The Marvels
Marvel StudiosBelieve it or not, the 33rd feature film installment (and 47th overall, counting the Disney+ series) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is here, and audiences are feeling burned out by the overwhelming volume of “content” hitting their screens, big and small, to keep up with the continuity of the MCU. To properly understand Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels, audiences had to watch the original Captain Marvel and three television series of varying quality. Ms. Marvel and WandaVision are the most important, while Secret Invasion only gave some background information on where Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) was after the events of Avengers: Endgame (but that show is the nadir of the MCU).
Perhaps this deluge of “content” is great for die-hard fans and people who want to be invested in everything the MCU throws at them, but not for casual moviegoers. By design, a transmedial universe is a terrific idea, but what revolves around the feature films must complement them, not be required to view what’s on the big screen. While viewing WandaVision complemented Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (the film was easy to follow without having watched the show), it’s impossible to understand the character dynamics between Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) and her mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff), father Yusuf (Mohan Kapur) and brother Aamir (Saagar Shaikh) without having seen the show.
The same goes for Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), whose Photon powers were one of WandaVision’s biggest plot points. And since most Disney+ shows were painfully unimpressive, audience members have begun to check out. The results of the WGA strike have forced the studio to course-correct their television department for the better, but some fear the damage has already been done. This critic does not believe the MCU is “cooked”, as many people on Film Twitter hyperbolically state, but it isn’t the must-see franchise it once was. Part of the decline in viewership is that the shows aren’t presented as entertainment but as appointment viewing or, more aptly, homework to prepare before the exam. And if there’s one thing people HATE doing, it’s homework.
Without seeing the shows mentioned above, it’ll be very hard to be fully invested in The Marvels because it’s one where the dynamics between the main characters trump everything else. The story is so paper-thin that one even wonders if there is one, and the main villain, Dar-Benn (Zewe Ashton), is a complete joke. Her motivations are so lackadaisical that it can summed up with: she has a very big world-destroying hammer that’ll be even more world-destroying if she gets her hands on the film’s biggest MacGuffin: the bangles. Kamala has one, and Dar-Benn has the other. If the villain gets the two, it’s game over. The movie does try to infuse some backstory in Dar-Benn’s world. For instance, the Kree perceive Captain Marvel as “The Annihilator,” but this moment is so minute that Ashton can’t overcome a one-note and forgettable portrayal.
Really, The Marvels is about the entanglement between Kamala Khan, Monica Rambeau, and Carol Danvers, whose powers become interlinked after encountering the same energy source. The three zip from one place to the next, taking over a respective character’s position and further discombobulating them in time and space. This leads the three to team up and figure out a way to stop this from occurring, more than anything else. And it’s only because of the chemistry between Larson, Vellani, and Parris that the film works, alongside some pretty creative and eye-popping action to boot.
Undoubtedly, Vellani is the star of the picture, delivering every line with an expert sense of comedic timing and infectious charm. From the minute she appears on screen, there’s a sense of familiarity in how DaCosta portrays Khan from the TV show and retains her spirit through Laura Karpman’s rousing and dynamic theme song. The good thing about this transmedial experiment is how it has retained continuity from the big and small screen, which few experiments of that ilk have done so far. Her relationship with her family, particularly with Muneeba, is as funny as ever, especially when they have to deal with Kamala switching places with Rambeau or Danvers or meeting a Flerken for the first time. It’s very funny, and even audience members tired of the usual MCU banter may find this type of humor highly enjoyable.
But it’s also because Shroff, Kapur, and Shaikh instantly relate to Kamala’s family. Everyone has an overprotective sibling or parent, one way or another, and they perfectly represent many tropes that teens, and adults, have to deal with in their everyday lives. DaCosta does try to include them on a side mission with Nick Fury on S.A.B.E.R., but they’re unfortunately not as crucial to that part of the film as they were in its opening act. However, they are part of the movie’s wildest sequence, scored to Memory from, oh yes, the greatest musical of all time, Cats. That’s right. Cats. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It can’t be “cooked” if they’re referencing Cats and basing an entire sequence out of the song. Those are the rules.
But then other scenes are painfully embarrassing to watch. One large setpiece set on the Skrulls’ new homeworld, and the basis of an amazingly non-existent Kree/Skrull war that should’ve been what Secret Invasion led up to, is filled with horrendous visual effects and barely-finished CGI. Another sequence set on a musical planet was funny and pleasantly odd at first, but it became grating extremely fast, particularly in how this film wastes Park Seo-joon. He shows up as the Prince of the realm and dips as quickly as he’s introduced, just like Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie. What a shame, and what a waste of a perfectly good actor.
Thankfully, DaCosta spices up its shortcomings with some wonderfully paced and zippy action, with a preference for practical camerawork plucked straight out of Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah’s eye in Ms. Marvel on the big screen. The use of IMAX, in particular, is jaw-dropping during an extended sequence where Kree soldiers attack Kamala’s family, with Ms. Marvel consistently switching places between Carol and Monica. The “Ratata” needle drop also helps, with each subsequent action scene building upon this lively framework DaCosta and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt layout in its opening moments. As hackneyed as the villain is, the final battle between the three heroes and the antagonists is one of the better MCU fight scenes in recent memory – with no incessant cuts and flimsy CGI hiding the superheroics on display.
And then the ending arrives, setting up a promising future that will hopefully pay off at some point, only for its sole mid-credits scene to ruin any excitement someone could have about “The Multiverse Saga.” Without spoiling a single element about that sequence, let’s just say that it’s one of the most egregious examples of key jangling possible, and not a single soul in (empty) theatres will be excited about the sequence when it arrives. Whoever gets excited is obviously living in a fantasy world.
Beyond that, The Marvels is a fun superhero adventure, despite obvious flaws in its storytelling and antagonist. Relegating Nick Fury to a punchline machine could be considered flawed, but compared to the crap Marvel made Sam Jackson say in Secret Invasion (like the banger, “Well, you know, I never cared much for golf, so I’m thinking I may take up…revenge.”), a more light-hearted version of Fury, who seemingly forgot about being in Secret Invasion, just like every audience member who wants it erased from their memories, felt welcomed.
The chemistry between Larson, Vellani, and Parris is arguably the movie's highlight, with Larson having far more fun here than in the original Captain Marvel. DaCosta’s eye for fast-paced action made this 105-minute adventure feel like a breeze. It moves quickly, and it entertains. Not a bad deal at all. It may be over for Film Twitter users who haven’t touched grass in a long time, but there’s still some gas left in the tank in the MCU after all. Who knows if this franchise can stay on life support long enough before Deadpool 3 comes out and easily clears $1 billion at the box office, putting all of this “It’s cooked” chatter to rest until the next superhero film bombs.