I I knew he was in the movie but like I not somebody I ever really look for ben mendelsohn ben mendelsohn plays sort of the head scroll character the scrolls that people don't know are a read this isn't really a spoiler they're introduced early on I'll tell you what I'm getting to sports they're a race of shapeshifters and they are at war with the Kree which is the group that that Carroll is linked up with at the beginning of the movie and so the the head of the scrolls is played by Ben Mendelsohn using I think his natural accent which I don't think I've ever heard from him before and honestly that natural accent was a big part of what made this work for me because he's got this sort of more rough-and-tumble feel to him so he's like a he's like a military commander and he can be ruthless and all that stuff but at the same time you listen to him talking just the vibe off him you just feel like yeah this guy can fight it in a war but he to really just rather go to the pub and have a beer and I kind of love that it's just yeah he had a very laid-back vibe despite being fairly intimidating at times and I like that that balanced that contrast and especially looking the way that the scrawls look it was it was neat I enjoyed that um we get Phil Coulson back in the movies again for the first time since the first Avengers also a.d age they sort of brought his hairline forward he actually looks a lot like a young Dennis Quaid with his hairline the way they did it that threw me off a little bit until he started talking I was like and then I heard his voice am i okay well you don't sound like that way so that's fine but he was good the one who plays Murray Rambo the young girl who plays Monica Rambeau also very good I like the cat I like goose in the comics the cats named chewy but in the movie it's named goose annette bening does pretty good she she is in a role that's fairly briefly seen but her natural presence and the sort of gravitas that she has as a performer helps sell the character for what needs to go on with her um if I'm gonna have one criticism of the film it's gonna be that the climax probably goes on a little too long what I mean by that is Carol doesn't have full control of all her super-powered capabilities when the film starts so as she sort of gains full access to everything she's capable of doing after the point at which she basically goes super saiyan the movie goes on for a little bit too long because once once she does that and the film kind of establishes the full extent of what she can do the enemies that are on hand aren't gonna win against her you know it's it's it's a it's a bit of a superman thing where well nobody's gonna be able to beat her and that's not an autumn attic knock on it because you can have a catharsis in her achieving that height and I do think that is there I just think between the point at which it's pretty clear that you know the upper limit of what she can do is totally gonna trounce the threat that's it immediately in front of her and how long it takes for that to actually play out is just a little bit too long because the the villains up to that point they weren't on threatening prior to that but they had been kind of been scaled to what she could do for all the movie prior and then you know what once she can do everything she's gonna be able to do she just she just kind of mops the floor with people and it is fun to watch but like I said it just kind of stretches that out a little bit too long that's honestly the only thing that I would have to complain about this is a really solid movie now a lack of complaints is not the same as a glowing review as I said it didn't quite have that hook for me that that was able to get me emotionally or on a more personal level that my favorite Marvel movies have been able to do I am gonna talk about one other thing and this is a little bit more spoilery because I am gonna have to talk about a few specific things including some stuff that happens later on so I'm gonna get into that now if you haven't seen the movie yet maybe don't watch what's left here we go so what I like about this is it does I feel and boy I'm afraid of what this is gonna set off in the comments was I say this but here we go I feel that there is a sense of feminine and feminine empowerment but it is an undercurrent I do not feel that it is driving the story but I do feel it's a pretty consistent presence and I think where that hammered home for me and this is sort of where the climax as much as I said it did go on a little bit too long it punctuated precisely right because she has her face off against and again this was spoilers I faced off against Jude Law who had been her ally and kind of her mentor and she faces off against him and he gets all right all set up for the yoga the the hand-to-hand fight you know redoing of the fight that the two of them had way back to the start you know in training and she just isn't gonna play by his rules she just blasts him and she goes up and she says to him I don't have to prove anything to you this this person who is very much at this point demonstrable not her equal may have been at one point when she was nerfed he's not now still demanding that she proved herself to him and she just says no I don't owe you jack I liked that in general I feel like that kind of vibe as I said runs throughout it not just from from Carroll you get it from from the Rambo's as well from both of them Maria and Monica and again I I feel like that that sense of a female power is very present but not overpowering like I said I probably wouldn't have fully appreciated it if I hadn't had a longer drive to get home now that said I have no doubt that there are probably people who went to this movie you know prepared to look at it with a fine-tooth comb seeking out every bit of possibly feminist messaging that's in there and it is in there but it's not the the story that stair has not been manipulated to accommodate this there's a story that they're telling that is a perfectly serviceable story and they have found a way to weave these themes and these moments and this general vibe into it if I were to compare it with the other big female superhero movie to compare it to which is Wonder Woman I think it's actually probably a better movie than Wonder Woman overall I don't like it as much though because it doesn't have anything that hits the height of of the no man's land sequence or to make comparison to a more recent movie from this year it is definitely a bad film better put together fewer fewer flaws than elite a battle angel but I still like to lead a battle angel better because I connected with that character and just more like on a more personal level than I did with Carol but I still really like Carol I liked her a lot I found her enjoyable I liked her snarkiness it I thought that she was really well balanced so this is a better movie but there there are just other ones that you know may not be as good but just had that hook for me a little bit more I keep coming back to that and it's it's it's hard to know how else to put it this is a good movie well made well thought out good theming great performance is really only tiny nitpicks but it just didn't it just didn't quite get me as much as I would have liked but I'm not gonna say that that's a Fault in the movie sometimes that just happens I don't connect to absolutely every movie that comes out it's still really good and I think folks should see it so that's Captain Marvel you seen it what do you think about it whatever your thoughts are drop something down in the comments let's talk about it bunch of stuff down there too because there's a link to the patreon there's my p.o box there's merch I've got new merch stuff that's down there also I've got my Amazon wishlist link because it's my birthday this month and this is the one time of year I'll be shameless and just flat out ask send me stuff I've actually got some really nice gifts sent already either to the PIO box or through the wishlist which has been kind of flattering because I plug it and I don't really expect anything to come of that and you folks always surprise me in the best ways so that'll wrap it up all those links are down below check them out if you want but if you don't want to that is okay too because at the end of the day you're the council and I'm just running the meetings so until next time this council is adjourned [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Council of Geeks

Views: 11,694

Rating: 4.6542554 out of 5

Keywords: captain marvel, mcu, review, brie larson, nick fury, agent coulson, spoilers, kree skrull war, skrulls, female superhero

Id: dQXgFni9Ikw

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2019