For decades, Wonder Woman cut a lonely figure in the boys club of superheroes. Nowadays, with nothing shocking any longer about women saving the universe, Hollywood is carefully broadening the pantheon. Rather than create a new superhero (too risky, no name recognition) or pull a Black Panther by bringing a once minor character to the fore, the Marvel empire is going girl power. After all, in 2019, why can’t Captain Marvel be a woman?
Brie Larson carries the role endearingly in the new Captain Marvel, although beating the odds must be easy if your hands can shoot photon beams at all adversaries. Pointedly, the movie is set in the past, the 1990s, an era that has already accrued the patina of history. As Vers, the soldier of the interplanetary Kree civilization, she falls to Earth by crashing through the roof of a Blockbuster video store. For her, the VHS tapes are as unfamiliar and primitive as they appear to us today. When she asks the dazed security guard where to find “communication equipment,” he points weekly to Radio Shack. Undeterred, Vers rigs a call to Star Force through a payphone.
The screenplay is suffused with smarter humor than most superhero flicks, much of it ‘90s nostalgia based, yet the story takes itself just as seriously as necessary. Samuel L. Jackson races to the interstellar crash scene as a man in black, Agent Fury from the super-secret SHIELD agency. Soon enough, convincing him that she’s not a lunatic, Vers swaps her form-fitting superhero suit for a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt (to better conform with human society) and partners with Fury in a fast-paced chase. Their objective: save the world from the shapeshifting race called the Skrull led by the suave Talos (Ben Mendelsohn). Sworn enemies of the Kree, the Skrull are depicted as alien invaders who infiltrate and undermine entire planets. The Star Force commander and Vers’ mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), calls them “terrorists.”
To detail the twisting plot beyond this point is to trigger a bright red flashing spoiler alert. Suffice it to know that the fate of our galaxy hangs in balance. The real message of Captain Marvel is that girls can beat the boys at their own games and women can rise through the glass ceiling and into the stratosphere. OK, here’s one spoiler: Vers might really be Carol Danvers, an Earth girl who competed in go-cart races with the guys and—here’s where the ‘90s become relevant—joined the first generation of female U.S. Air Force fighter pilots.
At least in the early scenes, the special effects are a dazzling evocation of distant worlds. The visual design and plot points have many sources. The aliens nod to seminal German horror films such as Nosferatu and Der Golem; the high-flying dogfights look like Star Wars; the network of alien infiltrators recalls “X-Files”; and the falseness of implanted or manipulated memories is pure Philip K. Dick. Annette Benning may or may not be the memory implant of Carol’s terrestrial mentor. Blink and you’ll miss the final cameo by Marvel Comics’ mastermind, the late Stan Lee.
Captain Marvel is an entertaining romp with contemporary messages both obvious and implied. No spoiler here: the conclusion is the set up for the sequel.
Captain Marvel
Brie Larson
Samuel L. Jackson
Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Rated PG-13
