Kodi’s Cinema Criteria: Captain Marvel

BY: Kodi Robertson

What does one expect when seeing a superhero movie? Action, good conquering evil, wide shots, establishing shots, full body shots, and nowadays humor as well. Captain Marvel packs in all of these qualities in a neat package with a neater looking bow in pushing for female empowerment.

Endowed with weeks of what seemed like endless promoting, Captain Marvel manages to live up to nearly all of its hype. Make no mistake, Brie Larson and company do not by any means disappoint.  The issues I witnessed in the film go beyond the performers. First let’s take a look at what worked rather than what did not.

For starters the film utilizes establishing shots as fluid as the industry standard requires it to be. From planet to planet it was not difficult to immerse yourself into the planet Kree or the fictitious version of Earth. The color palette used in the CGI of Kree’s colors helped create a sense of order and prosperity in the dark recesses of the galaxy. You would not be aware of the present danger the planet is in of possible invasion from the Skrulls. With the royal golden palaces and the teal headquarters of the Starforce the audience cannot help but be drawn in to the new world presented before them. If you thoroughly enjoyed the visuals in Guardians of the Galaxy, then the visuals in Captain Marvel will feel right at home with you.

The use of CGI in Carol Danvers’s (Captain Marvel alter ego) flashbacks is also quite appealing, almost reminiscent of flashbacks seen in the Ashton Kutcher flick Butterfly Effect, don’t worry Captain Marvel packs more meaningful punch than the other flick.

Ryan Fleck manages to live up to superhero action movie standards shot for shot. Not too often will you find anyone from Studio 10 fail to create a visual storyboard that does not work with their Marvel licensed films. From the dramatic close up of Carol’s face after a bomb explodes within six feet of her to the wide medium shots of clusters of characters like the groups of Skrulls hunting their next targets each shot serves its purpose and appeases the eyes as it is meant to.

I promise you I won’t give up any spoilers, so I’ll do my best to dish out what did not work for me with the film as spoiler-free as possible.

Script-wise the film could have used more fluid lines that helped expand Danvers’s personality. By no means did Larson do a bad job of portraying the character, personally it felt like the script limited the character to being too much of a bad-ass and not enough of being a relatable person.

Danvers is a complex character and Larson manages to make Danvers a very likeable character with personality and charisma that is ready to shine in Avengers: Endgame. I would debate any of the Instagram comments on Marvel’s account in favor of Larson’s performance. Despite some (and I do mean very little) lackluster lines, Larson took the role and hit the ball out of the park.

Performance wise, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury developed an amazing bond with Larson’s character. Danvers and Fury seemed to connect together like a classic buddy cop combo of unlikely friends. When it comes to characters from Danvers’s past, I yearned for something a little more. I wanted the people left behind in Danvers’s memories to carry more depth even if the character doesn’t quite remember them. There’s this yearning we get from the beginning of the movie that Danvers wants to know her past, but the pressures of her current work to “stay in line and follow orders” from her superior Jude Law keep this character held back. In a weird sense she stays that way.

Now I had some translation issues from comics to screen when it comes to the Skrulls, but I digress, this is something that I was able to easily look over since I was thoroughly pleased with the story.

Not bad for recalling a film from memory huh? I know some of my other reviews will revolve mostly films in theaters but I will sprinkle in a couple of films that are already readily available to you.